Income Inequality Due to Uneven Wealth and Power Distribution Experienced in Lagos, Nigeria - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 9 Words: 2814 Downloads: 7 Date added: 2019/07/01 Category Finance Essay Level High school Tags: Income Inequality Essay Did you like this example? Lagos, Nigeria is home to 21 million people, making it the most populous city in Nigeria and the largest city in Africa. Lagos is home to a variety of ethnic groups with the Yoruba being their dominant ethnic group followed by over 250 other ethnic groups who migrated to Lagos from other surrounding countries as well as from different parts of Nigeria. While Lagos handles a big portion of Nigerias imports and goods, the majority of the population is living in poverty. Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "Income Inequality Due to Uneven Wealth and Power Distribution Experienced in Lagos, Nigeria" essay for you Create order Nigerias five richest men have a combined wealth of almost thirty billion dollars, and within Lagos there are also a good variety of millionaires. Yet, around 66% of Lagos population is currently residing in slums. Due to this vast gap in economic distribution, my focus for this paper will be on the income inequality, and the severe effects it has on those who reside in Lagos, due to the uneven wealth and power distribution. Over the last two decades of the 20th century, Lagos has been plagued by a quality of life that seems to be deteriorating as life passes. Their population has lived with high levels of poverty, over congested road systems, massive floods, proliferation of slums, environmental degradation, disrupted sewerage system, and an increasing crime rate that does not seem to be slowing down any time soon. If we retract to Nigerias pre 19th century colonization, we can see that the country as a whole was flourishing with empires, towns, cities, and kingdoms that would resemble something out of one of todays well established urban places. However, once the colonizers established a system of urbanization within Lagos, Nigeria, much of how their system was previously run, had disappeared. Where, there was once a flourishing city, built with residual wealth between their people, there is now extensive social inequality within these new age megacities. Once these megacities were built, the majority of the population was seeking work in these multiplying industries and began to abandon their occupations within the farmlands. While, others fled to these new megacities due to their medical debts that were hardly being covered within the farmland industry. This rural-urban migration ended with much disappointment when individuals found that moving to cities was not enough to secure a job. These individuals migrated for the hope that they would find work opportunities that were not, otherwise, available to them back home. The problem with this is, that many of these job opportunities were not all they were painted out to be, they tended to exploit their workers because they knew that most of them didnt have many other options. They had to find work, and when it proved to be a relatively competitive market, they failed to secure a lucrative employment and began to struggle. This struggle manifested itself into what we now identify as slums. The more people who migrated in hopes of finding stable income, the more proliferation of slums was brought about. More than half of the workforce in Lagos city is drawn from neighboring slums. There is currently a poverty issue occurring within Lagos, and the evidence of this issue lies within Ajegunle, which can be described as holding similarities to what we would consider a mega slum. In the Planet of Slums by Mike Davis, he describes slums as any given area which has fallen into decay or being in despair, has poor ventilation if any, a very low amount of sanitation facilities, overcrowding, scarce building management, all of which pose a threat or risk to the health of living individuals within that space. While, Mega slums emerge as shanty-towns and squatter communities that merge in continuous belts of informal housing and poverty, usually on the urban periphery. (Davis 2006, 27) The trickle-down development approach that was established within Lagos led to much of the uneven wealth and power distribution, which in turn led to the majority of the population being forced to live in poverty. This development led to economic growth benefiting the non-poor and furthering the inequalities and poverty experienced by the poor. There is evidence that income inequality is a strong indicator of poverty within a place, not so much that there is a decline in the average income being made but more so that the income being made is not being distributed evenly amongst a population. The higher the level of inequality, the weaker the linkage between poverty reduction and growth; and the higher the growth rate needed to reach a given target of poverty reduction. (Ohwotemu 2010, 13) Developing countries such as Nigeria deal with much poverty and income inequality issues and it has been a long-standing battle for Lagos as well, because this inequality and its rise will threaten the growth and poverty reduction targets. Lagos handles eighty percent of Nigerias imported goods and Nigeria holds the greatest concentration of export and government revenue dependence on a natural resource commodity (Ohwotemu 2019, 23) and yet somehow the increasing income only allows for the further rising of poverty due to the uneven distribution of income. Nigerias economy thrives from a growing technological sector, agriculture, and oil exports. So much so that the 521.8 billion dollars of their gross domestic product is dependent on these attributes. This has since been a major development objective to understand how an entire country can become rich. It is