18 Reasons Why Africa is so Poor

The problem of Africa and its poverty lies in two things selfishness or self-interest and brainwash. Every problem Africa has can be grouped under those two and it is going to take a really long time to remove the effects of colonization that are combining with the natural aspect of being selfish

Poverty is when you lack enough money to attain the basic needs of life.

Poverty is measured with life expectancy at birth, access to education facilities, per capita income, ability to have at least two meals a day, access to health facilities and at least a roof over your head

We will look at causes of Africa’s constant and never ending poverty in two aspects as shown below; selfishness and brainwash with emphasis on sub-Saharan Africa

Selfishness and self-interest problems leading to Africa poverty

Self-interest refers to the fact that somebody is doing something only considering their interests and not considering things that would help others.

There is a saying that everyone for himself and God for us all and this defines Africa very well as most Africans do things for their own interests and nobody cares if it affects others

This is 100% true for political leaders in Africa who are always putting their selfish interests first at the expense of their countries’ development

1. Corruption

If you visited Africa on any day at any time be ready for corruption as it is part of the culture and tradition there. Corruption is part of lively hood in Africa and if you refuse to comply you may end up missing on important services like health

If you fail to comply with the corruption in Africa you will not achieve anything as everything needs you to pay some money as a tip to attain it for instance

When the government receives a donation of free mosquito nets as a measure of reducing malaria cases or seeds as a means of eradicating poverty through agriculture these services end up being sold by the people supplying them and those who cannot pay for them end up missing out

If you called the anti-corruption phone number of any African country to report a corrupt person in any government office, the anti-corruption unit its self will ask you for some money to work on the complaint that is actually free

It becomes next to impossible for one to report a corrupt incident in Africa because the people you report it to will also ask for some money from you and if you refuse to pay, you might not be worked upon or you will be that last to be serviced

With corruption lingering in every activity that would get people out of poverty, it becomes next to impossible to fix the poverty problem in Africa

In the end, since corruption is a selfish activity, it helps the rich get richer as they benefit from it and the poor get poorer as they get nothing out of it since they do not have money to bribe for services

2. Power greed African leaders and wars

Most of the money browed by African countries for poverty eradication goes into buying weapons other than developing the country

The presidents don’t really buy these weapons to fight other countries or for security but to keep themselves in power in case of rebellions

Most of these weapons are bought by African leaders to keep themselves in power and in case the citizens try to revolt or do a demonstration about the poor leadership, they are shot dead or if lucky they get sprayed with tear gas

So if the money lent to Africa to help with development and kick out poverty ends up buying weapons definitely Africa will remain poor for quite long

3. Africa has no leaders to lead it out of poverty

Africa lacks leaders and has more politicians. These politicians are only interested in full filling their selfish needs like free cars, huge salaries, and enjoying luxurious allowances

These people join political parties targeting money especially the parties in power and those that oppose put in their money during campaigns which money is usually borrowed

And when they get into the political positions they concentrate debating on how they will be able to attain the money borrowed for the campaigns and this is through increasing taxes so that they can increase their salaries

This makes people that have started small business give up on them since they are making losses due to heavy taxation

Just like that leadership turns out to be a job opportunity other than a service, exploiting the poor and making them poorer

It’s no coincidence that Africa remains poor as the people that would be planning for its development are busy planning for themselves and their families at the expense of the country

4. International aid making Africa lazy

Africa has one of the highest debts borrowed from other countries. It’s hard for someone to get out of poverty when all their income is in the form of debts

What even gets worse is this money never really does what it is borrowed for instead it is either swindled by the ministry that borrowed it or it’s used by the president to buy luxurious assets overseas

This kind of self-interest activities are keeping Africa poor and the future generations will have to pay the debts and the leaders that borrowed the money will be dead by then

Failure to pay will mean African countries will lose some of their assets to foreign countries as the countries lending them the money are actually loan sharks

They are quite sure African governments with their pathetic strategies and systems will not be able to pay that money which will keep them poor

In 2018 China was proposing take over Zambian International airport for failure to pay its debt on time

5. The outdated education system leading to a lack of jobs

People go to school for jobs. Everyone in Africa or perhaps the world is promised a good life if they go to school but that does not guarantee anything in Africa

The education system trains job seekers, not job creators who cannot think of anything that is not taught in class and that’s the truth. The sad bit is Africans think their education system trains job creators who can think.

