If Nigeria thought like Venezuela
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Re: Nigeria Squandering Oil Riches
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Wanna help end poverty in Africa?????
http://198.65.131.81/board/showthread.php?t=40655&page=1&pp=45
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Related Thread:
Wanna help end poverty in Africa?????
http://198.65.131.81/board/showthread.php?t=40655&page=1&pp=45
`
Re: Nigeria Squandering Oil Riches
<p><img src="http://www.theatlantic.com/images/logotop-article.gif"><p>
The Atlantic Monthly | April 2006 <p><center><h2>Foreign Affairs</h2></center><p>
<font face="arial black" size="6" color="#d90000">Worse Than Iraq?<font face="tahoma" size="4" color="#0000ff"><b>
Nigeria's president and onetime hope for a stable future is leading his country toward implosion—and possible U.S. military intervention.
<span style="background-color: #FFFF00">During the last twenty-five years, Nigeria earned more than $300 billion in oil revenues—but annual per capita income plummeted from $1,000 to $390. More than two-thirds of the population lives beneath the poverty line, subsisting on less than a dollar a day.</span></b></font><font face="helvetica, verdana" size="3" color="#000000">
<b>by Jeffrey Tayler</b>
.....http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200604/nigeria
With an ethnically and religiously combustible population of 130 million, Nigeria is lurching toward disaster, and the stakes are high—for both Nigeria and the United States. An OPEC member since 1971, Nigeria has 35.9 billion barrels of proven petroleum reserves—the largest of any African country and the eighth largest on earth. It exports some 2.5 million barrels of oil a day, and the government plans to nearly double that amount by 2010. Nigeria is the fifth-largest supplier of oil to the United States; U.S. energy officials predict that within ten years it and the Gulf of Guinea region will provide a quarter of America's crude.
It is hardly surprising, then, that since 9/11 the Bush administration has courted Nigeria as an alternative to volatile petro-states in the Middle East and Latin America. In 2002, the White House declared the oil of Africa (five other countries on the continent are also key producers) a "strategic national interest"—meaning that the United States would use military force, if necessary, to protect it. In short, Nigeria's troubles could become America's and, like those of the Persian Gulf, cost us dearly in blood and money.
Moreover, Nigeria's problems far exceed those of the petro-states the administration hopes to sidestep. They begin with the ad hoc nature and impossible structure of the country, which even a leading Nigerian nationalist called "a mere geographical expression." The entity of Nigeria was cobbled together to serve London's economic interests. Having established the Royal Niger Company to exploit resources in the Niger River Delta, and expanded inland from there, the British found themselves by the late nineteenth century ruling territories and peoples—some 250 ethnic groups in all—that had never coexisted in a single state. They ran Nigeria as three separate administrative zones, divided along ethnic and religious lines. The Muslim north, arid and poor but with half the country's population, would eventually gain supremacy over the army. Through a succession of military dictatorships, it would dominate (and plunder) the fertile and oil-rich but disunited south, whose largest ethnic groups—the Yoruba in the west and the Igbo in the east—together represent just 39 percent of the population. Democracy, too, has favored the north, which, united by Islam and voting as a bloc, has determined the outcome of virtually all elections. In Nigeria, where one generally votes for one's religious or ethnic brethren, democracy has deepened divisions rather than healed them. Whoever holds the presidency faces an insoluble dilemma: either let the country break up, or use violence to hold it together.
Chief among the country's current woes is corruption. During the last twenty-five years, Nigeria earned more than $300 billion in oil revenues—but annual per capita income plummeted from $1,000 to $390. More than two-thirds of the population lives beneath the poverty line, subsisting on less than a dollar a day. The country's elites bear most of the blame. Since Nigeria gained independence, in 1960, its rulers—military and civilian alike—have systematically squandered or stolen some $400 billion in government money. According to a 2004 World Bank report, 80 percent of the country's oil wealth accrues to 1 percent of the population. As the journalist Karl Maier, whose This House Has Fallen stands as the authoritative work on modern Nigeria, has put it, Nigeria is a "criminally mismanaged corporation where the bosses are armed and have barricaded themselves inside the company safe." Nigeria's similarities to Saudi Arabia are manifold: corruption, oil wealth, a burgeoning Muslim population, and value to the United States as an energy supplier. Osama bin Laden has called Nigeria "ripe for liberation."
The "ripening" began soon after what seemed the dawn of a new era: the sudden death, in 1998, of the military dictator Sani Abacha and the subsequent election to the presidency of the retired general Olusegun Obasanjo. Now sixty-nine and in his second term, Obasanjo had been imprisoned by Abacha in 1995 for allegedly plotting a coup; he emerged from prison in 1998 a national hero.
In a country where ethnicity trumps citizenship, religion trumps ethnicity, and power trumps religion, Obasanjo seemed the ideal compromise candidate. As a Yoruba, he would placate the most prominent and progressive ethnic group in the southwest. As a Christian, he would appeal to 40 percent of Nigerians (also largely in the south). As a professional soldier, he had clout in the north as well, and would be able to restrain the military and forestall any uprisings by out-of-power generals. And as a democrat of international repute (he is a former candidate for United Nations secretary-general and a friend of Nelson Mandela and Jimmy Carter), he would convert Nigeria from the pariah state left behind by Abacha into an internationally respected regional power.
