Poverty is a sin. This was a statement from a renowned man of God, when he was preaching about kingdom wealth.

He continued. Poverty is contagious. Poverty is bad. Poverty is humiliating. Poverty kills self esteem. Poverty is a disease. Poverty is worst than AIDS. Poverty is attitude. Poverty is mentality. Poverty is a culture. Poverty destroys. Poverty is deadly. Poverty is poisonous. Poverty is an enemy.

I turned off the tape at this juncture and I thought to myself; What is poverty?, is Africa in poverty?, is povert a noun, adverb or verb?..... I could not fathom an answer to this.

My quest for an answer spurred me in jotting down some capsules of thought.

I discovered that poverty is relative. I once discussed with the CEO of an organization and what he told me was a clue to my quest for answer. He said and I quote “ I am a poor man because I don’t have a staff strength of two hundred (200), I can’t maintained and repaired bad highway roads, I don’t have the funds to have my own well equipped university”. He called his present state as poverty.

On a second note, I walked down a notorious street and I asked a young man about his life. He said he’s a poor man because he could not afford well satisfied meal three times a day and that he could not live in a self apartment e.t.c., once again, this man said he’s in poverty.

On a third account, I saw a small kid hawking water on the street of Lagos, and I wonder to myself, this is poverty or rather is this poverty?

However, a poor man in the United Kingdom or USA might go to Zimbabwe or Somalia, and he would discover that he’s a rich man because of currency differences.

Needless to say, Poverty is relative. However, no matter how relative is it, one thing remains clear “ Poverty calls for an improved way of life”. So fight poverty.