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FRONTPAGE VIEWPOINT MAGAZINE BY SECTION Special Report Business Nigeria COVER POLITICS BUSINESS & ECONOMICS BACK OF THE BOOK REGULARS NEIL FORD LETTERS PUBLISHERS NOTE AROUND AFRICA POLITALK WILMOT ADVERTISING Email us for advertising information COMPANY PROFILE MISSION TEAM EDITORIAL BOARD DIRECTORS |
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Click here for the NewsAfrica Special Focus Article From bad to worse IN THE PAST three decades, Nigeria has acquired the reputation of a cross between a bad joke and a political crime story, writes PATRICK WILMOTT. Except for a few crusading officials such as Akunyili, Ribadu and Sanusi, people outside the country find it difficult to distinguish between government and the 419 operators of the advance fee fraud syndicates which almost define its international profile. In A Swamp Full of Dollars, Financial Times journalist Michael Peel, presents the contradictory dimensions of the country. He centres his analysis on the corruption that has disfigured the country since the onset of prolonged military dictatorship and its succession by civilian rulers who used ‘democracy’ to plunder the nation just as much as the soldiers did with brute force. The former governor of Bayelsa State in the oil-rich Niger Delta region has become the exemplar of venality judging by his arrest in London for money laundering, cosmetic surgery to correct obesity, display of extravagant wealth, and his escape allegedly dressed as a woman. Peel had the opportunity to visit the luxury flat he occupied in the Water Gardens near Edgware Road, London, where police found almost a million pounds in cash. For those unfamiliar with Edgware Road, it has been colonised by rich Arabs and Nigerians where spectacularly vulgar developments like the Water Gardens have been constructed to cater for their nouveau riche tastes. The author then drags us into the hellhole of the Niger Delta where people driven beyond despair now look to so-called militants to save them. It matters little that some of the “liberators” regard their former governor as a “freedom fighter”. The poverty Peel witnesses is heartrending. He rides on motorcycles and boats to see the people in their decayed small towns, devastated villages and depressing creek settlements where militants hide out and wreak havoc on oil facilities and the security forces sent to protect them. Not only are the people deprived of the revenues derived from the oil gouged from their soils, the method of extraction renders their fields and waters incapable of producing food, drinking water and fish. Deprived of electricity, they are kept awake by oil flares 24 hours a day. And the presence of militants and soldiers means their lives are always at risk. Although the myths of militants and their sympathisers blame the situation on outsiders who take the wealth of the Delta to develop other parts of the country, the fact is that local politicians are among the most rapacious in Nigeria. The ex-governor of Bayelsa State was not the worst leader in the region, and his notoriety had more to do with his falling out with his master in Abuja than on the scale of his plunder. Peel saw the luxury cars of officials, the expenditure on non-productive projects, and the budgets which allocated more for gifts and “security” votes than for health, education and welfare. He repeats the fact that most of the militants were formerly political thugs recruited by the ruling party to rig elections. The corruption of the system consists not just of stealing funds to furnish a luxurious lifestyle, but also of violence used to corrupt the electoral process, and has now spread to infuse the social structure with kidnappings and political assassinations. Outside the Delta where raw violence is fuelled with guns, alcohol, drugs, greed and desperation, Peel spends time in Lagos where the same struggle for survival drives millions into the pursuit of amoral power and material wealth. He recognises the intelligence, generosity, energy and entrepreneurial ability of the people but also the horrific imposition of the state and its agents, which converts potential good into the pursuit of evil. He spends time with fixers who take him on public transport where he sees first hand how the system is preyed upon and despoiled by policemen, union officials and other common criminals. He is amazed how people who are so exploited, brutalised and humiliated, refuse to lay down and die. They not only survive but sometimes prosper. With government in the hands of people like the Delta politicians it is surprising that Nigeria is not in worse shape than it is. Peel spent some time on an American warship which patrolled the area between the Delta and Equatorial Guinea. Every senior officer on the ship was at pains to impress upon the author that they were ‘not there for the oil’, which in political speak meant that they were. For years the Americans have tried to gain control of Nigerian oil production to reduce dependence on the oil of the ‘unstable’ Middle East. But relying on the Delta is like a woman trying to avoid rape by seeking refuge in a brothel. A Swamp Full of Dollars by Michael Peel is published in London, by IB Tauris, 2009 |
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