POVERTY SELLS

A SPEECH DELIVERED BY Dr. WALE AKINYEMI

CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER,

POWERTALKS CORPORATE AND PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT CONSULTANTS

Ever so often I come across some article or document originating from the US or some European capital –
especially from some church, community development or missionary organization seeking to raise funds for
African projects. They all punctuate their appeal at different points with the statement – oh this is for Kenya and
you know Kenya is one of the poorest Nations in the world – or this is for Zambia and you know that Zambia is one
of the poorest Nations in the world. Such talk is an insult to intelligence and an insult to the dignity of the black
man.

I find it rather interesting that in spite of this so called poverty, Jumbo jets leave European capitals every night full
of people coming to Africa for their holidays. I find it amusing that many people who work with multinationals in
Africa will do anything to extend their contracts just so that they can stay behind in this supposedly poor Africa.
Why is this so? Because they have learned by experience that they enjoy a better quality of Life in Africa than they
would ever do at home. However, people continue to brand Africa with poverty. Why? Because poverty sells.

I find it disgusting and repulsive that our religious leaders who are supposed to be the beacons of light – the ones
to show us the way, shine in Africa as Bishops and Papas and Mamas but get to America as beggars – also branding
the poverty of Africa. So then, if our own leaders have lent their voices to the branding how then shall we blame
those to whom they cry to? Why would someone deliberately put down his own people with words when he
knows that he is not telling the whole truth and when he knows that words are powerful and can be creative or
destructive? It’s because poverty sells.

Go into a typical African Pentecostal church. Pareto would have to readjust his law because we do not see an
80/20 rule. We see more of a 95/5 rule. Yes. 95 poor and 5 not poor. (not necessarily rich too.)

I still cannot understand why day in day out, the message the people hear is that one day, if they remain faithful in
their giving, God will finally look down on them and bless them. I just hear the resounding Amens as the Bishop or
Papa or Mama declares this! And yet these very unfortunate 95% are not aware that that day could be today if
only they are given the right tools. If only they are economically empowered - If they are taught how to be
entrepreneurial. But then, why would the leaders allow the followers into that chamber of empowerment?
Because poverty sells!

Is it not sad that those in the church are those looking for breakthroughs. Those outside are those who have
broken through and as such would never have a reason for going to church because church is branded as the place
for those looking for breakthroughs. (one look at church flyers for meetings will tell you what they are selling!)

Is it not pathetic that many people in the church will never ever get to that breakthrough point because they were
not told the meaning of the parable of the talents and as such many do not even know that they have something
that was given to them free that can be harnessed for their prosperity? They were not told that the Holy Spirit was
not a replacement for the brain. They were not told that there was more to prospering than just Papa or Mama
saying that they would prosper. But then why should they be told? Poverty sells! If they do tell the people, then
their control over the people may be threatened.
Oh, and we must not forget the endless string of financial seminars in the church where all the people are taught is
the giving aspect and never the empowerment aspect. Well then, what does the pastor know? He can’t write
books, he cannot preach a message that can be packaged on tape, he can’t do anything but wait for the people to
come and give him his prophets offering! His only source of income is the helpless people who desperately need a
breakthrough. These pastors failed to read Ezekiel 34:2 Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel,
prophesy, and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD unto the shepherds; Woe be to the shepherds of Israel that
do feed themselves! should not the shepherds feed the flocks?

These people fail to realize that Paul said he worked with his own hands so he would not be a burden to the
church. This same Paul later said that he did not desire a gift from the people. Not today’s Papas and Mamas. What
we have around us are a bunch of lazy pastors who have seen ministry and the poverty and ignorance of the
people as an escape route for their own failure and to cover up for the fact that they could never succeed at
anything that needed a brain! Oh and this is why they had to get the people to put their brains in a state of
suspended animation in order to serve God.

In politics and government it not sad that at certain meetings of world leaders, you see the African delegations go
with their shopping lists or rather, their beggars plates. The one who can produce the best case of poverty – the
one who can prove that his people are the poorest - is the one who goes away with the goodies. Why? Because
poverty sells.

Why is it that in some African countries, some of the tourist attractions are slums that have been branded as the
largest in Africa or in the region? Are those who are doing the branding not aware of the consequences of such?
But then, why should they? Poverty Sells. Are the leaders not aware that such actions actually ascribe esteem to
poverty which will only create a mindset that – as long as you are poor, you can get aid. Well, they probably won’t
think that far. Why? Because poverty sells!

