Ogonna Nnamani
EDGE Final Paper
Professor B. Lusignan, A. Ortega
January 22, 2003
NIGERIA
In order to fully grasp the concepts, issues, and
developments that will be covered in this research paper, background
information on Nigeria. This will help to grasp the main concepts, issues,
developments and proposals that will later be relayed in this paper.
Nigeria is a creation
of European imperialism. Nigeria,
a British political construct, is located on the Atlantic Coast in West Africa
and is bordered by Benin on the west, Niger and Chad on
the north and Cameroon on the east. “Nigeria is the most populous country in
Africa. In 2000, the population was an estimated 126,635,626 —a density of 291.5 per
square mile.”[1] The official
capital of Nigeria is Abuja but the commercial capital is
Lagos, the largest city in sub-Saharan Africa. Nigeria is a nation of immense
physical and human diversity. Its
climate ranges from rain forest to desert, the landforms are highly varied, and
“The people are divided into about 400 different ethnic groups.”[2]
Formerly a British colony, Nigeria derives its name from the Niger River. The
country attained its independence from the British on October 1, 1960. The
major religions in Nigeria are Christianity, Islam, and traditional religions.
The history of the Nigerian people extends backward in time for some three
millennia. “Archaeological evidence, oral traditions, and written documentation
establish the existence of dynamic societies and well-developed political
systems.”[3]
Nigerian history is fragmented in the sense that it evolved from a variety of
traditions, but many of the most outstanding features of modern society reflect
the strong influence of the three regionally dominant ethnic groups--the Hausa in the
north, the Yoruba in the west, and the Ibo in the east.
Under these simple facts lies a complex situation.
When looking deeper into Nigeria, a nation that is characterized by the
coexistence of the 600 different ethnic groups along with two of the world’s
most opposing religions, the serious problems of civil unrest, corruption, violence, poverty, and prejudice
emerge. After nearly 150 years of
British influence, Nigeria gained its independence on October 1, 1960, but
strife soon ensured. At first, Nigeria
used a parliamentary system of government.
Then Nigeria became a federation composed of three regions—northern,
western, and eastern- - each represented in the federal government. “The northern region, because of its large
population, was able to dominate the entire country politically.”[4]
Friction increased, especially between the Hausa (Muslims) in the north and the
Ibos (Christians) in the southeast. This dissension resulted in a military coup
led by easterners in January of 1966. During the upheaval of 1966, many Ibos
living in the north were killed, and consequently, many others fled to their
traditional homeland in the southeast. The coup was viewed by many as the “Ibo
fight for justice and religious tolerance.”[5]
A half a year later, another coup placed General Yakubu Gowon (a non-Muslim
northerner) in command. In 1967, the Ibos, under the leadership of Odumegwu C.
Ojukwu, attempted to secede from Nigeria. Ojukwu and the Ibo people declared
themselves the Republic of Biafra. These attempts at secession led to a bloody
civil war. The war lasted until 1970, when the Ibos were defeated. The Biafran
War resulted in hundreds of thousands of casualties. The Biafran war was “an attempt to correct the boundaries
carelessly drawn by the European powers at the Berlin Conference of 1885.”[6]
Because of the unsuccessfulness of the Ibos, the people of Nigeria are forced
to coexist even though their religious and ethnic differences made it very
difficult to do so. After the Biafran War, ethnic and religious intolerance
increased.
Nigeria’s ETHNIC GROUPS 
Source: Encyclopedia
Britannica 200 edition
RELIGIONS
IN NIGERIA
Source: Encyclopedia
Britannica 200 edition
Nigeria, in addition to
its large heterogenic population, is richly endowed with forest, marine,
mineral and agricultural resources.
Nigeria's natural
resources are the driving force of its economy. The multiple
vegetation areas, plentiful rain, surface and underground water resources are
very important to the country’s well being. Oil, cocoa, cotton, groundnuts,
palm, and rubber generate most of Nigeria’s domestic revenue. Timber from the
rainforest is also a valuable resource. Nigeria also produces an abundance of
coal, iron, ore, lime-stone, columbine and gold. Out of all its natural
resources, Oil and natural gas are the most valuable. Due to the rich supply oil
resources, Nigeria is a member of the Oil Producing Exporting Countries (OPEC).
