The Average Rich African political Leader and the silly choices he makes that don’t improve the lives of those around him makes him essentially “The Rich Poor Man!”
A poor man lacks access to basic essential amenities to live a quality life. The poor man usually leaves his neighborhood to shop when he has a little money to shop with because of lack of good shops in his immediate neighborhood. The poor man would have to leave his neighborhood to seek for good jobs, schools, or recreational facilities outside his neighborhood. If the poor man falls sick, he must go outside his neighborhood to seek for a clinic, a hospital or a care center to attend to him. A poor man is poor because of several reasons which in most cases are beyond his control, even for a simple reason of being born in a poor family, you immediately inherit poverty from birth and have to fight your way out of it. The poor man’s fight out of poverty would have been easy if there is supportive and responsive government that can provide the tools necessary to alleviate her citizens out of poverty. Unfortunately, Nigeria and most of the African countries do not have supportive and responsive governments, so if you are poor, you are on your own.
The rich man on the other hand is that individual who has the means to access basic essential amenities and more. The rich man can afford to send his children to the best of schools and has the means to shop and buy anything that his money can buy. A good and God-fearing rich man would provide opportunities to alleviate poverty in his neighborhood: he would create jobs, build infrastructure and make sure that basic amenities are accessible in his neighborhood. The rich man would make sure that good schools, hospitals, shopping centers and recreational facilities are available in his neighborhood, and he does not have to go outside his area to access them.
The rich poor man is that selfish individual who has access to the means to provide basic essential amenities in his neighborhood for the benefits of all but fail to do so. Instead, he prefers to go outside his neighborhood to enjoy access to basic essential amenities like good hospitals, constant supply of electricity, good public water supply, good schools, good public safety, etc. Nigeria and most of the African countries have countless number of foolish rich poor men and women who would take pride in traveling outside of Africa for medical checkups, even for something as minor as an ear infection! The further away from Africa that these shameless rich poor Africans would go to seek for medical care for little ailments and to enjoy quality of life, the more they brag about it.
The answer to the numerous problems of Nigeria and Africa by these rich poor men and women is to go abroad. If the roads are bad and there’s insecurity in the land, they go abroad and buy bulletproof SUV’s and then turn the law enforcement agents as their personal security squads and thugs in order to be able to maneuver around the country. If the schools are bad, they take their children to school abroad, if the aviation sector is not reliable , they use private jets, and they prefer to import food than to promote domestic food production because they gain in various ways from food importation. If they have headaches, they go abroad…You won’t even find a good psychiatric hospital in Africa to examine the heads of such people, though that’s what they truly need. Majority of the elements that occupy elected positions in Nigeria and Africa need mental/psychiatric evaluations.
The most troubling and agonizing part of these African rich poor men and women is how some of them acquired their wealth in the first place. Majority of them got rich by stealing public funds, funds meant to build infrastructure to create job opportunities for the poor and jobless among us. They would divert the money that is budgeted to build good hospitals and for the supply of constant electricity for their private uses. They took for granted the fact that they could jump in private jets and go abroad for medical help or even to enjoy quality of life during vacations, that everything was okay, and they continued that practice with impunity, until the greatest leveler, equalizer and grounder of all time, the Corona virus pandemic brought the world to a standstill. By grounding all travels globally, it became impossible for the rich poor African men and women to take off with their private jets to escape to other parts of the world for medical checkups as they are used to. The Coronavirus has exposed the stupidity of most African governments and government officials who have ignored the building of infrastructure and development of Africa for years. Some African poor rich men and women who went abroad for medical attention and for other unnecessary reasons before the global lockdown, ended up bringing back the disease to Africa with them. Sadly, some who came back to Nigeria with the virus, and some of those who have one medical condition or the other that they have been managing abroad would die because they could not travel abroad.
I wonder what would be going through the minds of these rich poor Africans as they laid in their sick beds waiting and watching their lives drain out of them still knowing that they have millions of dollars in secret bank accounts, some of which cannot be accessed once the account holder dies. How would they feel knowing that the money they stole which would have been used to build hospitals that that could have helped them, is sitting in a foreign bank account possibly to go undiscovered if they die? I hope some of those lucky to be living members of the rich poor African families would learn from the experience of the Coronavirus pandemic and start developing Africa.
Peace to the world!
– Ugochukwu Nwaokoro
Ugochukwu Nwaokoro is the President /CEO of African Diaspora For Good Governance.
He was a Deputy Mayor of the City Of Newark, New Jersey. USA.