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FreeRepublic , LLC PO BOX 9771 FRESNO, CA 93794
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Posted on 07/12/2003 4:55:53 PM PDT by sarcasm
Yetunde Ogunwa, a 45-year-old mother of five, lives without water or electricity in a dilapidated house next to mountains of garbage in Lagos, Nigeria's vast seaside commercial capital.
Despite the country's massive oil wealth, Nigeria's citizens have grown steadily poorer and its cities more violent in the four years since military rule gave way to democracy.
So as the United States turns to Nigeria to help lessen its dependence on Middle East oil, pressure is mounting for US President George Bush to take a stand against rampant corruption in the West African country.
"If only they would let him see how we live, he might take pity and help us," Ogunwa lamented ahead of Bush's arrival on Friday in Nigeria at the end of a five-nation tour of sub-Saharan Africa.
Nigeria, a regional powerhouse and Africa's most populous nation, is a land of contradictions.
Billionaires and beggars, law-abiding citizens and conmen rub shoulders in cities where power and water services are still among the worst on the continent. Violent crime is rife, and more than 10 000 people have been killed in ethnic, political and religious bloodletting since President Olusegun Obasanjo was elected in 1999.
Underlying many of the problems is widespread graft. A World Bank study on public expenditure in Nigeria showed as much as 70% of government funds were frittered away as patronage through over-inflated contracts between 1970 and 1992 -- leaving the country with worse social indicators than it had at independence from Britain in 1960.
More than two-thirds of Nigeria's 126-million people survive on less than a dollar a day. Widespread poverty spawned a generation of drug dealers and organised criminal gangs with a global reach long enough to prompt the United States to establish a Secret Service office in Lagos.
When Obasanjo was elected, he promised to end the brutality and corruption that characterised 15 years of military rule and quickly set up a body charged with investigating and punishing those guilty of graft.
Four years later, the government has failed to secure a single corruption conviction against officials or civil servants. Government coffers continue to be pilfered, while roads, schools and clinics are left to crumble and decay. Oil multinationals, pumping more than two million barrels a day from Nigeria's southern swamps, face growing questions here about whether they are fuelling the culture of corruption.
US companies Exxon Mobil Corp. and ChevronTexaco together account for more than one-third of production.
The US oil services giant Halliburton caused a stir recently when it filed documents with the Securities and Exchange Commission admitting a Nigerian subsidiary paid $2,4-million in bribes to a Nigerian official in exchange for tax exemptions.
Obasanjo has ordered an investigation into the deal.
Warring ethnic groups in the oil-rich Niger Delta region accuse oil companies of colluding with Nigeria's government to deprive impoverished residents of profits from the area's massive oil wealth. Activists -- and thugs -- frequently target the companies with sabotage, kidnappings and other attacks in a bid to extort payoffs.
Companies counter that they spend millions of dollars a year on community development.
"What we need from Bush is to ... clean up our environment and allow us to control our God-given wealth," said activist Itioghor Tortorbor.
International human rights groups have launched a "Publish What You Pay" campaign calling on oil multinationals to disclose all payments to the government.
Oil companies, which say they work to the same standards here as in any other country, have embraced the initiative.
The scheme as also won the support of British Prime Minister Tony Blair, and activists are urging Bush to endorse it too.
US Embassy officials said the violence in the Niger Delta would be on the agenda when Bush meets with Obasanjo in Abuja, the capital, on Saturday. But Bush has said little on the allegations of corruption in the oil industry.
Gee, this is supposed to be a news flash? Who is surprised? Maybe F16 Fighter, but not many others.
"What we need from Bush is to ... clean up our environment and allow us to control our God-given wealth," said activist Itioghor Tortorbor.
Clean up you own house, Iti.
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AND THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA |
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FreeRepublic , LLC PO BOX 9771 FRESNO, CA 93794
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It's on the Breaking News Sidebar |
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You already "control" your own wealth. Nigerians run
Nigeria. If they don't -- then who does?
G.W. Bush is President of the United States of America.
Americans elected him to conduct American affairs and
business -- not Nigeria's. He has no authority to be
involved in Nigeria. And one other thing: If all the
treasure, money and resources of America and Europe were
to be spent on Nigeria or anywhere else in Africa
nothing would change! You folks do not have the
constitution, temperment, demeanor, and sense of civic
responsiblity to govern yourselves or create a modern
21st Century society.
Huh? You think I'd be "surprised" at this news ditty??
Sure you've got the right guy??
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