How did poverty become the most marketable export of a whole block of nearly a billion people? How did a land
that accounts for half of the world’s production of bauxite, chrome and diamonds, more than half the worlds
cocoa and platinum and nearly three quarters of its cobalt become synonymous with poverty?

It is an oxymoron indeed that a people so endowed naturally could also be the reference point for global poverty.
In fact I have heard many an American preacher say that before they got into the ministry, they were scared
because they did not want God to punish them and send them to Africa.

Punishment indeed! Living in the plushest homes – homes that they would never be able to afford in their
countries, getting hardship allowances and much more.

Life expectancy at birth for sub Saharan Africa is still hovering between 48 and 49 yet we contribute the doctors,
nurses and researchers to other regions that make them have higher rates than us. A few years ago, Zambia had
1,600 medical doctors. Today, Zambia has only 400 medical doctors. Kenya retains only 10% of the nurses and
doctors trained there. A similar story is told from South Africa to Ghana. Furthermore, because a significant
percentage of African doctors and nurses practice in U.S. hospitals, we can reasonably conclude that African
medical schools are de facto serving the American people, not Africa.

According to the World Bank, over 70,000 skilled Africans emigrate to the United States each year. To replace
them, African countries through their governments and multinationals engage over 100,000 expatriates and pay
them higher than the prevailing rates in their own countries. Why this ironic imbalance? Would it not have been
easier for Africans to just pay their own well? Of course not! Why? Because poverty sells.

If Africa paid her own well and Africans stopped emigrating, first of all, a lot of the foreign reserves of these
receiver Nations which come in form of visa fees would be depleted. Secondly, if Africans are not emigrating then
it means their economies are good and if their economies are good, they do not qualify for aid. Why? Because
Poverty Sells!

What few people alive today – especially in Africa do not know is that it was not like this from the beginning.

The ancestors of today’s Africans must wonder what went wrong. These ancestors are the ones that built the
tallest structures on Earth – the Pyramids of Egypt that stood tall through every type of weather and climatic
condition and retained their spot as tallest man made structures on Earth for 3,700 years. These ancestors are the
ones who launched the Earth into the Agricultural revolution. These ancestors are the ones that once fed the
whole world. These ancestors are the pioneers of modern medicine, chemistry, astrology, architecture and most of
the fields of study today. These ancestors were the pioneers of Trans border trade. These ancestors are the ones
that were dreaded and feared by the rest of the known world. These ancestors produced people like Keturah –
Abraham’s wife of his latter years who produced great Nations. These ancestors produced such global power
houses as the queen of Sheba who visited King Solomon not for aid – but to see if he was as wise as she had heard.
These ancestors were hungry for knowledge and would go to any length to get it even if it meant leaving their
country to go looking for a king in a faraway foreign land whose wisdom they had heard of. Oh and by the way, the
queen of Sheba did not go empty handed and neither did she go with a shopping list or beggars card as our leaders
today would do. Instead she went with three million dollars worth of gifts.

This forces us to ask, where did things go wrong? Where did Africa get the poverty mindset from? At what point
did Africans become so unfortunate that their most marketable commodity was their poverty?

Before attempting to answer this, I would like to take a look at the lives of certain sons and daughters of Africa
today. Nelson Mandela, Wole Soyinka, Wangari Mathae, Ngugi wa Thiong’o to name a few. What do they have in
common? Mandela said that the way he went through prison was to do the opposite of what was expected of him.
When they expected him to walk, he ran. When they expected him to sleep, he read. Even though his physical
body was in bonds, he did not allow his mind to be in bonds!

Aha! Now we are getting close to the root of Africa’s problem. Many years ago, as a researcher with the National
Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies in Kuru Nigeria, I was part of a team that participated in a research that
was simply known as the Nigerian National Character. The goal of this research was to take a look at the values and
beliefs of the Nigerians before the change came. They had their own system of governance, their own system of
commerce, their own systems of taxation, their own culture on marriage and so on and so forth. These systems
had served them well and made them attractive. These systems made them literally rule and become so powerful.

At this juncture I want to point out that the Chinese developed as Chinese and not British Chinese. The Japanese
developed as Japanese and not British Japanese. The Germans developed as Germans and not British Germans.
The Russians developed as Russians and not Bristish Russians. Get the picture?

What happened to Africa was that a people came to ‘discover’ Africa. How you discover a place that already
existed and then name their landmarks after you is still one thing that I have not been able to figure out. Anyway,
so the Africans were discovered. Places like Lake Victoria and Victoria falls were discovered by these invaders (even
though there were people there when they got to them but of course as the Africans would later find out, their
own beliefs, systems, cultures and their own people were irrelevant. This is the thinking that made an Oxford
professor say that Africans had no history before the colonial era. Well, can you blame him? After all, they
discovered the Africans!

