While the world keeps its eyes peeled towards the Middle East and Western Asia, and to a lesser extent south of the border to Venezuela, another powder keg region of the world stands ready to explode on a moments notice. I am talking about the West African nation of Nigeria. Again, alas, the culprit is oil.
While the inhabitants of the Niger Delta are systematically looted and dispossessed of their land and livelihood, Shell Oil and other producers dole out royalty payments to Nigerian leaders and officials whose vision is limited to the tunnel type that seems to focus exclusively on the banks of Switzerland. The people get nothing. As a result, they are stirring to the point that armed militias are waging assaults on Nigerian naval vessels and corporate interests.
Possibly, this issue is not addressed because there is little that anyone can do about it. The oil companies are in a bind. If they do not play by the rules as is, the Nigerian overlords can find plenty of others who will do so gladly, including the Chinese, or possibly the Russians. Any American government attempts to ramrod any kind of guidelines intended to regulate how the oil companies do business in Nigeria, even if that were possible, would garner the same results. Of course, if Chinese companies replaced American companies, the people would not benefit one iota. The butchery of Darfur stands as testament to China’s hands-off approach to other nation’s internal affairs, which in ordinary cases would be commendable.
We could possibly buy off the Nigerian leaders of course, and subsidize investment in the country, but this would be ruinous in the long run, and frankly unconstitutional. To be sure, it would be inordinately expensive. While the supply of oil in the Niger Delta holds out, the power players in the country have a trump card they are playing not to the advantage of their nation, but themselves. They see no short-term or long-term gain by investing in the nation’s infrastructure, in such things as irrigation, education, health care, or modernization of rural villages with such things as electricity, and water and sewage treatment plants. Such investments would pay off long-term dividends in the nation’s future, but the people in charge of the country are interested solely in their own power and wealth.
In the meantime, more and more of the people of the Niger Delta are out for blood. Since a sizable portion, if not a majority, of the country’s population is Islamic, you have another factor that rears its ugly head from time to time and promotes instability, something the leaders can always rely on to discourage outside intervention.
What can we do about the situation? Well, to all practical purposes, there is not a damn thing, to be blunt. Sometimes, the sad, hard facts are what they are, and as they say, you have to play with the hand you are dealt. One thing should be abundantly clear, however. This is one situation you cannot or should not blame on the oil companies.
Of course, all it would take is the rise of a popular movement to focus in demagogic fashion the wrath of the beleaguered peoples of the Niger Delta on the oil companies, which are already a symbol to many of oppression, decadence and corruption. While government officials use royalty payments from oil companies to provide luxury cars and apartments for their girlfriends, a good many Nigerians trudge for miles to carry home a bucket of water filled with vicious parasites that tend to eat one’s guts from the inside out. Many poor families live in huts with no electricity, in villages surrounded by garbage and sewage. Many within the Delta find themselves driven from their homes and sources of livelihood. Too much farmland disappears, and fishing rights are worthless when the oil company leviathans swallow up traditional fishing areas.
Oil company executives of course would never countenance my suggestion. It would amount to them investing in the well-being of these people. Of course, there would be an expense, but they as well should consider the long-term dividends. I am not merely talking about the purchase of good will. That is a factor as well, but the more practical benefit would be the assurance of stability. They can do little, of course, in the way of health care and education. However, they are well situated to provide electrification and water and sewage treatment, at least, as well as irrigation.
Oil companies are noted for investing money in foundations the purposes of which in part is to conduct charitable activities. It would seem that such an effort in a nation where they derive a vast amount of profit would be more than justified to the stockholders. They just have to sell that idea to their board members. That is another problem. No CEO wants to make that kind of leap, and who can blame them? Of course, they can always point out that any such foundation investment would either provide yet another tax write-off, or yet another excuse to maintain oil prices at an artificially high level.
The cold hard truth is, those price levels are helped along now based on the instability, which they can easily do much to eradicate without harming their bottom line.