Sixty-two percent of Nigerians voted for Obasanjo in 1999, giving him a hefty mandate and showing that he had indeed won support outside his own ethnic and religious groups. He immediately set about undoing, or appearing to undo, the legacy of nearly three decades of mostly military rule. Announcing that he was "fully committed to using all appropriate means and resources to ensure that every man, woman, and child will perceive and reap the benefits of democracy," he established a commission to investigate allegations of corruption. However, nothing substantive has resulted—except that the commission has accused Obasanjo himself of taking bribes.
Obasanjo thickened the bureaucracy by setting up offices to track government expenditures, again with few results. He established a panel to review past human-rights violations, but the principal presumed offenders, three of Nigeria's former military rulers, have refused to testify—evidence that the army remains above the law. He pledged to diversify the economy along International Monetary Fund guidelines, which entailed cutting state subsidies to the fuel sector. This proved a singularly unpopular move, because it eliminated the only dividend ordinary Nigerians have ever received from their country's oil wealth: cheap gas at the pump. General strikes ensued, turning violent at times, and the economic reforms stalled. Obasanjo's few genuine achievements—among them allowing more freedom of the press and winning forgiveness for 60 percent of the country's $30 billion foreign debt—have failed to alleviate his people's misery.
Obasanjo has shown scant appetite for tackling the crime, neglect, and inefficiency rampant in the oil sector. "Bunkering"—tapping into pipelines and siphoning oil into makeshift tankers hidden in the swamps of the Niger River Delta—is widespread; it is responsible for the loss of some 200,000 barrels a day and for catastrophic fires that have incinerated locals attempting to scoop up the runoff. Criminal gangs with government connections are said to be behind the practice—who else could hire the needed equipment?
During his first term, Obasanjo established a development commission to distribute oil revenues among the country's indigenous peoples, but its efforts have come to naught; most of the windfall oil profits of the last few years have gone toward refurbishing mansions for the elite. Oil spills and gas flares blight the delta, ruining farmland and poisoning fishing grounds. Owing to the abysmal state of its few refineries, Nigeria remains an importer of gasoline. Officials divert gas from the pumps and sell it on the black market. Fuel shortages are endemic.
Obasanjo still talks of improving the lot of his people, but his rhetoric hardly sounds over the din of mayhem and rage. Nigeria appears to be de-developing, its hastily erected facade of modernity disintegrating and leaving city dwellers in particular struggling to survive in near-apocalyptic desolation. A drive across Lagos—the country's commercial capital and, with 13 million people, Africa's largest metropolis—reveals unmitigated chaos. The government has left roads to decay indefinitely. Thugs clear away the broken asphalt and then extract payments from drivers, using chunks of rubble to enforce their demands. Residents dig up the pavement to lay cables that tap illegally into state power lines. Armed robbers emerge from the slums to pillage cars stuck in gridlocks (aptly named "hold-ups" in regional slang) so impenetrable that the fourteen-mile trip from the airport to the city center can take four hours. Electricity blackouts of six to twelve hours a day are common. "Area boys" in loosely affiliated gangs dominate most of the city, extorting money from drivers and shop owners. Those who fail to pay up may be beaten or given a knife jab in the shoulder.
The U.N. Human Development Index ranks Nigeria as having one of the worst standards of living, below both Haiti and Bangladesh. For all its oil wealth, and after seven years of governance by one of Africa's most highly touted democrats, Nigeria has become the largest failed state on earth.
Obasanjo claims to have been born again in prison, and he is prone to wearing his religion on his sleeve—a matter of controversy in a country that is half Muslim and nearly half Christian. He has exhorted Nigerians to "return to God," and many have done so, though not as he intended. Following the death of Abacha, a Muslim, the northern twelve of Nigeria's thirty-six states, acting against the constitution, imposed sharia. Many Christians in those states rioted. When asked about the role of sharia in the country's sectarian violence, Obasanjo (apparently unwilling to risk confrontation with the Muslims and, by extension, the military), said only, "Sharia is for the Muslims as the Ten Commandments [are] for a Christian."
The religious tensions commingle with ethnic ones. Obasanjo has lifted many dictatorial strictures on daily life, but in the absence of effective security forces, this has only heightened clashes among the populace. During his rule, the most lethal period of unrest in the country's history, more than 10,000 people have died. One of the worst zones of conflict is the Niger River Delta in the south, the site of most of Nigeria's mainland petroleum reserves. In recent years, numerous attacks by militias under the rebel leader Alhaji Dokubo-Asari have forced multinationals (against whom Dokubo-Asari has promised "all-out war") to cease pumping, causing oil prices on the world market to spike. Threats also emanate from the north, one of the most radicalized areas of Muslim black Africa.
The security forces that Nigerians expected Obasanjo to bring to heel still act as a caste unto themselves, extorting and killing with impunity. Armed robbers outgun the police, who receive their salaries months late. Many officers have turned to releasing accused criminals from jail in return for bribes. Citizens seeking revenge have murdered police officers and soldiers, whose comrades have undertaken murderous reprisals. Obasanjo has adopted a malignant policy of laissez-faire, saying, "The military should not be pampered, but the military should not be bashed." Across much of the country, anarchy reigns.
Rumors are circulating that Obasanjo may seek a third term in next year's elections, although he is constitutionally prohibited from doing so. Whether or not he stays on, his country's troubles may eventually entangle the United States. One particularly ominous scenario looms: rebels may succeed in halting oil extraction in the delta, drying up the revenues on which the northern elites depend. If, in response, a northern Muslim general were to oust the president and seize power, the United States would find itself facing an Islamic population almost five times Saudi Arabia's, radicalized and in control of the abundant oil reserves that America has vowed to protect. Should that day come, it could herald a military intervention far more massive than the Iraqi campaign.
