Claim: The President of the Liberia Council of Churches (LCC) and senior pastor of the historic Providence Baptist Church, Rev. Dr. Samuel B. Reeves Jr., said, “Liberia is the oldest African nation and least in poverty and education.”
Verdict: False! Reports from the World Bank, Mappr, Mikscholar.com, Bscholarly and other credible institutions prove that Liberia is not rated the poorest or the least in African education standards.
Full text
The president of the Liberia Council of Churches and the senior pastor of the Providence Baptist Church, Reverend Dr. Samuel B. Reeves, Jr., stated that Liberia has the least educational system in Africa and is the poorest country on the continent.
The Providence Baptist Church, the Cornerstone of the Nation, is the oldest church in Liberia. It is also where the country’s Declaration of Independence was signed and the place used by the Liberian legislature for its first assembly.
Delivering his Sunday sermon on September 17, 2023, to the church at central Monrovia, pastor Reeves asserted, “How can we be the oldest nation, and we are the least in everything, the least in poverty and education?”
The sermon was carried live on the church’s official Facebook and YouTube pages, Providence Baptist Church Liberia, with some engagement expressed through shares, comments, and emojis.
The Baptist preacher made the claim at 1:23:48 – 1:24:00 hours/minutes/seconds of his sermon under the theme, “The Leader’s Ability to Lead Up,” with text taken from Nehemiah 2:1-8.
Verification
In an effort to provide some electoral guidance to his congregation, the Baptist prelate highlighted some adverse developments in the country and emphasised why his congregation should vote for suitable candidates. However, he refrained from naming any candidates.
DUBAWA looked into the preacher’s claims by assessing the keyword “least” used by the preacher. According to the Cambridge dictionary, least is ‘less than anything or anyone else; the smallest amount or number.’ The Merriam-Webster dictionary also defines least as ‘lowest in importance or position.’
Is Liberia occupying the lowest position in Africa as far as measuring poverty or the standard of education is concerned?
To begin with, DUBAWA contacted the claimant via telephone for the source of his statement, but Dr. Reeves could not provide the source or evidence for his claim except to tell DUBAWA that he stands by his sermon.
To ascertain whether Liberia is the poorest in Africa, we found that although Liberia is one of the 10 least developed countries, it is not the poorest–data from the World Population Review on poverty ranking in Africa for 2023. “Of 26 countries ranked by the World Bank as having low-income economies, 22 are in Africa. These rankings refer to the very poorest countries in the world. Africa also includes 23 of the world’s 54 lower-middle-income countries.”
Of the poorest 10 in Africa, Liberia is ranked seventh, with Burundi and Somalia occupying the last and second-to-last positions with $771 and $875 GDP, respectively.
In addition, a 2022 World Bank Report also listed South Sudan, Eritrea, Somalia, and Sudan as the “lowest scoring” poorest countries.
Finally, DUBAWA found a 2022 Mappr report showing that Burundi sits at number one in poverty in Africa, and Liberia is in eighth place.
The Global Finance Group also ranks Liberia at number 10 of the poorest countries in Africa, with a GDP of $1,788. They record that the poorest countries are South Sudan and Burundi, with GDP figures of $516 and $891, respectively.
DUBAWA also verified if Liberia has the least education system in Africa, as claimed by Dr. Reeves.
According to the United Nations, “an education index is a component of the Human Development Index published every year by the United Nations Development Programme. Alongside the economic indicators and life expectancy index, it helps measure educational attainment.”
Again, according to the World Population website, the 2023 education rankings have Niger, Burkina Faso, and Mali occupying the last three. Liberia is not one of the last ten countries.
It was discovered that according to a December 22, 2021, report by Mikscholars.com, Liberia is not among the top 10 countries with the worst education system in Africa.
DUBAWA also discovered in the September 19, 2023, Bscholarly report on the top eight countries with the worst education systems in Africa that Liberia was not on the list.
Conclusion
Based on the evidence available, the claim that Liberia is the poorest and least educationally developed country in Africa is false.