evident that in order to move forward with the developmental process within Lagos, Nigeria, there needs to be an uplifting of the economic troubles experienced by the less well off. The only way to achieve this economic growth for the poor, is for the growth to be bias in favor to them. However, evidence suggests that the wealthy believe that they will only stay wealthy if the poor remain poor, and this toxic mentality is what will continue to lead Lagos, Nigeria to increased levels of poverty and despair. Nigeria has all the resources at hand to make sure their population remains well off, yet lack of resources is obviously not the problem, but the way they are being used, the embezzlement and disbursement of them, is. The corrupt political figures of Nigeria are disconnected with the average income and below poverty income population of Lagos. These elite do not relate to them, and in turn do not work to find resolutions to adhere the poverty population with abilities to rise above their situation. The goal is for Lagos to develop a society where ending the poverty rate will improve the poors well-being, where no persons is disadvantaged when it comes to basic humans needs such as nourishment, living long and healthy lives, or babies dying from being born prematurely. The poverty-stricken population lack resources that allows them to meet their basic human needs, which is why the well-off population maintains their above average status. When these populations of poor individuals are not able to have an education, they struggle with finding good jobs that will allow them to feed their families and themselves. This lack of education leads to struggling financially, which in turn leads to falling ill. When these individuals are not getting their proper nutrition, they began to get sick and get sick fast. Within these poor communities and slums, there are little to no proper health sanitation facilities, and this leads to them not attaining the proper care they would otherwise rece ive if they were well-off. Per the World Health Organization, from Jan. 1 to April 15, 2018 1,849 cases of Lassa fever were found in 21 states in Nigeria, with Lagos among them. (Kellogg 2018) Lassa fever usually virally infects individuals through rats and whom live in places with poor sanitation. There are also women who become pregnant while living in these poor and disease filled conditions and struggle to make it to term with their children, many of them deliver premature babies because they dont have access to proper nutrition. Yet many of the premature children dont make it past a couple of days due to their lack of medical attention. Included in this devastating cycle, are mothers who die during childbirth because they arent healthy and dont have access to a medical team. The unequal distribution of wealth is only a fraction of the problems faced by the larger portion of the impoverished individuals within Lagos. Among those problems are unequal access to basic infrastructur es as well as a drought in job opportunities. The high unemployment rate being experienced by the youth of Lagos is a direct correlation of the misconduct of the resources within Nigeria. The slums in Lagos depict the contradictions inherent in unequal capitalist interrelationships between the rich and the poor in symbiotic relationships. (Adejare and Akanle 2017, 5) All the corruption within Lagos boils down to one, openly known fact, the rich are powerful enough to remain above the law while the poor continue to be powerless. This is evident in the case of riverbank community Otodo-Gbame, a slum, being demolished and getting rid of its residents by teargases and bullets at the hands of law enforcements, who were following the requests of Nigerias elite. The elite make enough revenue to lift the poor out of slums and a life filled with poverty, for the annual wealth they accumulate in those 24 months, they have enough to lift two million people out of their economic crisis. Yet the y seek to do the opposite, their greed and corruption is fueled by the desire to build luxury hotels and high-rise buildings, leaving 300,000 Nigerians without a place to call a home. They do not feel that the life of the poor is adequate enough to suffice any losses of wealth to themselves. The wealthy are fueled by greed and desire to attain more wealth, without ever stopping to think about the struggles faced by the majority of the population whom faces unequal distributions. The well-off are stripping these communities of the only homes they know, many of them who have called the same house home for years after the independence from colonization. These poverty-stricken individuals have already struggled enough as is, while trying their hardest to find any way to make money in order to survive. Yet, many of these wealthy individuals could care less, and decided they needed that land to build their buildings that will produce them with future revenues. There is still a debate occurring wondering whether economic growth is enough to suffice a reduction in the poverty experienced within Nigeria. It is evident that throughout history, the wealth of nations has relied upon factors such as population growth, the social, physical and human capital accumulation, and structural change such as technological progress. Overpopulation is something critical that Lagos is trying to deal with because they do not currently hold enough economic opportunities to suffice the ever-growing population they are faced with. People are migrating to Lagos from all parts of the country and they are making their way there blindly, with no jobs in sight and not enough housing available to them. This is increasing the homeless population and furthering the economic troubles of those already there. This rural-urban migration leads to much of the congestion that Lagos is currently