Why African Countries Remain Poor

 By Olufemi Oyedele

There are two types of poverty; extreme and relative. Extreme poverty is a state or condition of lack of basic needs like food, housing, clothing, transport, education, medicals and security, and a position of hopelessness of people. It is generally experienced by those living on less than $1.99 daily. All nations are endowed with natural resources that are supposed to make them live above the poverty threshold and, in the olden days, human beings naturally settled in communities that provided them with basic needs of living—food, water, shelter, medicals and security and safety from attacks. Gross domestic product per capita is considered an important method to compare how poor or wealthy countries are in relation to each other.

The average GDP of Africa is the lowest amongst the seven continents (Africa, North America, South America, Antarctica, Australia, Asia and Europe) at $9,700 (2021). Africa has the highest number of countries on its continent with 54 countries. With natural resources, especially arable land, rain forest, adequate sun, mineral resources and human resources, no African country is supposed to be poor.

What Is Left For Coronavirus To Conquer In Nigeria?

By Banji Ojewale

While the rest of the world is receiving a deadly hiding at the hands of the coronavirus pandemic, we in Nigeria seem distant from this global anxiety. We are complacent, living in cloying bliss, expecting deliverance from an outsourced ‘invisible hand’, if Covid-19 finally hits us the way it is crowding on the others with a threat to wipe them out.

The nations of the Americas, Europe, Australasia, and a few here in Africa are panicking, resorting to wild and extreme ploys to outwit the disease. Even in wartime, World War 2, Europe wasn’t as mortally frenzy, didn’t reach for the uttermost ends its nations are aiming for at the moment. They sense danger. It’s universal insecurity communism and ‘rogue’ countries like Cuba and North Korea and Iran were not able to unleash on mankind at their apogee. Military allies have broken pacts and all are becoming recluse, shutting their borders.

Nigeria: A Culture Of Substandard Living

By Passy Amaraegbu

“All good is hard. All evil is easy. Dying, (suicide) losing, cheating, and mediocrity are easy. Stay away from ease.”

 – Scott Alexander

One major way to measure the degree of development in any society is the value she placed on human life. Even animals operate with the instinct that human life is sacred. This is the reason they initially exhibit fear and flight when they encounter human beings.

Consequently, every progressive human society focuses on the double task of preserving and improving the lives of mortals. Some European and even Asian nations have perfected in this crucial task to a high degree that the elderly cohort (65 and above) form a significant part of their population. In other words, the life expectancy of such nations is high. For instance, the UN 2015 world life expectancy of Nigerian is 52.29 years, UK is 80.45, and Japan is 83.74. The main reason for this divergent disparity in the life expectancy of nations is based on the different values these nations place on the lives of their citizens. 

Nigeria: 1960 -2014

By  Banji Ojewale

 It is as reasonable to represent one kind of imprisonment by another, as it is to represent anything that really exists by that which exists not!                             
–Daniel Defoe (1660– 1731)

A scene at Nigeria’s Independence Day Celebrations

 On October 1, 1960 (pix: nigeria.gov.ng)

Last week, I came across an elderly man (real name withheld) who told me he fled Nigeria in 1960 following the attainment of Independence that year.  He claimed he feared we might not be able to govern ourselves in what he described as a “cobbled union”.  He saw only a future of crisis in the land of incompatibles being put together as compatibles by a departing imperial power.  He, a 23-year-old, did not want to be part of the cataclysm his oracle was presenting as the tomorrow of newly Independent country.

From the way he put it, the crystal ball literally landed him in that future.  In a word, he time-travelled into that era.  It was not a salubrious trip, he said.  He did not wish to experience the reality of the years ahead.