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[frame]http://www.harpers.org/Nigeria.html[/frame]
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<p><img src="http://www.theatlantic.com/images/logotop-article.gif"><p>
The Atlantic Monthly | April 2006 <p><center><h2>Foreign Affairs</h2></center><p>
<font face="arial black" size="6" color="#d90000">Worse Than Iraq?<font face="tahoma" size="4" color="#0000ff"><b>
Nigeria's president and onetime hope for a stable future is leading his country toward implosion—and possible U.S. military intervention.
<span style="background-color: #FFFF00">During the last twenty-five years, Nigeria earned more than $300 billion in oil revenues—but annual per capita income plummeted from $1,000 to $390. More than two-thirds of the population lives beneath the poverty line, subsisting on less than a dollar a day.</span></b></font><font face="helvetica, verdana" size="3" color="#000000">
<b>by Jeffrey Tayler</b>
.....http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200604/nigeria
With an ethnically and religiously combustible population of 130 million, Nigeria is lurching toward disaster, and the stakes are high—for both Nigeria and the United States. An OPEC member since 1971, Nigeria has 35.9 billion barrels of proven petroleum reserves—the largest of any African country and the eighth largest on earth. It exports some 2.5 million barrels of oil a day, and the government plans to nearly double that amount by 2010. Nigeria is the fifth-largest supplier of oil to the United States; U.S. energy officials predict that within ten years it and the Gulf of Guinea region will provide a quarter of America's crude.
It is hardly surprising, then, that since 9/11 the Bush administration has courted Nigeria as an alternative to volatile petro-states in the Middle East and Latin America. In 2002, the White House declared the oil of Africa (five other countries on the continent are also key producers) a "strategic national interest"—meaning that the United States would use military force, if necessary, to protect it. In short, Nigeria's troubles could become America's and, like those of the Persian Gulf, cost us dearly in blood and money.
Moreover, Nigeria's problems far exceed those of the petro-states the administration hopes to sidestep. They begin with the ad hoc nature and impossible structure of the country, which even a leading Nigerian nationalist called "a mere geographical expression." The entity of Nigeria was cobbled together to serve London's economic interests. Having established the Royal Niger Company to exploit resources in the Niger River Delta, and expanded inland from there, the British found themselves by the late nineteenth century ruling territories and peoples—some 250 ethnic groups in all—that had never coexisted in a single state. They ran Nigeria as three separate administrative zones, divided along ethnic and religious lines. The Muslim north, arid and poor but with half the country's population, would eventually gain supremacy over the army. Through a succession of military dictatorships, it would dominate (and plunder) the fertile and oil-rich but disunited south, whose largest ethnic groups—the Yoruba in the west and the Igbo in the east—together represent just 39 percent of the population. Democracy, too, has favored the north, which, united by Islam and voting as a bloc, has determined the outcome of virtually all elections. In Nigeria, where one generally votes for one's religious or ethnic brethren, democracy has deepened divisions rather than healed them. Whoever holds the presidency faces an insoluble dilemma: either let the country break up, or use violence to hold it together.
Chief among the country's current woes is corruption. During the last twenty-five years, Nigeria earned more than $300 billion in oil revenues—but annual per capita income plummeted from $1,000 to $390. More than two-thirds of the population lives beneath the poverty line, subsisting on less than a dollar a day. The country's elites bear most of the blame. Since Nigeria gained independence, in 1960, its rulers—military and civilian alike—have systematically squandered or stolen some $400 billion in government money. According to a 2004 World Bank report, 80 percent of the country's oil wealth accrues to 1 percent of the population. As the journalist Karl Maier, whose This House Has Fallen stands as the authoritative work on modern Nigeria, has put it, Nigeria is a "criminally mismanaged corporation where the bosses are armed and have barricaded themselves inside the company safe." Nigeria's similarities to Saudi Arabia are manifold: corruption, oil wealth, a burgeoning Muslim population, and value to the United States as an energy supplier. Osama bin Laden has called Nigeria "ripe for liberation."
The "ripening" began soon after what seemed the dawn of a new era: the sudden death, in 1998, of the military dictator Sani Abacha and the subsequent election to the presidency of the retired general Olusegun Obasanjo. Now sixty-nine and in his second term, Obasanjo had been imprisoned by Abacha in 1995 for allegedly plotting a coup; he emerged from prison in 1998 a national hero.
In a country where ethnicity trumps citizenship, religion trumps ethnicity, and power trumps religion, Obasanjo seemed the ideal compromise candidate. As a Yoruba, he would placate the most prominent and progressive ethnic group in the southwest. As a Christian, he would appeal to 40 percent of Nigerians (also largely in the south). As a professional soldier, he had clout in the north as well, and would be able to restrain the military and forestall any uprisings by out-of-power generals. And as a democrat of international repute (he is a former candidate for United Nations secretary-general and a friend of Nelson Mandela and Jimmy Carter), he would convert Nigeria from the pariah state left behind by Abacha into an internationally respected regional power.
Sixty-two percent of Nigerians voted for Obasanjo in 1999, giving him a hefty mandate and showing that he had indeed won support outside his own ethnic and religious groups. He immediately set about undoing, or appearing to undo, the legacy of nearly three decades of mostly military rule. Announcing that he was "fully committed to using all appropriate means and resources to ensure that every man, woman, and child will perceive and reap the benefits of democracy," he established a commission to investigate allegations of corruption. However, nothing substantive has resulted—except that the commission has accused Obasanjo himself of taking bribes.