experiencing and it usually leads to degeneration of a society fighting be the ones to survive within the community. Consequently, this systematic approach leads to another issue Lagos is currently dealing with known as urban traffic congestion which results from too many people using the same road systems, especially when trying to commute to and from work or school. This leads to people heading out for the roads before the sun rises and not arriving home until long after the sun sets. Megacities such as that of Lagos, tend to deal with constant stress from traffic congestion due to lack of proper road network systems, and this is something they will continue to deal with until the roads become sufficient enough to hold the growing population of commuters. Moreover, the attributing complication of urban gentrification shows evidence that the wealthy make no plans to attribute help to the poor population but in fact have underlying motivations to eradicate the chantey community. As I previously discussed, the corrupt wealthy investors living within Lagos have been fueled by greed to move forward with desires of waterfront lands. They achieve such not only by demolishing slums located within the areas they hanker after, but then building lavish edifices that leave no choice but to push below well-off populations out from there. The relatively poor inhabitants can no longer afford homes or lifestyles near these new communities and are left to fend for new homes and new communities. This style of gentrification leaves the well-off with new lands and the less wealthy with no accessibility to these communities. Per the World Data Bank statistics, 62 percent of Nigerians live on less than $1.25 per day. (Hughes 2015) This is not nearly enough to survive after being uprooted from your home due to corrupt political instability. Although many promises have been made in regards to the ever-growing gap between the wealthy and the poor in Lagos and how it will be eradicated, little has actually been done to fulfill these wishes. In fact, since the 1970s Nigeria has helped produce over $400 billion dollars from oil revenue yet Nigeria is also more disadvantaged today than it was forty years ago. Sources believe this is due to the constantly growing society that produces ethnically polarized communities. These societies then show behaviors of competitiveness and desires to have their society function in a way that they believe is best, even if it differs from their neighbors opinions and beliefs and this leads to social conflict. This can be transcended into circumstances such as new policies, educational topics, infrastructure, and so on. Prior to the colonization of Lagos, societies worked together to function and ensure success for all parties involved, because they believed that the uplifting of one another w ill equate to overall prosperity within the given society. However, upon post-independence, different ethnic groups began to fear the control of a dominating group, which led different ethnic groups to only provide for themselves. This is where certain wealthy investors and well-off populations continued to climb the economic latter, by looking out for themselves, while the poor were left out to fend for themselves with what already little amounts of resources they had. No one wants to mix themselves with the poor, they believe that no matter how humble you are or appear to be, once you make it out of poverty, you must not associate with those in a lower class than yourself. Now, here we are in 2018 and no changes have been made to eliminate this dangerous cycle that is being lived out in Lagos. Sure, elite political figures have made promises of how to save Nigeria billions of dollars from foreign exchange by producing refineries in Lagos that will aid the structural issues that Nigeria has been dealing with for many years. Chairman and chief executive of a company looking to build this refinery, Aliko Dangote, believes that with the production of this industrial project, Lagos will be able to invest more funds within their community. However, this is hardly a solution from the point of view of those living in impoverishment, because no matter how much revenue is kept within Nigeria itself, no amount of new or old wealth will pass onto those individuals. As the rich get richer, the poor will progressively become poorer. The only solution to the income inequality being felt by the below poverty community is to diminish the wealth gap and to redistribute the power of the politicians and elite. Sadly, no effective policies have been put forth to allow such a plan to be acted out. The amount of planning that needs be invested into these future policies is abundant, and needs to be delivered by politicians looking to create a society in Lagos that equally thrives, not just on the back of the economically well off. Should you look at Lagos, Nigeria from the outside in, it will be easy to believe that the city as a whole is thriving economically due to all the fortunes they have acquired through their oil based resources and fellow endeavors. For this reason, no one has implemented change within Lagos and their economy. Granted, the growing poverty rate in Lagos is astonishing seeing as 65% of Lagos population is living in slums and settlements, with no attainable possibilities of making it out. The endles s work these individuals put in to migrate into mega-cities in hopes of finding work leads them to no avail since these job opportunities they set sail to find are nonexistent for the growing population. Greed and corruption of the wealthy population is amongst the leading factors behind the growing poverty rate within Lagos, with no end to the corruption in site. So long as the wealth gap exists, so will the growing poverty population, in turn creating more slums and only benefiting the rich.

