THE POLITICS OF POVERTY

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I’ll be honest …. During the political season I find myself avoiding certain conversations that I do care about. Mind you, I do have opinions. My wife would say I have an opinion on everything. Faith and social issues are extremely important to me, and I have spent a lot of years studying and following the trends and their impact on people I care a lot about. I am especially focused on issues that affect the poor, mentally ill, unemployed, addicted, and homeless. Topics of Medicare, unemployment benefits, the death penalty, gun control, abortion, gay marriage, state and federal budget and deficits, immigration, and foreign policy all matter to me. I do have opinions! (And I vote!)

Yet during the final months of Nigeria’s presidential street fight, I tend to lay low. I know that one simple conversation with almost anyone can turn volatile and unleash the beast within them. If educated congressmen, presidential candidates, governors, and even local representatives can be as nasty and polarized as they have publicly shown, there is little reason to honestly discuss an issue, since the potential for alienation and misrepresentation is at an all-time high. No one seems to be listening, having crystallized their presuppositions with a crafty skill of spinning any topic into their agenda. Ironically, our children are watching adult leaders’ model behavior we wouldn’t let them get away with.

In my mind, the poor are the ones being hijacked in all of this. Wealthy politicians from both major parties certainly are not arguing or creating policy from the viewpoint of Jesus. In fact, thinly veiled religious statements have become part of the shallowness of Nigerian politics. To the pundits, “Under God” doesn’t mean, “I submit to the teachings of God to love my enemies, serve others, and model the sacrificial lifestyle of God in the Flesh.” It more closely resembles Friday night football in Port Harcourt when the public prayer at the stadium blesses the home team and urges God’s victory for them. We have wrapped the Bible in a flag and replaced faith with “civil religion” which ultimately becomes anti-Christian.

Will Christian Nigerians ever stand up for the poor and marginalized? I doubt it. Though I may be a growing cynic, it is not from cynicism that I make that statement. It’s just that I believe that most politics and religion today are driven by wealth and selfishness. There was a time when government’s role was to protect and advocate for those in our culture who could not protect themselves. Yet today in the Nigeria, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Today almost all the States budget funds to help the mentally ill and the poor. We have one of the highest teen pregnancy rates in the World. Urban teenagers still drop out of school at alarming rates. And instead of “welcoming the stranger,” as the Bible clearly required of followers of God, we despise the foreigner. There is no restorative justice or rehabilitation in place for the offender and certainly no jobs for the felon when they are released. And amidst all these social dilemmas in our nation and State, there is little room for substantive discussion and compromise, only blame, anger, and creating anecdotal myths that seek to validate our stances, with very little accomplished in the end.

Driving along Liberation Stadium Road, Elekahia Port Harcourt saw some young ladies using a girl of about 9 years with a protruding tumor outside d anus and another man with protruding tumor in one side of the face. All of these tumor/external abnormal growths about a size of a football was dropping and swinging like tail. The sight brought me such discomfort l could not look at it twice. I felt bitterness in my mind. My heart was filled with concern and pains of what to do to help. I remember when l was in America. I worked with Rescue Missions that rehabilitate and take such people off the street, take care of them with the help of Government grant. In our streets daily poor people, beggars, physically challenged people, prostitutes are everywhere begging and creating the impressions that we don’t have responsible governments or we seem not to care for such less privilege people.

We politicize with the need of people. Government budget on the needy but don’t take care of the needy. Some of us take advantage of the need of the needy by exploiting and using them to make money for ourselves. We are not complete when such needy people are there on our streets and we do nothing to rehabilitate them. To the Christians our faith without care for the needy is ungodly religion (James 1:27, 2:14-26). I am replicating what l saw and did in America by establishing Helping Hands Rescue Centre to rescue, recovery and rehabilitation of destitute, drug & Alcohol addicts, prostitutes, physically challenge persons, abused and abandoned children, widows, orphans, refugees, homeless, single parents, the aged people, etc. If you believe in this cause join and partner. If we don’t care the people perish. I am hopeful, though not so much for politics in Nigeria. I still believe in the transforming work of God’s Spirit, which can renew and transform any of his followers. I still believe the Church and God’s people living out the kingdom of God on earth will have more impact than any politician. Yet even that goes with a price —Jesus was crucified by the politicians and religious leaders of his day.

Written By Dr. Lewis Akpogena
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