Smelling The Anus Of Poverty—Hear Me Out

Speak
to any adult running for an office in Ghana, on why he/she wants to lead; be President
or MP etc and I bet my Facebook account, you’ll hear a passionate voice about
“a vision to serve the people” and a special lamentation of “the chronic POVERTY
in this great country of ours”. Hear them, “our people suffer unjustifiable
POVERTY day in day out…POVERTY is a social canker! etc” Even, those adults who
as babies were fed enriched baby foods from abroad, in addition to succulent breasts,
will overnight create imaginative tales about how they were born under the tree
of poverty during harmatan in some Google-forsaken village with mum being a
single parent and how life was hard walking to school bare-footed on empty
tummy etc etc. The empathy will impress you! My mission today is not to judge
anybody’s
vision to serve a nation, or whether somebody’s tears is that of a crocodile or
an alligator; my problem is how these people, indeed all of us, understand the
word POVERTY; a word in whose name some leaders hoodwink unsuspecting voters, a
word in whose name they lie and cheat; in whose name they claim all the fat
salaries/per diems and annoyingly disturb the peace of those suffering from the
word itself-- Do they know POVERTY? Before you continue reading, be informed
that I’m NOT one of those who believe that leaders have to experience poverty
to know the poor’s struggles, even though, majority Ghanaians have faithfully
swallowed this long discredited leadership selection criteria. The criterion
was discredited on the African continent and I won’t waste my time to give you
examples. Now, I searched, and searched for a “Ghana” definition of poverty and
found nothing. I only found repetitive declarations reflective of the Universal
1 dollar 2 dollars UNDP theory, balanced with a wide array of incomprehensible
domestic vocabularies describing what poverty looks like in a Ghanaian context,
with a tacit apology to nagging readers that the word poverty defies a “stable”
definition. What specifically then, are we aiming to address by instituting
poverty-reduction strategies? Who do we consider as poor if we can’t define
POVERTY domestically, and even so, do those we consider below the poverty line
understand
why government will classify them as poor beside the tough life they live? I
hope you get the thought I am conveying? When government says it hopes to “half
poverty by 2020”, which specific group description does government mean? When
Michael Essien looked TV cameras a year ago after his historic charity match
and said he had dedicated the proceeds from the match “to the poor in society”,
which people did he have in mind? Those who take gari soakings 24/7? Or old men
and women?

Ghana’s Poverty Reduction
Strategy is to me an ‘experimentation’ based on one simplistic assumption about
political power and influence. It assumes that simply by committing government
to do things in a participatory way with some stakeholders, government could
magically fork-lift the poor from poverty. Evidence suggests that this approach
does not work, ask the poor that is if you can identify them. And so my fears in
the Ghana Poverty Reduction
Strategy (GPRS), Livelihood Empowerment against Poverty (LEAP) etc were
confirmed. That I am a citizen of a country that has more official definitions
for corruption than it has any for poverty. If corruption is defined by the Law;
who is to define poverty in Ghana for us? Is it the NDPC, or GES? See; 8 years ago,
I learnt the definition of
corruption, causes of corruption, and its prevention from my JSS government
prescribed text book. At that age, I knew corruption as inclusive of me sharing
lunch with a Class Captain so that my name is not written as a talkative, but
unfortunately at the same time my best idea of POVERTY was ONLY those who used
to beg on the streets and the miserably helpless old men and women I saw every
day. Moving forward, the woman who sells plantain (roasted or fried), or bread
or yams and makes not less 14cedis a day in profit with 3unschooling teenage
children, (she is not so poor per 2 dollar criteria) and her landlord may throw
her out next month when ECG has come knocking and her unemployed husband has
gone scavenging for “something”…The village man whose trap on his own 3-acre farm
guarantees him constant protein squared with yam/cassava fufu daily and 5 children
at the village L/A school… A group of young men, sometimes children, who fill
the potholes on our roads for a pittance from drivers… Adults who cannot afford
to pay for NHIS premiums and the kids’ fees… People who are disabled or
challenged … Rural farmers… Don’t you think it is high time we defined “our own
poverty”? Poverty is one word we play with when it suits our agenda but fail to
look at it critically when it comes to solving it. Come to think of it, rural
living and agriculture-dependent livelihoods are strongly, but erroneously
associated with extreme poverty. What type of poverty reduction strategy will
ignore shelter rent expenditure of the struggling urban people who sleep in the
open and often on empty stomachs? What kind of National Rent Control Board will
be happy controlling everything under the sun but not rent? What direction is a
POVERTY reduction strategy going if is blind to the root word in its own name?
I may be overly emotional about a global canker. However, if we cannot, as
nation, clearly define what poverty is to us, just like Okada is to the
Nigerian Transportation Minister, or “zelo” to the Ghanaian radio pastor, then
we only speak about poverty with our mouths out of perception of what we think
hardship is! To you, what is poverty? Before you confer “povertyhood” on a
neighbour, what do you look out for? Now you see??? I am a Muslim, but let me
contextualize my
opinion in the Bible (I have no intention of taking any political liberties
with the Holy Bible even in the most slight of terms or mention Christ in vain).
Jesus Christ had asked his disciples: “Who do people say I am?” Then came a
javelin of answers; ooh some say you are John, some say you are Elijah… oo others
say you are Jeremiah… others think you are of the Prophets. Jesus again asked;
“but YOU, who DO YOU, say I am?”—I love this question! I, therefore, propose
for consideration, that irrespective of what the UN/IMF/IBRD/GDI/MDG/UNDP say about
poverty in definition, description and categorization, how have we domesticated
the word POVERTY, not to talk of solving it? When you meet them bragging- ask
them a simple question: “Honourable, can you please define poverty?”...and by
their slowing down to now take a hard look at the “new” word all over again,
and the momentarily acquired stammering, “Ye shall know them”… Forgive me for
choosing that unpleasant title.

MIKDAD MOHAMMED (C) January 2014—0244599591