Tell me any great invention ever to come out of Africa and take the world by storm.

Do not say Egypt as there are not really Africans even though they are in Africa, that’s why when poverty is talked about the Arab region in the north is always ignored and they do not really face the same problems as the sub-Saharan countries

So Africa remains poor due to a very useless education system that adds no value to its citizens

6. The problem of training of job seekers is affected by lack of jobs

  Enough skilled labor no jobs

 I disagree when people claim the education and skilled labor force is low leading to poverty.

That is a lie; the number of educated and skilled but unemployed youth is extremely high in Africa.

In fact, it is people who have not gone to school that have some jobs they are doing probably due to the fact that money is everything in life and it does not matter how you get it, as long as you have it.

So the uneducated people end up doing the dirty jobs educated people would be unwilling to do

This ends up making education pointless because it makes no sense to waste money studying and you end up unemployed when you could use the money used for education to start a business and have a good lively hood

7. Tribalism

The selfish interests and lack of jobs drive Africa into tribalism. If a president is of a certain tribe, only his tribemates will fill the cabinet and only his home area will be developed

Even during elections, people do not vote for people that will get them out of poverty but rather tribe mates who will create job opportunities for them

Africa remains poor because they lack unity within their own countries.

It is very hard to develop and get out of poverty when a country is tribalistic and always on a verge of a civil war which leaves one tribe poorer than the other and disadvantaged

So the diversity that Africa should be using to its advantage is turning out as a curse as people are concentrating more on their differences which end up dividing them

This imbalance leads to constant poverty as some tribes get richer while others remain poorer

8. Nepotism

After tribalism then comes nepotism. It’s next to impossible in Africa to know a friend or a family member in the government and you do not benefit from his position

One of the core ways of getting a job in Africa is the technical know who. It’s also a way of winning a court case aside from bribing the judiciary. It all depends who you know that is big in the government

It does not matter whether you are skilled or inexperienced in a field, you will get the job if you know someone. This leads to the poor running of government institutions due to lack of technical knowledge

This kind of selfishness makes resources only available to a few and majority that do not fall within the advantaged group forever remain poor

Brainwash and colonial after effects problems leading to Africa’s poverty

Brainwash is forcing somebody to accept your ideas or beliefs and preventing a person from thinking clearly. This means you can no longer logically reason out things

If you are underestimating the effects of brainwash and you have heard of the xenophobic attacks on African foreigners in South Africa then you are underestimating the mental effect of colonization on Africa

Mental slavery is the worst thing colonialists have ever done to Africa, its worse than losing slave manpower, stealing Gold or diamonds or oil because the way you perceive things has been completely altered

Instead of fighting the whites in South Africa for white-collar jobs, these people have been brainwashed to think they cannot handle top management positions ahead of a white so they fight for dirty jobs to do for their white masters.

In other words, they have been made to believe they can only do dirty jobs

The same happened in America as house slaves that worked inside their masters’ houses saw themselves at a higher status than those who worked in the farms (field slaves) as they slept in the same houses with their masters and even ate the same food

That’s a couple of years ago but the same mentality is still being portrayed by some Africans that happen to go to Europe or America as they tend to see themselves at a higher level than those in Africa

And even the ones in Africa always feel proud when associated in any way with fellow blacks living in Europe or America

9. Lack of jobs with a poor man’s thinking

As of today, Africans are being exported to work in Arab countries as maids, cleaners, or security guards. And that’s because they will receive a better pay working as maids or cleaners than as a cashier in Africa

And Arabs really treat them like slaves to the extent of killing some or raping them and African governments do nothing about it apart from telling the citizens not go there but they would rather work for Arabs as slaves and get mistreated than stay home and work out something

Its the 21st century and as different countries trying to fight racism, the slave trade is business as usual in the Arab region where are African girls exported to provide labor as maids in poor working conditions

BBC was also able to run an investigation on online slave markets running on social media perhaps since its the digital era

Am sure if Africans treated Arabs the same way, they would pay the price but since they have been conditioned to bear whatever their masters do to them, they do not react

How can a country develop when it has a mentality that it has to do the dirty jobs for another race and keeps on exporting its labor force to do low life jobs that hardly bring up the economy back home

Even though its really a lot of money sent back home by African standards its too little to drive the economy of a whole nation and of course only beneficial to the people it is sent to

How can you be rich when you have the mentality that you have to work for another person other than employ yourself

So the poor man’s thinking mentality will definitely keep Africa poor for long and the exportation of labor shows a lack of jobs in Africa

10. Education system to make Africans lose identity

The education system teaches Africans about Europe and America and little about Africa.

