EDUCATION: THE ONLY WEAPON AGAINST POVERTY

BY: SIR OGILI K.

Back in history, poverty as a subject matter, had been well argued and solutions sought
elsewhere. In Bayelsa State, our respective oral traditions suggest contentions, some of which
defined poverty in the various manifestations and proffered ways and means of tracking them.
Dating from pristine times to our current age, for instance, ill being (poverty) as against well-
being (wealth) among the Bayelsans is simply typecast as painfulness or social degradation.
Providing education at various levels and accessing factors of leadership in the immediate
environment which also means good neighbourhood feelings and promises of eventual
relevance in the social rating of that environment. This goes to reveal that such situation or
feeling, as in lacking in sufficient comparison with the acclaimed good style of life, simply and
directly translates in Izon land, Keinyikpofa or ifi-akpo meaning bad condition. Comparatively,
it will include lack of all those material-possession sense as giving vent to well-being.
Largely, in our current political economy situations, the contexts of ill-being as against well-
being evolve in the insurmountable challenges of which man’s failure to wrestle his immediate
needs suggest a despicable failure of self and immediate family. Take for instance, the head of
a family who fails to provide for household faces not just the risk of losing self-esteem but the
threat of family dislocation and disorientation, which in turn erodes loyalty, community
influence and equal access to institutions of social expression.
Against that background, there remains the volubly acted affirmation that man must perform,
good weather or not, which in turn forces so much pressure in contending with the complexity
of the socio-political environment such that, man may have to live his life under the severest of
pressure, not necessarily for his failure of response or intervention but because of the reality of
the polity and the activities of other factors of modern life.
Do not forget that under the broad category of poverty, there has always been the temptation,
in our environment to consider the poor as not merely those who lack and who may never have
in abundance as to chop and remain or even chop and thro-way but also those who are on the
wrong side on the creation day. On the strength of such fixation of thought, we sometime try to
reduce poverty to our interpretation of one’s direct relationship with his God.
However, for states in the Western world, the configuration of poverty and the attendant tackle
given it marked out clear visions of which it was largely appreciated as moving their world
forward in earnest. This concluded state injunctions and refrains of social forces depicting
poverty as creations of man in unbridled search for higher material elevation and supremacy.
Nevertheless, it is worthwhile to note at this juncture that, we have come a long way, since
these days, especially in our world where issues joined since Magna Carta have produced state
and group attention to at lease understanding poverty. So whereas we contend with
appreciating and real matters upon which we can set our poverty eradication agenda by making
sure that, the educational policies and programmes are well executed.