Obstacles to Poverty Eradication

Also published in DAILY TRUST

Recently the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty was commemorated to highlight the challenges that poverty presents, review the efforts of tackling it and assess the success achieved or failures suffered along the way. By the way, poverty evokes a terrible fear in man, who understandably struggles throughout his life to overcome it.




After all, poverty has always proved particularly challenging amongst all other challenges challenging the human being. Because it is the only menace against which the entire mankind fight on different fronts, utilizing all their intellectual and material resources, yet with no appropriate result worth the magnitude of the efforts and investments.

Interestingly enough, since it is obvious that, the vast majority of people would probably remain poor on various degrees anyway, different religious and cultural philosophies have always maintained some consolatory inspirations to pacify their respective adherents over their plights. Such philosophies highlight the need for imbibing the sense of contentment and remaining positive anyway, while some others forge ahead to inspire their adherents to also expect eternal compensation in the hereafter.

Many poor people over the history were actually consoled and they led their lives quite normally and indeed enjoyed peace of mind. In fact, some people forged ahead to voluntarily adopt austere lifestyles and prefer poverty over affluence, yet they lived peacefully anyway. Interestingly, such people were mostly identified with moral purity and piety, which apparently gave rise to the common stereotype, which links poverty and affluence with moral purity and with ethical impurity respectively. And incidentally that notion has continued to largely influence the reality over the history.

Fueled by gross misunderstanding of those cultural and religious consolatory inspirations, which have been mistakenly confused with glorification of poverty, that notion gradually grew into a mistaken belief that poverty was inherently good and affluence was basically evil. Consequently, all such cultural and religious consolatory inspirations intended to simply console the poor, came to be generally regarded as glorification of poverty itself.

This misunderstanding has hugely affected the mindset of a lot of otherwise industrious people, who have a lot of potential to achieve a lot materially and to even become rich for that matter, but are unfortunately hindered by such confusion. And predictably also, many others hide behind it to justify their laziness and/or cover up their failures.

Ironically, this misconception is further promoted by the majority of both Muslim and Christian clerics, though from opposite directions. For instance the majority of Muslim clerics’ preaching styles effectively lack motivational elements to inspire people to put their maximum potential towards the eradication of poverty, which predictably and effectively discourage or at least downplay the significance of industrious attitudes among average Muslims in the country.

Meanwhile, they exaggerate the intended objectives of Zakat and other charitable works, where they seem to fail to realize that, Islam never prescribed Zakat in order to eradicate poverty amongst Muslims. Instead Zakat was basically designed to alleviate the sufferings of those who deserve it, and/or provide an urgent relief to the destitute, period. It is a result of such misconception that, it is not uncommon for example to hear an average Nigerian Muslim lamenting that, should the rich give out Zakat appropriately, there would be no poor in the country.

On the hand, Christian clerics (particularly of the new generation churches) discourage such industrious attitudes amongst their adherents through illusionary promises of miracles, where easy affluence, carrier or professional successes are touted. This approach effectively downplays the imperative of observing the natural rules of life, which dictate and determine one’s chance in achieving his goals. Interestingly, I realize how difficult it would be for some people to resonate with me on this particular issue, as I also realize how some others may suspect me of unnecessary glorification of excessive materialism. However, the reality is that, poverty has never been and will never be a virtue on itself. It is only how a particular poor chap manages it that determines whether it would benefit him or not.

Likewise, the poor will never enjoy any advantage in the hereafter simply because they were poor in this world. Instead, it is the way they endured and managed their plights that would determine if they deserve appropriate compensation or not. After all, an honest and hardworking wealthy chap, who has got his wealth through right ways, is better than a poverty- stricken man, who hustles recklessly, not minding where or how he grabs whatever comes his way.

Moreover, modern socio-economic variables and challenges have imposed certain realities that negate any real or perceived advantage of poverty even if there was any in the first place. It is obvious nowadays that, poverty does not only subject its victim to material deprivation as in the past, but also exposes him to all sorts of conceivable challenges in all aspects of life, including moral challenges. It is obvious nowadays that, education, health care, personal and property safety and security and even dignity and moral training, have all turned commodities accessible only for those who can afford it.

This practically means, nowadays, the better your financial status, the higher your chance to be educated, healthy, safe and secure, dignified and morally upright in general. However, it should be noted, the chance that matters in this regard, is that which inspires positive attitude, for without positive attitude, affluence is basically a curse. Similarly, when I say affluence, I don’t necessarily mean a huge fortune; instead I mean whatever can reasonably afford one to lead a reasonable life of self-contentment.

In fact, even the chance of imbibing the quality of piety and being pious is nowadays largely dependent on one’s distance from the shackles of poverty. For instance, in the modern social context, an impoverished individual, who is also attitudinally hindered by such misconception about poverty, is likely to resign to a false self-imposed fate, which will probably subject him to perpetual struggle for survival, in the process of which he may not resist the temptation of committing whatever he can commit in order to survive.

Similarly, the extended free time he has, which he has little or no schedules to fill, could expose him to sundry vices like gossiping, backbiting, rumor-mongering and libeling people etc, all of which negate the spirit of piety indeed.

Therefore, poverty eradication exercise in Nigeria and other similar societies should focus also on reforming the widespread misconception about the poverty itself. This along with government’s tangible efforts on the ground, could unleash people’s potential to enable them to achieve as much as they are naturally able to achieve. Interestingly enough, the industrious mindset, which western capitalism promotes is perfectly correct if regulated by morality and sense of responsibility.

Finally, in as much as it is obvious that poverty would always exist, I am sure an individual can improve his chance of conquering it if he realizes that those religious and cultural legacies, which seem to glorify poverty are not actually as he (mis) understands them, instead they are simply consolatory inspirations intended to console who have not been able to make it. 

Likewise, he may be more inspired if he realizes how poverty nowadays affects not only the material well-being of a person, but also his moral, professional and spiritual conditions as well.