This ends up affecting Africans identity as the people do not even who they are, where they came from or where they are going.

African are the people with the highest rate and level of miss identity as some speak like Britons act like Americans dress like Indians eat like Asians

How can Africa even develop when they have no clear history about their origin but have clear history about Europe and America where they do not live because the education system is still as exactly as the colonialists left it

Believe it or not, the education system and curriculums in African schools are as exactly as their colonial masters left them, no updated information at all to match the current trends.

Due to the different levels of development, Africa would need to develop an education system that helps it develop and not copy what developed countries are doing it will not help due to difference in problems being faced by each continent

In Africa, most of the places have names belonging to colonialists and even their own little African history has colonial masters in it.

In Uganda, all students have been taught the first European to see the source of the Nile but not even single a single person knows the first African to discover the source of the Nile

Lake Victoria which is the source of the Nile had its name changed from Nalubale as a remembrance to the queen of England but am yet to here places in Europe named after Africans maybe Nelson Mandela could have one, not sure

It is in Africa where you would be punished at school for speaking your mother tongue at school and that gives birth to a new generation that cannot speak its own mother tongue but is fluent in a foreign language

In most African schools black girls are supposed to cut off their hair to look smart well as other races in the same schools are allowed to keep their hair

How can you honestly develop when you know nothing about yourself but you know everything about your neighbor? 

You cannot improve what you do not know or understand and Africa needs to know and understand its self inside out

11. Africa is set up to need Europe and America

Africans have been conditioned to believe that they are nothing without America or Europe

When Africans grow cash crops they think they can only sell them to European countries and you wonder why the people in Africa go hungry with all the fertile soils they have and favorable climate

These people cannot feed themselves but are working hard to sell the food overseas because that’s how they have been conditioned

Africans believe that unless you study from Europe or America you have not gone to school

These same Africans will never love and cherish what they have unless the white man says it’s good. This is inferiority complex affecting them to take a stand and develop their own countries

Another good example of the inferiority complex in Africa is that you realize most African football teams are managed by whites.

Probably because Africans have been made to believe they are brain masters in football and they believe in themselves too and the good thing is they do not disappoint any way

Interestingly there are very few black football managers in Europes’s top elite football league leagues that’s if there is any

The epitome of success in Africa is measured by getting approval and validation from the whites. The excitement is very high for Africans when they get associated with whites

This leaves Africa poor because every time they have something good, they feel the need to go to Europe or the Americas to make use of those good assets other than developing it from their motherland

When Mugabe chased whites from the farms in Zimbabwe, the western world cut Zimbabwe off their trade radar and later the country had one of the most embarrassing inflation in the world which shows any African economy needs the west for survival

Africa will always remain poor unless it takes a stand to fix its self without thinking it cannot do without European or American intervention

12. Religion causes poverty in Africa

This is one of Africa’s biggest curses. Africans completely got religion wrongly. They would even spend a year in church praying to God to get rich

These are people that believe their African religion is evil and bad while the white man’s religion is good.

They do not realize the fact and reason out that each society had its own religion, tradition, and cultural set up that’s why there are different religions in the world and none of them is bad as each has its own ritual that differs and that doesn’t make the other religion bad

But Africans were brainwashed to believe their religion is bad they should drop it thus losing a part of their identity

Africans believe Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates are rich because they work hard but believe Jay z and 50 Cent are rich because they worship Satan (Illuminati)

They have no idea that this was a mental trick used by missionaries to make them their slaves which worked very well

Did you know the bible allows slavery with clear rules between master and slave in this case colonial masters can have slaves in this case Africans?

Africa will remain poor as long as it believes in supernatural powers to get them out of poverty

 13. Africans do the wrong thing in their own countries and do the right thing in other countries

These are people that do everything bad and hinders African development in their countries but when they visit Europe or America they do the right thing

They will throw rubbish on streets when in Africa and put it dustbin when in Europe or be corrupt while in Africa but will show high levels of integrity while in Europe

So if Africans keep doing all the trashy behaviors in their own countries and take the desired behaviors to foreign countries, they will forever remain poor.