What I Learned About Leadership From Nelson Mandela

â€Å"What I Learned about Leadership from Nelson Mandela†. Larissa Carter Administrative Leadership PA562 Instructor: John Nesbitt May 2, 2015 Number of Words w/o Footnotes: 2111 Spell/Grammar Checked: Y Number of Fnotes/Sources Citations: 34 Sources Number of Sources: 12 Style Manual: Chicago Style Format Introduction on Leadership of Nelson Mandela Nelson Mandela was the first Black President of South Africa that helped end Apartheid in South Africa. As stated, his political activity started when the apartheid policy of racial segregation won the elections (Nelson Mandela Leadership 2015). When he began to realize nonviolence would not suffice, he resorted to guerrilla warfare to achieve his means. As stated, United States deemed Mandela as a terrorist and refused him entry (Nelson Mandela Leadership 2015). Nelson Mandela demonstrated The Five Practices Exemplary Leadership by Kouzes and Posner which are the best leadership experiences (Kouzes and Posner 2007, 14). 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Vaccination For The Immigrant Families - 2201 Words

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The Atlantic System and Africa free essay sample

The Atlantic System and Africa, 1550-1800 10. Plantations in the West Indies AY. Colonization Before 1650 * 10. Spanish settlers introduced sugar-cane cultivation into the West Indies shortly after 1 500 but did not do much else toward the further development of the islands. After 1600 the F-ranch and English developed colonies based on tobacco cultivation. * 20. Tobacco consumption became popular in England in the early 16005. Tobacco production in the West Indies was stimulated by two new developments: the formation of chartered companies and the availability of cheap labor in the form of European indentured servants. 30. In the mid-sass competition from milder Virginia tobacco and the expulsion of experienced Dutch sugar producers from Brazil combined to bring the West Indian economies from tobacco to sugar production. * 40. The Portuguese had introduced sugar-cane cultivation to Brazil, and the Dutch West India Company, chartered to bring the Dutch wars against Spain to the New World, had taken control of 1 ,OOH miles of sugar-producing Brazilian coast. We will write a custom essay sample on The Atlantic System and Africa or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Over a fifteen-year period the Dutch improved the efficiency f the Brazilian sugar industry and brought slaves from Elmira and Land (also seized from Portugal)to Brazil and the West Indies. 50. When Portugal reconnected Brazil in 1 654, the Dutch sugar planters brought the Brazilian system to the French and English Caribbean Islands. BOO. Sugar and Slaves * 10. Between 1640 and the sass colonies like Guadalupe, Martinique, and particularly Barbados made the transition from a tobacco economy to a sugar economy. In the process of doing so, their demand for labor caused a sharp and significant increase in the volume of the Atlantic slave trade. 0.The shift from European indentured servants to enslaved African labor was caused by a number of factors, including a decline in the numbers of Europeans willing to indenture themselves to the West Indies, the fact that the life expectancy of a slave after landing was longer than the term of the typical contract of indenture, and a rise in sugar prices that made planters more able to invest in slaves. 110. Plantation Life in the Eighteenth Century AY. Technology and Environment * 10. Sugar plantations both grew sugar cane and processed the cane into sugar crystals, molasses, and rum.The technology for growing and harvesting cane was simple, but the machinery required for processing (rollers, copper kettles, and so on) was more complicated and expensive. The expenses Of sugar production led planters to seek economies of scale by running large plantations. * 20. Sugar production damaged the environment by causing soil exhaustion and deforestation. Repeated cultivation of sugar cane exhausted the soil of the plantations and led the planters to open new fields, thus accelerating the deforestation that had begun under the Spanish. * 30.European colonization led to the introduction of European and African lands and animals that crowded out indigenous species. Colonization also pushed the Arrack and then the Carob people to extinction. BOO. Slaves Lives * 10. West Indian society consisted of a wealthy land-owning plutocracy, their many slaves, and a few people in between. * 20. A plantation had to extract as much labor as possible from its slaves in order to turn a profit. Slaves were organized into gangs for fieldwork, while those male slaves not doing fieldwork were engaged in specialized tasks. * 30.Slaves were rewarded for good work and punished harshly for failure to meet their reduction quotas or for any form of resistance. On Sundays, slaves cultivated their own food crops and did other chores; they had very little rest and relaxation, no education, and little time or opportunity for family life. * 40. Disease, harsh working conditions, and dangerous mill machinery all contributed to the short life expectancy of slaves in the Caribbean. The high mortality rate added to the volume of the Atlantic slave trade and meant that the majority of slaves on West Indian plantations were born in Africa. 