Africa has no reason to be poor – Obasanjo

A former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo on Monday, August 26, decried the level of poverty experienced across the African continent.

Speaking at the opening ceremony of the FESTAC Africa Festival at the Jomo Kenyatta Stadium in Kisumu, Kenya, the former president said that the widespread poverty in Africa is man-made and not an act of God.

Obasanjo also said that given the continent’s abundant resources, there is no reason for its growing poverty.

His words, “Africa has no reason to be poor. Our poverty is not an act of God. We are steeped in poverty due to our poor mentality.

“We need to wake up because we have a wealth of resources,” Obasanjo said.

He also accused the World Bank of deceiving nations of the continent with some of its initiatives.

He said, “If you look back in history, you will see that whenever others needed to get work done, they came to Africa to transport black people to the so-called New World to make others rich.

“And that hasn’t stopped. The slave trade led to colonialism. We enrich others while remaining impoverished. We need to awaken.

“Structural adjustment was the idea of the World Bank. However, I disagreed because we lacked the structure. What exactly were we adjusting? They were simply deceiving us.”

The article was originally published on Politics Nigeria.