OIL CURSE IN NIGERIA

Niger Delta Is A Disaster Zone
Carmen J. Gentile, April 12, 2007 (UPI)

WHO
Nigerian political leaders: President Olusegun Obasanjo, Muhammadu Buhari, a former military regime leader and presidential candidate, Rivers State Governor Peter Odili, militant leader Commander Akoko, as well as the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) and other militant groups

WHAT
Leadership, corruption, poverty, disease and violent struggles for power in Nigeria in the wake of enormous oil wealth development, also known as “the oil curse”

WHEN
Oil development is 30 years old in Nigeria.

WHERE
Nigeria, especially in the Niger River Delta, the center of the oil industry.

WHY
Nigerian oil has brought in $300 billion. Cities widely lack sanitation facilities and suffer from horrible air and water pollution. Electricity except by private generator is inconsistent. Living conditions in Port Harcourt, the center of the oil trade, are comparable to Baghdad. The UN calls Nigeria "severely impoverished" and 70 percent of the population earns less than a dollar a day. Obasanjo’s promises have done nothing. Odili is from the same party and the same mold. Violent opposition groups like MEND cut off their own noses by attacking oil facilities and kidnapping oil company employees, diminsihing oil production revenues. But the frustration of living under profound, debilitating corruption has bred a culture of violent, rebellious nihilism. Thousands have armed themselves with the best black-market weaponry and are making the country a war zone as well as a disaster zone.

QUOTES
- “Government graft is the name of the game here, particularly in the Niger Delta, where petrodollars practically flow straight from foreign oil companies to the pockets of elected officials.”
- "If we all have to die, then we are prepared to die," said the tall, burly militant leader known as Commander Akoko. "It's better to die trying to change things than leave them as they are."