OPEC consists of the following countries: Algeria, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq,
Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the Unite Arab Emirates, and
Venezuela. These eleven developing countries are greatly dependent on oil
revenues as their main source of income. Due to the fact that oil revenues are
so vital for the economic development of these nations, they aim to “bring
stability and harmony to the oil market by adjusting their oil output to help
ensure a balance between supply and demand”[7].
OPEC's eleven members collectively supply about 40 % of the world's oil output,
and possess more than three-quarters of the world's total proven crude oil
reserves[8].
Nigeria, comparatively speaking, is one of the top oil producing countries in
the world. Nigeria contains approximately 22.5
billion barrels of oil reserves[9].
Almost all of these reserves are found in relatively simple geological
structures along the country's coastal Niger River Delta.
Source: Nnadozie,
Emmanuel. Oil and Socioeconomic Crisis in Nigeria. New York: Edwin
Mellen Press, 1995.
|
Port Harcourt is the heart of the Niger River
Delta where most Nigeria’s oil reserves are located. |
Source: Okonta, Ike. Where Vultures Feast: Shell,
Human Rights, and Oil in the Niger River Delta. Lagos: Sierra Club Books,
2001.
In addition to crude oil,
Nigeria has an abundant array of natural gas. In fact, “Nigeria has an
estimated 124 trillion cubic feet of proven natural gas reserves (9th
largest in the world)”[10]. Until 1960, government participation in the oil industry
was limited to the regulation and administration of fiscal policies. In 1971,
when Nigeria joined OPEC, the Nigerian National Oil Corporation (NNOC) was
established, later becoming NNPC in 1977. This giant establishment, with all
its subsidiary companies, controls and dominates all sectors of the oil
industry, both upstream and downstream.
The upstream oil industry is the single most important sector in the country's economy, providing over 90% of its total exports[11]. Oil is produced from five of Nigeria’s seven sedimentary basins: the Niger Delta, Anambra, Benue Trough, Chad, and Benin. The Niger Delta, the Onshore and Shallow Offshore basins can be considered fairly well to well explored. Ventures here are low risk and the basins contain about 80% of producing wells drilled in Nigeria. During the later 1990s exploration focus turned to high risk ventures in the frontier basins of the deep water offshore with encouraging success[12]. These ventures are becoming increasingly attractive with developments in deepwater exploration and production technology.
The downstream oil industry in Nigeria is another key
sector in the country's economy. The country has four oil refineries and there
are eight oil companies and 750 independents all active in the marketing
petroleum products[13].
Cross-border smuggling is an ongoing problem and there are frequent reports of
large scale corruption in the distribution and marketing chain. The government
through its 100% state-owned national oil company, Nigerian National Petroleum
Corporation (NNPC) has had an all encompassing control over the industry
through its shareholding in all the companies involved and in the setting of
wholesale and retail prices.
It
is very evident from the charts and information above, that Nigeria possesses
an abundant amount of potential beginning with its natural resources especially
in its oil industry. Nigeria’s superfluous production of oil should be
generating positive effects in Nigeria’s economic sector which will then help
to develop the rest of its areas. Unfortunately, Nigeria cannot capitalize on
its potential wealth due to mismanagement of their resources. The way oil wealth is managed in Nigeria is one of the key
issues facing the people of Nigeria today.
According to Chika Nnamani, “the misconduct of the leaders in the oil
industry is creating detrimental effects to Nigeria’s economy which essentially
is destroying the well being of the state as a whole.”[14]
To substantiate this statement, leaders in government and the oil industry have
profited by hundreds of billions of dollars since oil was first discovered.
However, most Nigerians are living in conditions characterized by poverty. Most
individuals are struggling to live on less than 100 Naira a day which is barely
a dollar a day. The mismanagement of Nigeria’s natural resources have resulted
in the lack of development in transportation, running water, electricity, and
telephones in both urban and rural areas.
