Types of poverty and the worst form of poverty!


Poverty comes in different forms and shapes. Today I am going to look at 4 different types of poverties and where Nigeria fits. You may know other form of poverty and the discussion can continue from here.

1. Financial poverty: Financial poverty is when you have no money. You may have brilliant ideas and the energy and ability of a hulk but you can’t do what you need to do to move on. Financial poverty is the one everyone is conversant with. This kind of poverty is bad and tough to live with but, somehow, it is manageable.

2. Poverty of Ideas. In this case, you may have money but it does not matter how much money you have, and or how much energy you have; if you suffer from poverty of ideas; Nigeria will brand you “money-miss-road”. The worst part of it is that your money will be used to cultivate barren ideas that are most times destructive to you and your people. Boko Haram suffers from this poverty.

3. Leadership poverty: In leadership poverty. You have ideas, you have the money, you have the energy but you do not have leadership abilities. This happens when you are lucky to be placed in a position that you do not merit. You do not have a clue what to do with your new found position and wealth. There are people around you who understand power but because they are mischievous the service they render is called malicious compliant service. They do whatever they do to save their skin and fill their barn.

4. Poverty of strength/integrity and or dependency: In this form of poverty you have the money, may be they are bequeathed to you by your fathers or by your country. You have ideas, but you are so mentally and physically lazy and depraved that you expect everything to be done for you.

You expect everyone around you to know what you want and do it even before you ask. You find fault with everybody except with yourself and you have excuses why anything cannot or was never done.

You put everything in Gods hand and give thanks and praises even where they are not needed. In this type of poverty, we have spiritual poverty; it is found among religious people. They expect God to do everything and they waste their entire time and life in prayer to phantoms of their imaginations.

It is also known as the poverty of dreamers and utopia. These people live in the land of fantasy. Everybody and everything is their servant including God. They are deluded and cloak themselves in false and forced integrity.

There are other forms of poverty, I will stop here for now and move on to the gist of the piece of writing.

The worst type of poverty is the poverty of leadership qualities, most times; it is a combination of 2 and 4. People who find themselves in such position more often than not have enough money to play around but they are forever groping in the darkness and void of ignorance pretending to understand what gives.

Every turn they take is wrong, even their good intentions end up producing mutation of the worst kind.

The saddest part of this kind of poverty is that the majority of the people looking up to such leaders suffer immeasurably while a few bootlickers and hangers on live lager than life. We see this in all forms of leadership in Nigeria, from Churches to Mosques, in politics and even on the family fronts.

Fools will take advantage of such ideological and leadership bareness and indulge in any form of shady things; knowing too well that the leader does not have the metal ability to fathom the difference between progression and regression.

The last type of poverty is what we face in Nigeria of today.

It is written in the Book that Jesus fed 5000 people with 5 loaves of bread and 2 fishes, some call it miracle but I see it as the work of a man who had no money but have ideas and the mental strength to do the needful when it is needed. A man without idea will have 5000 loaves of bread and 2000 fishes and will still fail to feed 5 men and 2 women.

When you have leaders that suffer from ideological and leadership vacuity, the people will cry from morning till night and no one will hear and or even when they hear, it only make them giggle like children.

It is the last type of poverty that made the massagers of darkness to strike in Kaduna even as we were trying to smart out of the bribery scandal between Otedola and Farouk. It is the same poverty of integrity that makes corruption our mainstay.

Given our recent history and the money spent on security, one would think that we will be able to check-mate suicide bombers but the poverty of integrity mitigates our ability to that.

We were bombed again even as we watch with our eyes and listen with our ears open. We wail and moan and call on God for help. We go to our churches and mosques and pray that God should come down and fight our battle. The leaders of the people suffer from ideas, and integrity vacuity.

The enemy knowing quite full well that we will do nothing is planning for the next round of attack. Yet we are planning on how to go on our knees and bind and cast the enemy into the lake of fire while the enemy throw us into the dreaded unquenchable fire, even as we are gnashing our teeth and feeling the sorrow and penury that we have brought on ourselves due to our poverty.

We dream of the day that God will release His angels to rob a balm over our scared souls and consciences. We dream of that day when the heavens will open and the angels will pour down hail stone on our enemies and the one we call the evil ones.

The sad bit about our collective poverty of spirituality, integrity and moral strength is that, the so-called evil one is also praying even as we pray. The so-called evil one is believing and hoping for the same thing to happen to us. That is, asking his/her God to wipe us out.

The difference between both parties is that the so-called evil one tired of waiting is doing something. They are taking action. You may say their action is evil but they will tell you that it is the commandment of God and it is their religious duty to kill you! What are you doing about it? What is your own religious duty? Or has your poverty robbed you of the ability to act.

You do not have to be as violent as the so-called evil one. You don’t have to meet him/her, evil for evil, but tell me what are you doing other than talking and pouring your viper venom on Olumo rock.

I hear people say that our God is a living God and cannot let us down; Spiritual and dependency poverty you will say….and you know what, I believe them. I even support such stand because I know that it is true. But I also know that our living God is not a slave and does not work for us, rather, our living God work with us.

Strangely, this page has been silent over the recent Kaduna crisis. And I can understand that. Yes, I really do understand it. We have said it all. This silence looks like the prelude to action in my opinion, except that I am not sure if I can find enough men and women on this forum willing to take the plunge. Willing to rid themselves of the poverty of inertia.

We are predictable. I mean Nigerians; we are so predictable, so much so that the enemy know that we are cowards. The leaders know that we are takers and gutless followers. They also know that we have no leaders and that those who pretend to be leaders have no balls. They know that our leaders suffer from the poverty of ideas of and leadership quality. They also know that where we find leaders, followerships have been “THINGIFIED”. Ola Rotimi.

Our country is so poor that all we have is money and talking hollow barrels. Better still, one can say we are so rich that all we have is money.

I read somewhere that GEJ said that he has hope that God will intervene in the situation in Nigeria and heal the nation. A clear example of poverty of dependency; GEJ need to be told by his pastor that God has given him the power to do what he is asking God to do for the nation.

GEJ stop the bulk passing and the cul-de-sacs leadership style. Show some ball man!