Obasanjo thickened the bureaucracy by setting up offices to track government expenditures, again with few results. He established a panel to review past human-rights violations, but the principal presumed offenders, three of Nigeria's former military rulers, have refused to testify—evidence that the army remains above the law. He pledged to diversify the economy along International Monetary Fund guidelines, which entailed cutting state subsidies to the fuel sector. This proved a singularly unpopular move, because it eliminated the only dividend ordinary Nigerians have ever received from their country's oil wealth: cheap gas at the pump. General strikes ensued, turning violent at times, and the economic reforms stalled. Obasanjo's few genuine achievements—among them allowing more freedom of the press and winning forgiveness for 60 percent of the country's $30 billion foreign debt—have failed to alleviate his people's misery.
Obasanjo has shown scant appetite for tackling the crime, neglect, and inefficiency rampant in the oil sector. "Bunkering"—tapping into pipelines and siphoning oil into makeshift tankers hidden in the swamps of the Niger River Delta—is widespread; it is responsible for the loss of some 200,000 barrels a day and for catastrophic fires that have incinerated locals attempting to scoop up the runoff. Criminal gangs with government connections are said to be behind the practice—who else could hire the needed equipment?
During his first term, Obasanjo established a development commission to distribute oil revenues among the country's indigenous peoples, but its efforts have come to naught; most of the windfall oil profits of the last few years have gone toward refurbishing mansions for the elite. Oil spills and gas flares blight the delta, ruining farmland and poisoning fishing grounds. Owing to the abysmal state of its few refineries, Nigeria remains an importer of gasoline. Officials divert gas from the pumps and sell it on the black market. Fuel shortages are endemic.
Obasanjo still talks of improving the lot of his people, but his rhetoric hardly sounds over the din of mayhem and rage. Nigeria appears to be de-developing, its hastily erected facade of modernity disintegrating and leaving city dwellers in particular struggling to survive in near-apocalyptic desolation. A drive across Lagos—the country's commercial capital and, with 13 million people, Africa's largest metropolis—reveals unmitigated chaos. The government has left roads to decay indefinitely. Thugs clear away the broken asphalt and then extract payments from drivers, using chunks of rubble to enforce their demands. Residents dig up the pavement to lay cables that tap illegally into state power lines. Armed robbers emerge from the slums to pillage cars stuck in gridlocks (aptly named "hold-ups" in regional slang) so impenetrable that the fourteen-mile trip from the airport to the city center can take four hours. Electricity blackouts of six to twelve hours a day are common. "Area boys" in loosely affiliated gangs dominate most of the city, extorting money from drivers and shop owners. Those who fail to pay up may be beaten or given a knife jab in the shoulder.
The U.N. Human Development Index ranks Nigeria as having one of the worst standards of living, below both Haiti and Bangladesh. For all its oil wealth, and after seven years of governance by one of Africa's most highly touted democrats, Nigeria has become the largest failed state on earth.
Obasanjo claims to have been born again in prison, and he is prone to wearing his religion on his sleeve—a matter of controversy in a country that is half Muslim and nearly half Christian. He has exhorted Nigerians to "return to God," and many have done so, though not as he intended. Following the death of Abacha, a Muslim, the northern twelve of Nigeria's thirty-six states, acting against the constitution, imposed sharia. Many Christians in those states rioted. When asked about the role of sharia in the country's sectarian violence, Obasanjo (apparently unwilling to risk confrontation with the Muslims and, by extension, the military), said only, "Sharia is for the Muslims as the Ten Commandments [are] for a Christian."
The religious tensions commingle with ethnic ones. Obasanjo has lifted many dictatorial strictures on daily life, but in the absence of effective security forces, this has only heightened clashes among the populace. During his rule, the most lethal period of unrest in the country's history, more than 10,000 people have died. One of the worst zones of conflict is the Niger River Delta in the south, the site of most of Nigeria's mainland petroleum reserves. In recent years, numerous attacks by militias under the rebel leader Alhaji Dokubo-Asari have forced multinationals (against whom Dokubo-Asari has promised "all-out war") to cease pumping, causing oil prices on the world market to spike. Threats also emanate from the north, one of the most radicalized areas of Muslim black Africa.
The security forces that Nigerians expected Obasanjo to bring to heel still act as a caste unto themselves, extorting and killing with impunity. Armed robbers outgun the police, who receive their salaries months late. Many officers have turned to releasing accused criminals from jail in return for bribes. Citizens seeking revenge have murdered police officers and soldiers, whose comrades have undertaken murderous reprisals. Obasanjo has adopted a malignant policy of laissez-faire, saying, "The military should not be pampered, but the military should not be bashed." Across much of the country, anarchy reigns.
Rumors are circulating that Obasanjo may seek a third term in next year's elections, although he is constitutionally prohibited from doing so. Whether or not he stays on, his country's troubles may eventually entangle the United States. One particularly ominous scenario looms: rebels may succeed in halting oil extraction in the delta, drying up the revenues on which the northern elites depend. If, in response, a northern Muslim general were to oust the president and seize power, the United States would find itself facing an Islamic population almost five times Saudi Arabia's, radicalized and in control of the abundant oil reserves that America has vowed to protect. Should that day come, it could herald a military intervention far more massive than the Iraqi campaign.