It
is hard to determine who is responsible for this unfortunate situation. Nnamani
narrows this search to two sources by posing the following question: “is it the
Nigerian government or is it the externally implanted petroleum development
companies?”[15] In all
fairness, one group cannot be held responsible for the detrimental effects
behind this complex issue oil mismanagement. The leader of developing companies
in Nigeria is The Shell Petroleum Development Company which produces most of
the country’s oil. Shell’s spokesman, Donald Boham, believes that the misuse of
Nigeria’s oil sector is due to the fact that the “delta region has been ignored
for so long.”[16]Boham
continues to say that to say that “Nigeria has had a good number of years of
military rule in this country, where the government - for one reason or another
- failed to address the need for development in the Niger Delta and that has
put a lot of pressure on the oil companies to try and fill the gap that the
government has created”[17].
Boham asserts that they are pulling their end of the bargain in terms of
revitalizing Nigeria’s oil sector. Boham claims that the Shell Company, last
year, “spent 60 million dollars on community development intervention
activities which represented about 3 percent of the entire joint venture
budget”.[18]
On the flipside of
this issue, the Nigerian government has been characterized by so much
instability that is hard to find a reason why they were unable to coordinate
efforts towards fully utilizing Nigeria’s natural resources. Mark Tomlinson,
the World Bank's director for Nigeria, believes the government must share some
of the blame because they have ignored the oil producing regions for so long.
Tomlinson believes that the “oil companies by themselves should not be saddled
with the development of the delta because all of the country’s revenues are
collected by the federal government”. [19]
Tomlinson makes some valid points because in the past, most of Nigeria’s oil
revenue was stolen by corrupt officials and military leaders.
Fortunately, there is a solution to this problem. The solution should model the logistics proposed by Dr. Arikawa. Arikawa is a representative of the Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC). The JBIC is a Japanese governmental financial institution that aims at a “stable and autonomous development of the economies and societies of countries in the world, and closer and stronger economic ties between Japan and the rest of the world”[20]. The JBIC was established on October 1, 1999 as a result of a merger between the Overseas Economic Cooperation Fund, Japan (OECF) and the Export-Import Bank of Japan (JEXIM). The JBIC “assumes international financial operations and overseas economic cooperation.”[21] The main emphasis of Dr. Arikawa’s plan is to shift, from an economic standpoint, the distribution of power at both the state and national level. Arikawa believes that more economic power should be granted to the states. This task will be achieved through the investment of funds at the state level rather than at the federal level. In order to fully capitalize on Nigeria’s potential, an economic power shift should not only occur, a power shift in the political arena should occur as well. Essentially, by granting more power to the states, there will be more order, and therefore more security in all aspects of life in Nigeria.
When more emphasis is placed on state leadership positions rather than national leadership positions, the leader’s motives behind economic and monetary transactions deviate away from selfish interests. Furthermore, the granting of more power at the state level will essentially lower the attractiveness of the leadership positions which will consequently help to attend to the true needs of the Nigerian people. With the implementation of this plan, the methods of distributing oil revenues will be altered resulting in the state governments having greater say in revenue expenditure.
In addition to the decentralization
of power, a stronger emphasis should be placed on traditional values of the
Nigerian people. Prior to the coming of the Europeans, there was no political
entity called Nigeria. The land
comprising of present day Nigeria was “comprised of kingdoms.”[22] Each kingdom was comprised of villages and
had its own structure of a monarchial government, a powerful military defense,
and incredible social structures that were as good, if not better than any
other structures during its time. The
kingdoms’ governmental structure appeared to be a monarchy with powerful checks
and balances on the authority of the king or chiefs. Pre-Colonial Nigerian
leaders “developed a system that provided a check and balance measure akin to
modern day democratic governing structures”[23].
Some of this early structure has been retained and one sees evidence of
traditional leadership values most clearly in the rural village structure.