Because those good characters are needed to get Africa out of poverty

14. Africa is not ready for independence and self-rule

You will realize the most developed sub-Saharan country in Africa is South Africa and was one of the last countries to get independence

This implies that South Africa is only grouped as second world country because whites took a long time there developing it.

And even its mostly the white communities that are developed

But the other African countries that got independence earlier stopped developing the day they got independent. You can hardly find any worth achievement after independence

This would also show that if African countries were still colonized up to date they would be developed something I believe as the Africans themselves were never ready for self rule

As a matter of fact, I have read some tweets and Facebook posts where some Africans still have the slavery mentality in that they are ready and willing to be recolonized

I for one, since the Africans are still brainwashed up to date, if they got re-colonized they would be helped out of poverty because they are not willing to develop themselves but are more than willing and ready to follow the rules of their slave masters 100%

This is also evident when Mugabe chased whites from Zimbabwe and handed the farms to locals all of which they did not survive in African hands and they ended up calling the white farmers back as consultants and advisors.

Also when Idi Amin chased Indians from Uganda and handed their businesses to Ugandans, the businesses handed to Africans all went down

15. Do not blame colonialists for stealing African resources as all of them are natural and can be replaced

Some people put the blame of the poverty and development of Africa due to the exploitation of resources by their colonial masters

That is just an excuse to keep poor. All of the resources taken out of Africa can naturally be replaced with time.

In fact, for over 40 years that most African countries have had independence, they have little or nothing to show how they have used the remaining resources that were not exploited

Otherwise, if they had anything to show, that would only imply that colonization delayed African development

But the reality is actually colonization helped Africa develop but at a cost and the development of African countries stopped the day each country got independence maybe because they had been conditioned to be controlled than controlling themselves and even now they still need the western world to control them

This shows Africa will remain poor because it is crying over stolen milk when it still has the cow that it can feed more grass to get milk out of it

16. Underutilized and mismanaged natural resources

Its only Africans that do not know how blessed they are with resources they have and are instead interested in resources from other countries

Africa has fertile soils to grow food but instead imports food as foreign aid God knows why

One of the best climates and people that are saying poor climate are just creating excuses as the change in weather can be countered by good planning to get the best results from any activity

And the foreigners take advantage of this mentality of Africans thinking they are poor by setting up companies in Africa and employing Africans at a very cheap rate and then the investors take back the profits to their home countries.

It even gets worse when you realize these companies are always given free land in Africa to set up these industries and always given tax holidays but the same is hardly given to Africans

17. Africans hate themselves

You cannot leave back the problem of self-hate as a cause for poverty. Some people in African hate themselves so much that they want to bleach their skins to look like whites, make their kinky hair straight like for whites, dress smartly like whites as their cultural clothes are considered backward and speak like whites as they find their mother tongue embarrassing

This website puts a focus on self-development and equipping ourselves with the knowledge that we could apply in our everyday lives and not just for fun

And you cannot make yourself better when you hate yourself or literary you cannot improve something you hate

You have to first love yourself so that you are able to improve yourself because you love yourself that much

In other words, Africa cannot become rich when Africans hate it and hate themselves too

18. Africa is meant to be poor

This is not brainwashing or selfishness but nature. Some things are maybe meant to be and are out of our control.

This is called the law of polarity where the opposite of something must exist. And in this case, if we have rich countries we must have poor countries and here Africa is the victim of nature

Maybe, just maybe, who knows?

Conclusion

Forget and quit the stigmatizing stereotyping propaganda Africa because

Africa is not a bush full wild animals with pet lions in the back yard but it’s blessed with a variety of wild. there some towns and cities too

People are not always carrying guns as shown on TV just a few war-torn areas

Africa is also a continent not a country

Not everyone in Africa has Aids but it is really hit by other diseases

Africa is not a language but a continent as there over a 1000 indigenous languages in Africa

And it’s not a shit hole as stated by one president

Africa is a very long work in progress that seriously needs to iron out a lot of issues for its self by fixing the root causes of all its problems poverty being one of them