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<font size="5"><center>If Nigeria thought like Venezuela</font size><font size="4">
"If Nigeria became a responsible nation and would realize
the power of it resources, there would be little poverty in
the nation and it could spread its influence amongst its
neighbors and protect them from the exploitation that
comes from all directions of the globe."
-Harry C. Alford </font size></center>
Mr. Harry C. Alford, President/CEO,
National Black Chamber of Commerce,
Washington, D.C., U.S.A.
By Harry C. Alford
( Wednesday, April 11, 2007 )
You can say what you want about Hugo Chavez, President of Venezuela, but one thing is for certain - he is a world player. Single handedly he has made his country a major influence in South America. Prime ministers and presidents kiss his hand and ask for his advice on international issues. The more the Bush administration throws at him, the bigger he becomes. Any major policy that goes on in the Caribbean and South America comes across his desk for opinion.
How did he do it? By simply leveraging his natural resources such as cash and oil. You even see public relations ploys on television touting his generous discounts of home heating oil to residents in northeastern United States. Citgo, owned by Venezuela, is a major player not just in South America but right here in the United States. It is as if no one can stop this new major player named Hugo Chavez. As President Bush is making a tour of South America he is countering with an "anti-Bush tour" with the moral support of Black activists such as Harry Belafonte and Danny Glover. He is a player and Venezuela, perhaps all of South America, is better for it - at least more independent.
One of the most impressive things President Chavez has done is wean South American nations from the influence of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). He views the IMF as an agent in the service of the US. He has persuaded South American nations to pay off their debts to the IMF and use Venezuela as the preferred friendly lender. IMF lending in the region has fallen to $50 million, or less than 1 percent of its global portfolio, compared with 80 percent in 2005. Meanwhile, Chavez has used his oil wealth to lend $2.5 billion to Argentina, offer $1.5 billion to Bolivia and $500 million to Ecuador. He says he is promoting a "socialist" alternative to the Fund and its biggest shareholder, the US Treasury. The global clout of the IMF is now diminishing.
The counterpart to the IMF in Africa is the World Bank. The World Bank has the majority of African nations indebted to it. Like Venezuela, Nigeria is loaded with oil reserves and receives billions in cash from this precious resource. Due to malfeasance and corruption, this nation which has the largest population of Blacks (100 million+) does not bask in the sunlight with its oil revenue. It squanders it through many diversions. It is actually in debt itself and there is much internal violence due to the poverty caused by the vast waste.
If Nigeria became a responsible nation and would realize the power of it resources, there would be little poverty in the nation and it could spread its influence amongst its neighbors and protect them from the exploitation that comes from all directions of the globe. Wouldn't that be wonderful? African nations depending on financing from their sister nations would be the start to massive economic empowerment. Right now, the leading investor in Africa is, in fact, the Republic of South Africa. But it cannot do it alone. Nigeria with its natural wealth can be the key to turning this around. Within a few years, the World Bank would be getting out of Africa and the sphere of influence would belong solely to the Africans.
The greedy money grabbers that have too much power in these countries must soon realize that they can still be rich while allowing their own people to free themselves from poverty and oppression caused by indebtedness to strangers who do not have their best interests at heart.
It is the destiny of Nigeria to lead the way. Venezuela has set the example and a set of "best practices". It may sound like hard medicine to the United States from a policy point of view but let's face it. The world, particularly Africa, is not our toy or something destined to be under our power. The oil revenue from Nigeria can be the catalyst. With success and a good business model, the continent can proceed with harnessing the rest of its massive reserves of oil. From there they can move to diamonds, platinum, gold, coltran and all of the rest of the valuable resources that God has blessed it with.
My goodness, if Venezuela can move to a major position of power and influence in a few quick years, think about the possibilities of the great continent of Africa. Hugo Chavez speaks and the whole world listens. He is quoted almost daily in all major newspapers because he has learned the power of resource utilization. Nigeria, it is time to make your move.
Mr. Alford is co-founder, President/CEO of the National Black Chamber of Commerce. Website: wwwnationalbcc.org. Email: president@nationalbcc.org
http://www.africamasterweb.com/AdSense/NigeriaThoughtLikeVenezuela.html
"If Nigeria became a responsible nation and would realize
the power of it resources, there would be little poverty in
the nation and it could spread its influence amongst its
neighbors and protect them from the exploitation that
comes from all directions of the globe."
-Harry C. Alford </font size></center>
Mr. Harry C. Alford, President/CEO,
National Black Chamber of Commerce,
Washington, D.C., U.S.A.
By Harry C. Alford
( Wednesday, April 11, 2007 )
You can say what you want about Hugo Chavez, President of Venezuela, but one thing is for certain - he is a world player. Single handedly he has made his country a major influence in South America. Prime ministers and presidents kiss his hand and ask for his advice on international issues. The more the Bush administration throws at him, the bigger he becomes. Any major policy that goes on in the Caribbean and South America comes across his desk for opinion.
How did he do it? By simply leveraging his natural resources such as cash and oil. You even see public relations ploys on television touting his generous discounts of home heating oil to residents in northeastern United States. Citgo, owned by Venezuela, is a major player not just in South America but right here in the United States. It is as if no one can stop this new major player named Hugo Chavez. As President Bush is making a tour of South America he is countering with an "anti-Bush tour" with the moral support of Black activists such as Harry Belafonte and Danny Glover. He is a player and Venezuela, perhaps all of South America, is better for it - at least more independent.