50. Slaves frequently ran away and occasionally staged violent rebellions such as hat led by a slave named Tacky in Jamaica in 1760. European planters sought to prevent rebellions by curtailing African cultural traditions, religions, and languages. CO. Free Whites and Free Blacks * 10. In Saint Dominion there were three groups of free people: the wealthy great whites, the less-well-off little whites, and the free blacks. In the British colonies, where sugar almost completely dominated the economy, there were very few free small landholders, white or black. 20. Only a very wealthy man could afford the capital to invest in the land, machinery, and slaves needed to establish a sugar plantation. West Indian planters were very wealthy and translated their wealth into political power, controlling the colonial assemblies and even gaining a number of seats in the British Parliament. ;k 30. Slave owners who fathered children by female slaves often gave both mother and child their freedom; over time, this practice (manumission) produced a significant free black population. Another source of free black population was runaway slaves, known in the Caribbean as maroons. 1110. Creating the Atlantic Economy AY. Capitalism and Mercantilism * 10. The system of royal monopoly control of colonies and their trade as recited by Spain and Portugal in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries proved to be inefficient and expensive. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the two new institutions of capitalism and mercantilism established the framework within which government-protected private enterprise participated in the Atlantic economy. 20 . The mechanisms of early capitalism included banks, joint-stock companies, stock exchanges, and insurance. * 30. Mercantilism was a number of state policies that promoted private investment in overseas trade and accumulation of capital in the form of precious metals. The instruments of mercantilism included chartered companies, such as the Dutch West India Company and the French Royal African Company, and the use of military force to pursue commercial dominance. * 40.The French and English eliminated Dutch competition from the Americas by defeating the Dutch in a series of wars between 1652 and 1678. The French and the English then revoked the monopoly privileges of their chartered companies, but continued to use high tariffs to prevent foreigners from gaining access to trade with their colonies. The Atlantic became the major trading area for the British, the French, and the Portuguese n the eighteenth century. 80. The Atlantic Circuit * 10.The Atlantic Circuit was a clockwise network of trade routes going from Europe to Africa, from Africa to the plantation colonies Of the Americas (the Middle Passage), and then from the colonies to Europe. If all went well, a ship would make a profit on each leg of the circuit. * 20. The Atlantic Circuit was supplemented by a number of other trade routes: Europe to the Indian Ocean, Europe to the West Indies, New England to the West Indies, and the Triangular Trade between New England, Africa, and the West Indies. 30. As the Atlantic system developed, increased demand for sugar in seventeenth and eighteenth century Europe was associated with an increase in the flow of slaves from Africa to the New World. * 40. The slave trade was a highly specialized business in which chartered companies(in the seventeenth century) and then private traders (in the eighteenth century) purchased slaves in Africa, packed them into specially designed or modified ships, and delivered them for sale to the plantation colonies. * 50.Disease, maltreatment, suicide, and psychological depression all contributed to the average death rate of one out of every six slaves shipped on the Middle Passage. Disease was the single most important cause of death, killing the European crewmen of the slave ships at roughly the same rate as it killed the slaves themselves. VIVO. Africa, the Atlantic, and Islam AY. The Gold Coast and the Slave Coast * 10. European trade with Africa grew tremendously after 1 650 as merchants sought to purchase slaves and other goods.The growth in the slave trade was accompanied by continued trade in other goods, but it did not lead to any significant European colonization Of Africa. 