When the Africans were ‘discovered’, everything African was labeled bad. The African was called a black person
and anything bad was called black. The bad one in the family was called the black sheep and the schools had a
black book for names of offenders. (no one ever bothered to consider the fact that the Bible originally came bound
as a black book!). The day when everything goes wrong is called black Friday or whatever the day is. A lie is good as
long as it is a white lie. Black was declared the official colour of mourning and the Africans took it not realizing that
the priests were clad in black cassocks not because they were in mourning but because black was the only colour
that you could not stain. It was the colour of power as it absolved all other colors. But no one told the Africans that
and so they began to think as inferior. They began to think like beggars. They began to look up to the white man as
the one with all the answers. They imbibed the lie that they were poor and that the only way they could survive
was for the superior whites to give them things. They even sold their own brothers and sisters because that was
how to be accepted by their discoverers.

And this, Ladies and Gentlemen is how the entire African race became corrupted with a mind degenerating virus
that has made poverty the most marketable commodity in Africa today.

The way forward? A person who does not know who he is will answer to who he is called. For years Africans have
been called poor. They have answered to it and it has manifested in their midst. I dream of a generation of Africans
who will not answer to that name anymore. All the resources of the land will amount to nothing without the
resources of the mind. Progressive lands are the external expressions of progressive minds. The information
available to us today on the internet – literally at our fingertips, can take us forward as a people if we embrace it.

We need to have globalized information and Localized implementation. Ngugi wa Thiong’o writes all his books in
his local Kikuyu but because of his global mind, people are forced to translate the books. But then, even our
preachers desperately want to look and sound American (because of their insecurity about their true identity). We
need a working knowledge of who we are and a working knowledge of what we have. We will then mix these
together with what we know to produce what we can become.

Because of that lack of knowledge, African Nations export crude oil, only to import refined petroleum. Because of
that lack of knowledge, Africa exports raw steel, only to import cars and trucks. Kenya exports coffee beans and
imports processed coffee and some African ignoramus drinking the coffee will tell himself he drinks only imported
coffee. Africa exports gold to import Rolexes and gold jewelry and I dare say, the continent exports geniuses to
sometimes import fools.

Knowledge is the engine that drives economic growth, and Africa cannot eliminate poverty without first increasing
and nurturing its intellectual capital.

Former president of south Korea Kim Dae-Jung, said that since his nation lagged behind in the Agrarian and
Industrial eras, they have as a people vowed to be at the forefront of the new age – the information era. Today
despite the fact that they are not blessed with any natural resources they have used the quest for knowledge and
the processing of it to jumpstart their nation and presently hold a place among producer countries around the
world.

We are at a point in history where if we take the right step, our children can grow up to live in an Africa that has no
correlation with what we now know. Indeed they will be like the children born to the Israelites in the wilderness
who did not know the affliction of Egypt but who grew up knowing the God of miracles.

How shall these things be I hear you ask? Through the exploitation of knowledge and the resources that this age
have made available to us and high on this list is the internet. Never before in the history of man has such
knowledge been available at literally our fingertips.

Shall we sit by again and let history pass us by? Shall we sit by again and let the world go on? Shall we sit by again
and lay the foundation for our children to beg for bread from other nations as our fathers and their fathers have
done? Shall we sit by again and watch Nations that looked up at us begin to look down at us?
Never! I believe in an African dream. I believe in an Africa that is free politically, mentally and economically. I
believe in an Africa that is great because of the greatness of its children. I believe in a super state of Africa.

The choice is ours to make. The consequences of whatever choices we make today will determine not only our
future, but the future of generations yet unborn.

Technology and information are here. The opportunity for greatness is here!

I refuse to be labeled as third world. I refuse to be labeled as poor. I refuse to be labeled as anything other than
what God himself calls me – and for sure I know He does not call me such degrading names.

Let me end this lecture by quoting one of my favorite scriptures – the scripture on which our firm, PowerTalks
finds its name:

Ecclesiastes 8:4 Where the word of a king is, there is power: and who may say unto him, What doest thou?

When the king talks, Power talks and no one can question it. When we speak what the King is saying, power is
talking and none can question.

We choose to call ourselves what the King has called us. He has called us blessed. He has called us a land flowing
with milk and honey. He has called us a delightsome land. He has called us a fruitful land. The King has spoken.
Who can say, what doest thou?

God bless you all. God bless this great institution and God bless these Super States of Africa.