One of the most impressive things President Chavez has done is wean South American nations from the influence of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). He views the IMF as an agent in the service of the US. He has persuaded South American nations to pay off their debts to the IMF and use Venezuela as the preferred friendly lender. IMF lending in the region has fallen to $50 million, or less than 1 percent of its global portfolio, compared with 80 percent in 2005. Meanwhile, Chavez has used his oil wealth to lend $2.5 billion to Argentina, offer $1.5 billion to Bolivia and $500 million to Ecuador. He says he is promoting a "socialist" alternative to the Fund and its biggest shareholder, the US Treasury. The global clout of the IMF is now diminishing.
The counterpart to the IMF in Africa is the World Bank. The World Bank has the majority of African nations indebted to it. Like Venezuela, Nigeria is loaded with oil reserves and receives billions in cash from this precious resource. Due to malfeasance and corruption, this nation which has the largest population of Blacks (100 million+) does not bask in the sunlight with its oil revenue. It squanders it through many diversions. It is actually in debt itself and there is much internal violence due to the poverty caused by the vast waste.
If Nigeria became a responsible nation and would realize the power of it resources, there would be little poverty in the nation and it could spread its influence amongst its neighbors and protect them from the exploitation that comes from all directions of the globe. Wouldn't that be wonderful? African nations depending on financing from their sister nations would be the start to massive economic empowerment. Right now, the leading investor in Africa is, in fact, the Republic of South Africa. But it cannot do it alone. Nigeria with its natural wealth can be the key to turning this around. Within a few years, the World Bank would be getting out of Africa and the sphere of influence would belong solely to the Africans.
The greedy money grabbers that have too much power in these countries must soon realize that they can still be rich while allowing their own people to free themselves from poverty and oppression caused by indebtedness to strangers who do not have their best interests at heart.
It is the destiny of Nigeria to lead the way. Venezuela has set the example and a set of "best practices". It may sound like hard medicine to the United States from a policy point of view but let's face it. The world, particularly Africa, is not our toy or something destined to be under our power. The oil revenue from Nigeria can be the catalyst. With success and a good business model, the continent can proceed with harnessing the rest of its massive reserves of oil. From there they can move to diamonds, platinum, gold, coltran and all of the rest of the valuable resources that God has blessed it with.
My goodness, if Venezuela can move to a major position of power and influence in a few quick years, think about the possibilities of the great continent of Africa. Hugo Chavez speaks and the whole world listens. He is quoted almost daily in all major newspapers because he has learned the power of resource utilization. Nigeria, it is time to make your move.
Mr. Alford is co-founder, President/CEO of the National Black Chamber of Commerce. Website: wwwnationalbcc.org. Email: president@nationalbcc.org
http://www.africamasterweb.com/AdSense/NigeriaThoughtLikeVenezuela.html
Good read
Chavez may be a pain in the ass and a loud mouth, but it's hard to deny he's been good for his nation overall especially the poor.
Chavez may be a pain in the ass and a loud mouth, but it's hard to deny he's been good for his nation overall especially the poor.
There must be something predisposed about us (Blacks). Anyone that follows history will come to the conclusion that we embrace our oppressors and claim it is our faults that we allow them to kill our culture and heritage. From the Arabs, to the Europeans to other Africans, we seem to accept their morays and distain our own. No other people except the exploitation of their native resources like Black Africans. This century should be the century of Black Africans united!
cia coup and died of skin cancerRemember Kwame Nkrumah?
friend to John Henrik Clarke
attended Lincoln University
No such thing as fair play
South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission; Blacks are asked to forgive, US Iraqi war invasion, whites are justified in blood thirsty vengeance. The hypocrisy!
This article is really on point.
then how does he become a pain in the ass and a loud mouth if he's doing well by his people? he could care less about what others say.
What would you like to hear?
It makes for extremely depressing reading and I can personally vouch for the veracity of everything that's been printed so far.
The British really fucked Nigeria up from the get go by their political shenanigans and social engineering for personal gain.
It's a volatile hotspot rife with political, religious and societal strife on all levels and everyone's out for themselves with no thought spared to the health or reputation of the nation abroad.
I lived in Nigeria from 1976 to 1989 and I can tell you that it's one of the most natural resources blessed nations in the world with incredibly expressive and wonderful people none of which counts for a can of beans due to the pernicious levels of corruption excercised by the so-called government.
Africa's richest man plans to build refinery in Nigeria
Africa's richest man plans to build refinery in Nigeria
By Tim Cocks | Reuters – Wed, Apr 17, 2013
LAGOS (Reuters) - Africa's richest man, Aliko Dangote, plans to invest up to $8 billion to build a Nigerian oil refinery with a capacity of around 400,000 barrels a day by late 2016, the tycoon told Reuters on Tuesday, almost doubling Nigeria's refining capacity.
"This will really help not only Nigeria but sub-Saharan Africa. There has not been a new refinery for a long time in sub-Saharan Africa," Dangote said in a telephone interview.
The country currently has the capacity to produce some 445,000 barrels per day among four refineries, but they operate well below that owing to decades of mismanagement and corruption in Africa's leading energy producer.
Nigeria, the continent's second-biggest economy, relies on subsidized imports for 80 percent of its fuel needs. A surge in domestic capacity would be welcomed by investors in Nigeria, but it would cut into profits made by European refiners and oil traders who would lose part of that lucrative market.
Dangote said the country's ability to import fuel would soon be challenged. "In five years, when our population is over 200 million, we won't have the infrastructure to receive the amount of fuel we use. It has to be done," he said.
