From: wolda002@umn.edu
Date: Mon Jul 21 2008 - 20:20:14 EDT
Squandered oil wealth leaves Nigeria in dark age
By Tume AhembaSun Jul 20, 8:39 PM ET
With oil prices at record highs, government coffers in the world's eighth
biggest oil exporter are swollen to unprecedented levels.
Yet the vast majority of Nigeria's 140 million people live in no better
conditions than their neighbors in West Africa, the least developed region
of the world's poorest continent.
The same is true of many of Africa's major oil producers -- including
Angola, Sudan, Equatorial Guinea and Chad -- but Nigeria's sheer size and
2-million-barrel-per-day output make the poverty-wealth contrasts more
striking.
Nigeria has earned the equivalent in today's terms of nearly $1.2 trillion
from oil production over the past four decades, the sort of money that
enabled oil-producing Gulf states like Qatar to develop some of the
strongest economies in the Arab world.
But its four state-owned refineries are not fully operational, largely due
to mismanagement and vandalism, its distribution network is chaotic, and it
relies heavily on fuel imports, which cost around $4 billion each year.
In Lagos, a mega-city of more than 10 million people, the elite sip
champagne on exclusive islands -- albeit to the incessant drone of diesel
generators -- while the masses live in mainland slums without water or
electricity.
Ask an average Nigerian on the streets of Lagos how he is and he will
likely tell you "things dey hard, but we dey manage" -- it's tough but
we're getting by.
Healthcare is virtually non-existent, the roads are potholed, unemployment
and crime are on the rise, and Nigeria is suffering from spiraling food
prices.
"Nigeria is making more money from oil now, but look at the street we are
living on," said Efe Oyingbo, pointing to a dirt road where passers-by
waddle through muddy waters and motorists try to navigate cavernous,
submerged potholes.
A mother of two, her frozen food business in the suburb of Okota has
virtually collapsed because she cannot afford the high cost of gasoline.
The government has frozen the price of fuel but retailers have taken
advantage of short supplies to more than double the price of diesel in some
parts of Nigeria in the last few months.
The number one complaint is a stop-start power supply. Exasperated
residents of Lagos call the National Electric Power Authority (NEPA) "Never
Expect Power Always."
Nigeria's generation capacity has plunged to less than 1,000 megawatts from
3,000 MW a year ago, largely due to lack of maintenance at power stations.
South Africa, with a third of Nigeria's population, has over 10 times that
capacity.
Much of Nigeria goes without power for weeks at a time. The crisis has
closed hundreds of factories and slashed millions of jobs.
Since taking office a year ago, President Umaru Yar'Adua has been promising
to declare a national emergency on power -- during which billions of
dollars would be invested in the sector -- most recently saying he will do
so this month.
A committee he set up to review the sector said last month Nigeria needs
$85 billion to meet its domestic power demand, estimated at roughly 20,000
MW.
That dwarfs the $10 billion former President Olusegun Obasanjo spent on the
sector during his eight-year tenure, an amount which failed to deliver on
his pledge to raise capacity to 10,000 MW by the end of 2007.
A parliamentary probe showed more than $50 million of that money had been
paid to non-existent companies.
Yar'Adua has said his country was also looking for ways of bringing private
money into infrastructure investment.
Nigeria's public health system, education and roads are all in a shambles,
largely due to corruption and mismanagement during decades of military rule
which ended in 1999.
But close to a decade of civilian administration has given Nigerians little
to cheer about.
"We've seen over the last few years that the military has no monopoly on
ineptitude in government," said Antony Goldman, an independent expert on
Nigeria.
"By normal measures, Lagos does not function. It is not organized chaos,
there often seems barely the pretence of organization ... People survive in
spite of what government does not because of it," he said.
Lagos state governor Babatunde Fashola has acknowledged the problems and
said the state must spend more than $700 million over the next five years
to improve the road network alone.
Nine out of 10 Nigerians live on less than $2 a day, their lives blighted
by poor infrastructure and a lack of public services resulting from decades
of endemic corruption.
The cost of rice has climbed dramatically in the past few months, doubling
for some varieties. Consumer inflation rose to 9.7 percent in May, fuelled
by a sharp rise in food prices.
"We don't sell anymore, you can see the freezer is open," Oyingbo said,
sitting with two other women in front of her shop, pointing to an empty
freezer in the unlit room.
"This is what we do now, sit and talk about Nigeria and also pray and hope
that God will do a new thing."
--
Million.
Mpls MN
***HeGeRey ZBeLet LBe GhiDN'u Kt'ReKeBi AsBei***
AWET N'HAFASH!!!
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