Leadership in
Nigeria was once recognized as vested upon the Obas (traditional rulers) who
ruled through administrative systems that featured modern day organization charts,
which now hang loosely on contemporary leaders within both military and
civilian ranks. Evidently, the traditional ways of government, society,
commerce, and defense worked efficiently for the Nigerian people. A return to
these ways will result in a dynamic system that operates through the
capitalization, tolerance and coexistence of its heterogenic population. With
the return of the traditional system of laws, the Sharia laws in the north can
be fully utilized as well as other ethnically/religiously centered customs.
Before any of the
stated solutions can be instituted two things must be eradicated: ethnic and
religious unrest and corruption. As mentioned earlier, Nigeria is a country of
immense human diversity due to the fact that it comprises of 600 different
ethnic groups along with two of the world most opposing religions Islam and
Christianity. To create harmony among the different ethnic and religious
groups, “Nigeria must, before anything else, diffuse longstanding ethnic and
religious tensions by fairly distributing the power in the government.”[24]The detrimental effects of the ethnic and religious unrest
in Nigeria has not only fueled corruption at all levels of government, but is
has also entrenched Nigeria into poverty. Due to poverty, “the life expectancy
is about 50 years of age (25 years less than in Canada), only a little more
than half the population can read and write, and the United Nations ranks it in
142nd place out 200 on its list of desirability as a place to live”[25]. Why is Nigeria doing so poorly? The answer
to that question is corruption. Corruption has broadly been defined as
“a perversion or a change from good to bad”[26].
In addition, corrupt behavior involves “the violation of established rules for
personal gain and profit along with the efforts to secure wealth or power
through illegal means – private gain at public expense; or a misuse of public
power for private benefit”[27]
In Nigeria, corruption is probably the primary method towards the accumulation quick wealth. Corruption occurs
in many forms. The three basic forms of corruption are political corruption,
bureaucratic corruption, and electoral corruption[28].
Other forms of corruption include bribery, fraud, embezzlement, extortion,
favoritism, and nepotism[29].
Corruption has contributed immensely to the poverty and misery of a large
segment of the Nigerian population. According to many, corruption is the
underlying reason behind Nigeria’s problems. The
Nigerian people have been robbed. Unimaginable quantities of Nigerian oil money
have been stashed away in Switzerland's secretive banks. According to the
Associated Press, “about $850 million is in accounts of former Nigerian
dictator Sani Abacha, his family, and friends”[30]The
Nigerian government says that General Abacha systematically stole money from
the country's central bank during his five years in power (1993-98).[31]
At the request of the Nigerian government, the Swiss
have frozen 140 accounts in 11 banks in Zurich and Geneva. The Swiss say the
total in these accounts may go higher and set a new record. The previous record
holder for hiding "dirty money" in Switzerland was former
“Philippines dictator Ferdinand Marcos who socked away about $715 million.”[32]
In fact it is the
essential problem for most developing countries. Before Arikawa’s model and the
emphasis on Nigeria’s traditional customs begin, corruption must be eliminated.
Currently, Nigeria’s government leaders are not held responsible for their
corrupt actions. This lack of accountability has characterized the Nigeria’s
leadership for decades. This is due to the lack of checks and balances in the
system. As mentioned earlier, the kingdoms that once comprised preset day
Nigeria utilized a potent system of checks and balances. This system
experiences a multitude of success. In order to squelch corruption, a return to
this method is compulsory. In addition to the achievement of a checks and
balance system, “every effort should be made to diversify the economy in order
to create a viable and sustainable private sector which should be attractive
enough to provide prestigious amenities outside of the government.”[33]
The last step in the control of corruption would be a strong separation between
the local, state and national, and individual funds. This will make it
impossible for the leader at both the state and national level to embezzle
public funds for private use.
