The African Economic School of Thought and Social Dynamism, also referred to as the Oketa-Ijigban Economic School of Thought, challenges conventional explanations of poverty and underdevelopment that place primary responsibility on individual limitations such as laziness, lack of talent or insufficient intrinsic economic value.
The framework proposes instead that persistent poverty and underdevelopment are substantially produced and reinforced by systemic failures within leadership, social constructs and structural support systems.
It therefore approaches economic development not simply as a question of financial resources or economic policy, but as a systems problem involving leadership, human thinking, social values, institutions and mechanisms for converting human potential into productive outcomes.
The School of Thought seeks to bridge economic thinking with transformative social dynamics, providing a framework through which individuals, communities and institutions can address the conditions that prevent human potential from becoming productive economic value.
THE CENTRAL PROPOSITION
The central proposition is:
People and societies cannot be sustainably transformed by economic resources alone when the leadership, mental constructs and structural systems governing the conversion of human potential into productive outcomes remain dysfunctional.
The framework consequently shifts the question from: “Why are people poor?”
toward:
“What systems, leadership failures, social constructs and structural conditions prevent people from converting their potential into prosperity?”
This represents a fundamental change in the way poverty and development can be understood and addressed.