Past efforts to build refineries have often been delayed or cancelled, but analysts have said Dangote should be able to build a profitable Nigerian refinery, owing to his past successes in industry and his strong government connections.
The Dangote Group's cement manufacturing, basic food processing and other industries have helped lift his personal fortune to $16.1 billion from $2.1 billion in 2010, according to the latest Forbes estimate.
Nigeria has two refineries in its main Port Harcourt oil hub, one in the Niger Delta town of Warri, and one in Kaduna in the north that serve 170 million people. Not one of them functions at full capacity.
Analysts have said previous attempts to get refineries going have been held back by vested interests such as fuel importers profiting from the status quo. Dangote said this concerned him.
"The people who were supposed to invest in refineries, who understand the market, are benefiting from there being no refineries because of the fuel import business," he said. "Some ... are going to try to ... interfere."
Nigeria's government subsidizes fuel imports to keep pump prices well below the market rate at a cost of billions of dollars a year. Fuel subsidies are the single biggest item on the country's budget.
Dangote said making a new refinery run at a profit would work even if the government failed to scrap the subsidized fuel price that has deterred others from investing.
"We've done our numbers and the numbers are okay."
http://news.yahoo.com/africas-richest-man-plans-build-refinery-nigeria-063530431--finance.html
Africa's richest man plans to build refinery in Nigeria
By Tim Cocks | Reuters – Wed, Apr 17, 2013
LAGOS (Reuters) - Africa's richest man, Aliko Dangote, plans to invest up to $8 billion to build a Nigerian oil refinery with a capacity of around 400,000 barrels a day by late 2016, the tycoon told Reuters on Tuesday, almost doubling Nigeria's refining capacity.
"This will really help not only Nigeria but sub-Saharan Africa. There has not been a new refinery for a long time in sub-Saharan Africa," Dangote said in a telephone interview.
The country currently has the capacity to produce some 445,000 barrels per day among four refineries, but they operate well below that owing to decades of mismanagement and corruption in Africa's leading energy producer.
Nigeria, the continent's second-biggest economy, relies on subsidized imports for 80 percent of its fuel needs. A surge in domestic capacity would be welcomed by investors in Nigeria, but it would cut into profits made by European refiners and oil traders who would lose part of that lucrative market.
Dangote said the country's ability to import fuel would soon be challenged. "In five years, when our population is over 200 million, we won't have the infrastructure to receive the amount of fuel we use. It has to be done," he said.
Past efforts to build refineries have often been delayed or cancelled, but analysts have said Dangote should be able to build a profitable Nigerian refinery, owing to his past successes in industry and his strong government connections.
The Dangote Group's cement manufacturing, basic food processing and other industries have helped lift his personal fortune to $16.1 billion from $2.1 billion in 2010, according to the latest Forbes estimate.
Nigeria has two refineries in its main Port Harcourt oil hub, one in the Niger Delta town of Warri, and one in Kaduna in the north that serve 170 million people. Not one of them functions at full capacity.
Analysts have said previous attempts to get refineries going have been held back by vested interests such as fuel importers profiting from the status quo. Dangote said this concerned him.
"The people who were supposed to invest in refineries, who understand the market, are benefiting from there being no refineries because of the fuel import business," he said. "Some ... are going to try to ... interfere."
Nigeria's government subsidizes fuel imports to keep pump prices well below the market rate at a cost of billions of dollars a year. Fuel subsidies are the single biggest item on the country's budget.
Dangote said making a new refinery run at a profit would work even if the government failed to scrap the subsidized fuel price that has deterred others from investing.
"We've done our numbers and the numbers are okay."
http://news.yahoo.com/africas-richest-man-plans-build-refinery-nigeria-063530431--finance.html
source: The Guardian
Supreme court blocks Nigerian activists from suing Shell over alleged torture
Nigerians had hoped to use US Alien Tort Statute to sue Royal Dutch Petroleum over the deaths of nine protesters in the 1990s
In 1995 the Ogoni Nine protesting Shell's operations were tortured and hanged by the Nigerian military junta. Photograph: Adam Berry/Getty Images
The supreme court has blocked a group of Nigerians from suing the oil giant Shell in US court for allegedly aiding in torture and murder in a ruling that human rights experts warned could limit the ability to bring such cases in the US.
In a unanimous ruling, the justices stopped a case filed by Nigerian activists now living in the US who allege that in the 1990s Royal Dutch Petroleum was complicit in the the torture and murder of protesters at the company's Shell Oil operations in the Ogoni region.
The unanimous decision affirmed a lower court ruling that the Alien Tort Statute (ATS), written in 1789, cannot be used to sue foreign entities for alleged violations of international law on foreign soil. "Nothing in the ATS's text evinces a clear indication of extraterritorial reach," the court found.
Esther Kiobel, the lead plaintiff in the case, is the wife of the late Dr Barinem Kiobel, one of a group of Nigerian environmental activists known as the Ogoni Nine, who protested against the devastating impact of Shell's operations in the Niger Delta. In 1995 the Ogoni Nine were tortured and hanged by the Nigerian military junta.
The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) said it was "deeply troubled by the supreme court's decision to undercut 30 years of jurisprudence to limit US courts' ability to hear cases on human rights violations committed outside the United States".
"The US with this case is withdrawing from the world from the path that international law has taken," said Peter Weiss, vice-president of the CCR, said. He said it was "in the national interest" for the US to promote human rights around the world.