20. African merchants were discriminating about the types and the amounts of merchandise that they demanded in return for slaves and other goods, and they raised the price of slaves in response to increased demand. African governments on the Gold and Slave Coasts were strong enough to make Europeans observe African trading customs, while the Europeans, competing with each other for African trade, were unable to present a strong united bargaining position. 30. Exchange of slaves for firearms contributed to state formation in the Gold and Slave Coasts. The kingdom of Doomed used rearms acquired in the slave trade in order to expand its territory, while the kingdoms of Oho and Sensate had interests both in the Atlantic trade and in overland trade with their northern neighbors. * 40. The African kings and merchants of the Gold and Slave Coasts obtained slaves from among the prisoners of war captured in conflicts between African kingdoms. BOO. The Bight of Bavaria and Angola * 10.There were no sizeable states-?and no large-scale wars-?in the interior of the Bight of Bavaria; kidnapping was the main source of people to sell into slavery. African traders who specialized in procuring people for he slave trade did business at inland markets or fairs and brought the slaves to the coast for sale. * 20. In the Portuguese-held territory of Angola, Afro- Portuguese caravan merchants brought trade goods to the interior and exchanged them for slaves, whom they transported to the coast for sale to Portuguese middlemen, who then sold the slaves to slave dealers for shipment to Brazil.Many of these slaves were prisoners of war, a byproduct generated by the wars of territorial expansion fought by the federation of Landau kingdoms. * 30. Enslavement has also been linked to environ mental rises in the interior of Angola. Droughts forced refugees to flee to kingdoms in better-watered areas, where the kings traded the grown male refugees to slave dealers in exchange for Indian textiles and European goods that they then used to cement old alliances, attract new followers, and build a stronger, larger state. * 40.Although the organization Of the Atlantic trade varied from place to place, it was always based on a partnership between European traders and a few African political and merchant elites who benefited from the trade while many more Africans suffered from it. CO. Africans European ND Islamic Contacts * 10. In the centuries between 1550 and 1800 Europeans built a growing trade with Africa but did not acquire very much African territory. The only significant European colonies were those on islands; the Portuguese in Angola, and the Dutch Cape Colony, which was tied to the Indian Ocean trade rather than to the Atlantic trade. 20. Muslim territorial dominance was much more significant, with the Ottoman Empire controlling all of North Africa except Morocco and with Muslims taking large amounts of territory from Ethiopia. In the 1 sass Morocco attacked the sub-Sahara Muslim mining Of Shanghai, occupying the area for the next two centuries and causing the bulk of the trans-Sahara trade in gold, textiles, leather goods, and kola nuts to shift from the western Sudan to the central Sudan. * 30.The trans-Sahara slave trade was smaller in volume than the Atlantic slave trade and supplied slaves for the personal slave army of the Moroccan rulers as well as slaves for sugar plantation labor, servants, and artisans. The majority of slaves transported across the Sahara were women destined for service as concubines or servants and children, including eunuchs, meant for revive as harem guards. * 40. Muslims had no moral objection to owning or trading in slaves, but religious law forbade the enslavement of fellow Muslims.Even so, some Muslim states south of the Sahara did enslave African Muslims. * 50. Muslim cultural influences south of the Sahara were much stronger than European cultural influences. Islam and the Arabic language spread more rapidly than Christianity and English, which were largely confined to the coastal trading centers. * 60. The European and Islamic slave trade could not have had a significant effect on the overall population of he African continent, but they did have an acute effect on certain areas from which large numbers of people were taken into slavery.The higher proportion of women taken across the Sahara in the Muslim slave trade magnified its long-term demographic effects. 70. The volume Of trade goods imported into sub-Sahara Africa was not large enough to have had any significant effect on the livelihood of traditional African artisans. Both African and European merchants benefited from this trade, but Europeans directed the Atlantic system and derived greater benefit from it than the African merchants did.