With the implementation of these plans Nigeria can return to the top. It has the potential to be a primordial force in the world oil economy. This projected success in the oil sector will evidently trickle down to success in other areas of commerce. Most importantly, Nigeria’s success will improve the quality of life for all Nigerians. With the amazing natural resources along with the incredible brain power of its people, Nigeria has the capabilities of revitalizing all aspects of its social, economic and political life. Only, if the people put a side their religious and ethnic differences and unite. Simply put by Wole Soyinka, winner of the 1986 Nobel Peace Prize in Literature, “Nigeria, as seen in the potential of its people and natural resources, has the abilities of experiencing a renaissance and becoming a forerunner in the world.”[34]
Nigeria’s success will garner respect from industrialized countries around the world, the United States in particular. With Nigeria’s economic stability, the United States will desire to maintain strong ties with Nigeria. In the past, the United States relationship with Nigeria has been very inconsistent. When evaluating the United States Presidential administrations, those of Presidents John F. Kennedy, Jimmy Carter and William Clinton stood out as the most “Africa friendly regimes.”
The first substantial interactions between the United States and Nigeria occurred in the 1960’s, under President John F. Kennedy’s regime. President Kennedy initiated the establishment of the Peace Corps in 1961 in order to “assist other countries in their development efforts by providing skilled workers.”[35]
Kennedy’s commendable efforts towards positive relations with Nigeria were maintained under the President Jimmy Carter’s regime. Though President Carter’s “open arm policy”, an influx of Nigerians migrated into the United States during the late 1970’s. Being aware of the hardship in Nigeria after the brutal Biafran war, Carter provided Nigerians with an opportunity to experience a better life. Due to President Carter’s incredible efforts, the number of Nigerian immigrants in the United States has increased considerable over the past twenty years. This influx of Nigerians has definitely been a positive one. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Nigerians are one of the best-educated groups in the United States. It is estimated that a vast majority of Nigerians in the United States over the age of 18 have one or more university degrees.
The Clinton regime was considered one of the most “Africa-friendly” regimes in the United States history. The replacement of Warren Christopher with Madeline Albright was a major plus for Nigeria Secretary of State Madeline Albright was better informed about Nigeria and was very interested in Nigeria’s major problems due to her humanity and previous experience as the United Nations Ambassador of the United States of America.
Unfortunately, after all of these incredible advancements, the relationship between the United States and Nigeria is currently strained due to the tactics utilized under President George W. Bush’s administration. The most recent interaction between the United States and Nigeria was when President Bush made the suggestion that Nigeria should pull out of OPEC. If Nigeria would even consider doing such a dumb thing, it would be eliminating virtually all of its economic potency and therefore plummet to eve greater levels of poverty. President Bush’s actions are an indication that there is no longer an interest to constructively develop Nigeria. Since the United States cannot be relied upon as a tool towards development in Nigeria, the corroboration with other African nations is necessary. Africa is currently united under the African Union, formerly known as the Organization of African Unity (OAU). The African Union currently consists of 53 countries. The delegates of the African Union composed a plan of action that consists of the following:
The purpose of the African Union is to promote unity, solidarity,
cohesion and cooperation among the peoples of Africa and African States. It is determined to tackle the comprehensive
challenges that face Africa in the light of the social, economic and political
changes taking place in the world. It is also determined to promote and protect
human and peoples’ rights, consolidate democratic institutions and culture, and
to ensure good governance and the rule of law. In addition, the African Union
aspires to take all necessary measures to strengthen our common institutions
and provide them with the necessary powers and resources to enable them
discharge their respective mandates effectively[36].
It is clear that steps are being taken in the right direction towards the establishment of a strong African continent. Nigeria can contribute greatly to the further development of the African Union by taking a strong initiative in eliminating its corruption and stabilizing its economic sectors, especially the oil sector. Hopefully the projected success of the development of Nigeria will lead towards the development of other African nations. With all of this established, Africa will be, for once, utilized as a pattern for the rest of the world to follow. Gabriel Arum’s insightful statement (in three words) beautifully foretells the grand unification of African Nations:
“Igwe bu ike.” [37]
The English
Translation is “Unity is Strength”.This is definitely the direction the Nigeria
and the rest of Africa will pursue. The potential and promise for the proposal
is uplifting and inspiring for not only the upward development in economic
sectors but in all aspects of life.
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