Peter Rees, Shell's legal director, said: "In our view, the court has reached the right decision. Shell remains firmly committed to supporting fundamental human rights in line with the legitimate role of business, and I want to make clear that we deny, in the strongest possible terms, the allegations made by the plaintiffs in this tragic case. Today's decision doesn't weaken the human rights of people around the world; it makes it clear that the Alien Tort Statute does not provide a means for claims to be brought in the US which have nothing to do with the US.
"But we've always maintained this case has nothing to do with the United States. The Alien Tort Statute is an 18th Century law designed for an entirely different purpose and certainly not for application where there is no connection with the United States. We appreciate the opportunity to have been heard in this case, and we are pleased that the court has now clarified this area of the law."
The US Chamber of Commerce praised the decision. "The US supreme court's decision today ensures that trial lawyers cannot continue to use the American judicial system to expose global businesses to frivolous and costly lawsuits," said president Thomas Donohue. "Today's decision helps to ensure that America will continue to be an attractive place to do business and removes barriers for companies looking to do business throughout the world."
The ATS has been a popular vehicle for human rights cases since 1980 when Joelito Filártiga, son of a Paraguayan opposition figure who was tortured and killed by Paraguayan police, sued his father's torturer in the US courts. Filártiga was denied justice at home but sued in the US when he learned his father's torturer was living in New York. A US court held that torturers, like pirates, had become "hostis humani generis" – enemies of all mankind.
Marco Simons, legal director of EarthRights, a human rights nonprofit, said the ruling left many questions unanswered. EarthRights is currently leading a case against banana giant Chiquita Brands for allegedly funding terrorists in Columbia. As a US company Simons said the new ruling would not affect the case Chiquita.
"It's clear in other areas of the law that any foreign company doing business in the US has to abide by US standards. For the ATS there is now a two tier system," he said. Simons said he expected Congress would have to address the imbalance and that the ruling was likely to lead to more not less litigation.
Supreme court blocks Nigerian activists from suing Shell over alleged torture
Nigerians had hoped to use US Alien Tort Statute to sue Royal Dutch Petroleum over the deaths of nine protesters in the 1990s
In 1995 the Ogoni Nine protesting Shell's operations were tortured and hanged by the Nigerian military junta. Photograph: Adam Berry/Getty Images
The supreme court has blocked a group of Nigerians from suing the oil giant Shell in US court for allegedly aiding in torture and murder in a ruling that human rights experts warned could limit the ability to bring such cases in the US.
In a unanimous ruling, the justices stopped a case filed by Nigerian activists now living in the US who allege that in the 1990s Royal Dutch Petroleum was complicit in the the torture and murder of protesters at the company's Shell Oil operations in the Ogoni region.
The unanimous decision affirmed a lower court ruling that the Alien Tort Statute (ATS), written in 1789, cannot be used to sue foreign entities for alleged violations of international law on foreign soil. "Nothing in the ATS's text evinces a clear indication of extraterritorial reach," the court found.
Esther Kiobel, the lead plaintiff in the case, is the wife of the late Dr Barinem Kiobel, one of a group of Nigerian environmental activists known as the Ogoni Nine, who protested against the devastating impact of Shell's operations in the Niger Delta. In 1995 the Ogoni Nine were tortured and hanged by the Nigerian military junta.
The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) said it was "deeply troubled by the supreme court's decision to undercut 30 years of jurisprudence to limit US courts' ability to hear cases on human rights violations committed outside the United States".
"The US with this case is withdrawing from the world from the path that international law has taken," said Peter Weiss, vice-president of the CCR, said. He said it was "in the national interest" for the US to promote human rights around the world.
Peter Rees, Shell's legal director, said: "In our view, the court has reached the right decision. Shell remains firmly committed to supporting fundamental human rights in line with the legitimate role of business, and I want to make clear that we deny, in the strongest possible terms, the allegations made by the plaintiffs in this tragic case. Today's decision doesn't weaken the human rights of people around the world; it makes it clear that the Alien Tort Statute does not provide a means for claims to be brought in the US which have nothing to do with the US.
"But we've always maintained this case has nothing to do with the United States. The Alien Tort Statute is an 18th Century law designed for an entirely different purpose and certainly not for application where there is no connection with the United States. We appreciate the opportunity to have been heard in this case, and we are pleased that the court has now clarified this area of the law."
The US Chamber of Commerce praised the decision. "The US supreme court's decision today ensures that trial lawyers cannot continue to use the American judicial system to expose global businesses to frivolous and costly lawsuits," said president Thomas Donohue. "Today's decision helps to ensure that America will continue to be an attractive place to do business and removes barriers for companies looking to do business throughout the world."
The ATS has been a popular vehicle for human rights cases since 1980 when Joelito Filártiga, son of a Paraguayan opposition figure who was tortured and killed by Paraguayan police, sued his father's torturer in the US courts. Filártiga was denied justice at home but sued in the US when he learned his father's torturer was living in New York. A US court held that torturers, like pirates, had become "hostis humani generis" – enemies of all mankind.
Marco Simons, legal director of EarthRights, a human rights nonprofit, said the ruling left many questions unanswered. EarthRights is currently leading a case against banana giant Chiquita Brands for allegedly funding terrorists in Columbia. As a US company Simons said the new ruling would not affect the case Chiquita.
"It's clear in other areas of the law that any foreign company doing business in the US has to abide by US standards. For the ATS there is now a two tier system," he said. Simons said he expected Congress would have to address the imbalance and that the ruling was likely to lead to more not less litigation.
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