A few decades back, Nigeria was going okay for a third world nation. Nothing great but they were getting by.
Then major oil fields were discovered. From an objective standpoint, this would be a good thing. Basically, Nigeria got handed a ton of free money. In an ideal world, they would have used this money to build up their country and make Nigeria a better place to live. In a more realistic world, they’d have wasted it all on useless junk and been no better off than before.
But somehow, Nigeria has managed to take a major windfall and turn it into a national disaster. The Nigerian economy and its society in general are now in much worse shape than they were before the oil was discovered.
What happened? There were no major wars or terrible dictatorships. A lot of the money may have been siphoned off by corrupt officials or foreign corporations, but some of it must have fallen off into the streets. But the average Nigerian now seems poorer than he was before the oil money arrived. Ignoring the absense of all the new capital that should have entered the economy, what happened to the old capital that was already there?
Your time lines and details a quite are a bit off. Oil was discovered in Nigeria in 1956, before independence, which took place in 1960. The first military coup took place in 1966, and the following year Biafra attempted to secede, resulting in a horrendous civil war that went on for 3 years, killing over a million and crippling the country for many years afterward. Oppressive military regimes and corrupt civilian governments alternated most of the time until recently. So I’m not sure that Nigeria was ever “getting by” for any significant length of time.
Oil has essentially been a disaster for Nigeria. The large revenues available together with authoritarian regimes encouraged the development of a culture of corruption. The big cash flow from oil, together with rampant corruption, discouraged the development of other industries since the money to be made paled in comparison with what could be skimmed from oil.
Okay, the existence of the oil was known earlier. But it wasn’t a major source of income until the mid 1970’s. My point was that Nigeria’s economy seems to have been severely damaged by a sizable increase in revenue - a result that seems paradoxical.
We are having the most gratitude for your concern for our country. Much times it is seeming that Americans are not having any interest in our country, except for sending us e-mails about opportunities to inherit very large sums of moneys. We are not just falling off the gumbaloo truck! Please tell your countrymen to stop this annoyingment!
I seem to remeber there was some Nigerian boondoggle concerning concrete a few decades ago. Th gov’t there was ordering mind-boggling amounts of the stuff, far more than they would ever need, and it reached the point that there was a two-year waiting list for ships to unload at their harbors. Anyone remember anything about that?
It’s not just Nigeria that’s being destroyed by oil, nearly every 3rd world country with oil has seen largely the same effects. The influx of a large amount of oil money leads to some fairly predictable circumstances. Corruption runs rampant because oil can be controlled by a relatively small group of people and so the people who run the country are chosen for their ruthlessness and canniness and not their governing ability. The rise in exchange rates makes exporting all non-oil goods non-competitive which kills innovation and entrepreneurship. White elephant projects are undertaken regardless of their cost effectiveness because of their perceived prestige. The government tries to buy off the populace with gobs of public money to maintain their ability to rule and this money is usually spent inefficiently.
In short, oil is probably one of the worst things that can happen to a developing country in much the same way that winning the lottery can be devestating to a poor person with little financial discipline.
188,000m / 5 = 37,600m
37,600m / 132m = 285 which is under $1 per day at purchasing power parity
It looks to me as if those up North have found a new form of revenue, kidnapping, to back up their traditional habit of breaking into pipe lines and incinerating themselves.
Incidentally, Shell is a pretty benign company as companies go, they have to be as they are pretty high profile.
I didn’t mean it in a “Shell did all this”, more as a parallel to “Shit happens” - “oil happened”. Although really, no African thugs needs the excuse, just look at Zimbabwe.
The Nigerians ordered so much cement that msot of it solidified on the docks. The country is a shambles-no infrastructure 9out side of oil terminals) is being built or repaired. Traffic jams in the capital are monumental. The government "kleptocracy’ siphons off money intended for schools, hospitals, public health. meanwhile the Niger River delta (the most fertile area and the source of rich fishing grounds) is being destroyed by pollution. So add it up:
-corrupt governemnt
-ecological disaster
-population skyrocketing
-no return of oil wealth to the people
not a pretty picture! How culpable are we (who buy Nigerian oil) for this?
I was reading an article in the current Vanity Fair about Nigeria.
In it it’s said that in the last few decades more money had “disappeared” from government funds than the whole of the aid budget for Africa over the same period.
Beaucoup dollars have gone missing. A very high %age of people are way below the poverty line. People are angry and the government is corrupt.
A quote from one of the terrorists threatening the oil pipelines in the Niger Delta.
It’s a very good article if you can get your hands on the mag.
And of course you have to look farther back, and encompass that period when the slave trade was depopulating the interior and enriching a predatory class on the coast. And don’t forget the early oil boom, when the oil in question was palm oil, and again enriched the Delta and did little for the interior. And we can always blame the British, who had a genius for screwing up everything they touched, for their misrule. In short, Nigeria – like most of Africa – never had a stable springboard from which to launch itself forward. Simply pouring money into a situation as tenuous as Nigeria’s was bound to have an unfortunate effect.
The trouble with oil is that oil in a third world country is pretty much guaranteed to result in massive corruption. The officials who control the oil exports have a gigantic source of essentially free money. Even if the economy of the country is quite a bit larger than the oil revenue, it’s generally pretty hard for the oligarchs to get their hands on that money…that has to be raised by taxation/bribes. So you can squeeze money out of the farmers and small businessmen, but only a few dollars at a time, and that’s in the local currency. But the oil money is a spigot of hard currency that can be used for anything.
And as a related point, the money is typically coming in from private firms, not from governments, who have at least some small obligation to account for how the money is spent. So the money is free money in more senses than one.
In The Hot Zone, an jarring account is given of the railroad problem. Colonialism left Nigeria with a pretty good rail system. The villagers then began ripping up the rails.
Politics? No. Pocket knives.
Yes. Pocket knives, or at least sheath knives. They were ripping up the rails to steal the spikes, which local blacksmiths would re-work into tools, including knives.
Later, the rails were melted, too.
The Nigerian government re-built the railroad, & the locals tore it apart. Again. This happens continuously.
When the western doctors tried to explain that this would destroy both the money-making tourist trade, & eliminate their ability to move crops/products to market, the locals just grinned, & ignored them.
While I accept no responsibilty for the activities of my forebears, I am intrigued by your statement (bolding mine).
The USA population was British, it looks in pretty good shape.
Canada does not seem a basket case.
Australia and NZ look fine.
India is not too bad, oddly it was not the British who wanted partition.
Malaysia is doing Ok - a nice place.
The Boer War was a complete f/ck up.
Large chunks of Africa were run by very young and efficient District Commissioners, they are now basket cases.
One could talk about Ireland, but scratch a Brit and you’ll find Irish blood.
My take is that after Britain realized that it had inadvertantly acquired an Empire it set up a benign, centrally controlled and lightweight adminstrative system that worked rather well.
Possibly you are thinking of the Middle East, that an Israeli friend of mine described as a ‘British invention’
Could you describe a few ‘screw ups’ ?
Citations not necessary.
True Nigeria like many ,or more realistically ,most African states went rapidly down hill almost as soon as the colonising powers had left but it has been independant long enough to take responsibility for its national condition.
Slightly off topic(and I have no point to make ,just being curious )but I wonder what N and S America ,and Australasia would be like today if the Europeans had upped and left?
