LUSAKA-(MaraviPost)-Africa is rich in copper, cobalt, gold and fertile land, yet remains the world’s poorest continent despite being arguably its most prayerful. Why?
Life skills coach and financial literacy educator Noel Jere says the answer is uncomfortable: Africa has turned poverty into something spiritual to be massaged, instead of a mindset to be dismantled.
“Massaging poverty makes us more poor and irrelevant. That is why Africa prays a lot but remains poor,” Jere says.
According to Jere, the fundamental misunderstanding starts with the definition of poverty itself. Poverty, he argues, is not lack of money, but lack of productive ideas that can be converted into value.
A person can have K10,000 and still be poor if he eats it all and is left with zero next month, while a person with K0 but rich in mind will create K10,000. Poverty, in his words, is the inability to manage what you have to create what you need.
The problem, Jere says, is that many religious people have spiritualized poverty using wrong interpretations of scripture. He points to two commonly misquoted parables.
The story of Lazarus and the rich man in Luke 16:19-31 is often used to claim that poor Lazarus went to heaven and the rich man went to hell, therefore poverty is holy. That interpretation is wrong, Jere says.
The parable is not about money, but about the heart. Lazarus did not enter heaven because he was poor, but because he believed.
The rich man did not go to hell because he was rich, but because he had no mercy and no repentance. The Bible itself celebrates rich men who were loved by God, including Abraham, Job and Solomon.
Similarly, Jesus’s statement in Matthew 19:24 that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God has been twisted. Jere explains that Jesus was speaking to a specific rich young man who loved money more than God and refused to follow Him because of it. The problem is not riches, but when riches have you. If wealth barred entry to heaven, he asks, why would God promise abundance in John 10:10 – “I have come that you may have life and have it abundantly”?
“Massaging poverty with the Bible is an excuse for laziness. Jesus never praised poverty. He praised generosity. You cannot give if you are always begging,” Jere says.
The real reasons Africa remains poor despite its resources are decisions, not curses, he argues.
Zambia sells copper at $1 and buys back copper wire at $10. The DRC holds cobalt for smartphones, but the phone is made in China. Africa is the world’s supermarket, but it does not cook. It exports raw and imports finished.
The continent also spiritualizes what needs strategy. When there is drought, instead of building dams and irrigation, it calls three days of prayer for rain. Prayer is good, Jere says, but after prayer you need a shovel. Israel is a desert but exports food because it irrigates.
Africa also consumes but does not create. Markets are full of Chinese goods, Nigerian movies and American music. Money flies out because there is little local production to keep it circulating. Poor leadership compounds it, with leaders stealing and followers saying “God will judge” instead of demanding accountability.
And a culture of entitlement has taken root where youth want jobs from government rather than creating jobs, believing a degree means “Government employ me” instead of asking how to use the land behind the house to make money.
Countries have drawn strategies to eradicate poverty, Jere says, but you cannot eradicate what you celebrate.
Africa will remain poor until it stops quoting Lazarus to justify laziness and starts living Proverbs 10:4 – that diligent hands bring wealth.
That mindset, he warns, shows most painfully at retirement. Many workers think retirement is for old people and that NAPSA will be enough, because no one taught them financial literacy. Others earn K5,000 but spend K1,500 on rent, K2,000 on school fees, K1,500 on food and K800 on transport, ending in negative, and keep saying they will save when salary increases.
Family pressure, or Black Tax, means one working person supports ten relatives, making saving feel guilty. Procrastination pushes plans from 25 to 30 to 40 until age moves but plans don’t.
Add present pleasure mentality – drinking today, plot tomorrow, buying an iPhone on credit while the future goes into debt to impress on WhatsApp status – plus a dependence mindset that children or government will help, and fear that money loses value anyway.
The consequences are brutal, Jere says: poverty in old age, moving from boss to beggar, becoming a burden children avoid, loss of dignity and health as stress brings blood pressure and early death within three to five years of retirement, family conflicts over debt and land, and death before fulfillment.
His prescription is blunt. Wake up now and count how many months are left to retirement. Pay yourself first with a 20 percent rule: 10 percent giving, 20 percent for future you, live on 70 percent. Even on K1,000, save K200. Build three pots: a plot or house, an income skill or business like chickens, rentals or a garden, and emergency cash. Kill debt first, stop digging the pit by deleting loan apps and refusing new kaloba, and use either the snowball method of paying smallest debts first for motivation, or highest interest first for wisdom. Create kill-money with a side hustle after hours, negotiate with lenders, and if necessary sell show-off items to be free, because as Proverbs 22:7 says, the borrower is slave to the lender.
Jere, who also teaches a 50-30-20 rule – 50 percent needs, 30 percent growth, 20 percent savings – says the warning should be clear: “If you do not open your eyes and take action, you find yourself walking in someone’s way.”
“If you do not plan your life, you will live another man’s plan,” he says. “God gave Africa everything under ground, but nothing will come out until we change what is inside our mind. Poverty is not spiritual. Staying in it is a choice.”
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