By

Sam Abbd Israel

Foreword

Introduction

International Trade and the Oil Sector

The Underlying Philosophy

Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation

The Inglorious Partnerships

The Consequences of Mismanagement

The Race Dynamics

The Winners

Capitalising on Mismanagement

Counting the Cost of Mismanagement

Politics of Fuel Price

Politics of Global Economics

The Losers

The Empire is not dead

Why Nigeria was bankrupted

Globalisation Linkages

Ignorance as Tool of Governance

The Nationalists’ Oversights

The Need for Attitude Change

Summary and Conclusion 

The Global Injustices

The Debt Trap

The Local Collaborators

This booklet was inspired by an article written by Jedrizei George Frynas on ‘Political Instability and Business: Focus on Shell in Nigeria’ in Third World Quarterly. The article aroused in me an uncomfortable reality with respect to the roles that were and still being played by the international communities in the shameful affairs of Nigeria. This booklet, The Winner and The Loser, is therefore an attempt to look at who won and who lost the most in the economic ruin of Nigeria. The review started with an appraisal of the philosophical notions that underpinned the relationship between the Caucasian and the African races. It looked at the genesis and the dynamics of racial inequalities, which have become acceptable as a normal fact of life in the international relations of diplomacy, trade, commerce and economics. It also focused attention on the calibre of leaders that bestrode the political environment and their sad contributions to the underdevelopment of Nigeria.

At the end of the analysis there is a summary and conclusion that again tried to draw the lesson of the losses home as it focused on four major issues to which Nigerians need to find solutions and quickly too. These are: the issue of global injustice; the question of debt trap; the ugly case of local collaborators in the raping and pillaging of the country; and the need to make a choice between either a reformation or a revolution as a means of changing the character of nationals.

This booklet is very essential to the analysis of the problems of Nigeria because it attempts to demonstrate how important it is for Nigerians to understand the unique interdependency of nations. It also brings to the fore the underlying philosophy that informs international global relations, the result of the refusal of the colonialist of yesterday to let go completely of their empires, the fraud and the deceit going on in the name of global peace and development and the essential collaboration, collusion and co-operation of our elite in the international scam going on in the name of trade and globalisation.

This writer feels there is no point moaning when our sons and daughters are the principal agents in the reformed slavery going on all over the world between the ‘First’ and the ‘Third’ world. This booklet is an attempt to draw attention to this vile game and to stimulate discussion and thinking on what Nigeria can do to be truly free from our supremacist white brothers. The debt burden of Nigeria is the core issue of analysis. How did we come into this massive debt? What is the role of our oil sector in the economy? Has our so-called leaders applied some common sense in the management of the economic affairs of Nigeria?

The catalogue of ineptitude described in To Your Tents O! Nigerians did create winners and losers. The winners were the foreign racially conditioned nations that have forever seen the African race as fools and strongly believed that Africans are nonentities. They do not only see Africans as such, they also deal and treat each African they come in contact with like that. It was Montesquieu in The Spirit of Laws in relations to commerce, who says, "The greatest part of the people on the coast of Africa are savages and barbarians…. They are without industry or arts. They have gold in abundance… Every civilised state is therefore in a condition to traffic with them to advantage, by raising their esteem for things of no value, and receiving a very high price in return."¹ This statement was recorded in 1748 and, of course, it formed a part of the background theoretical moral and philosophical materials that influenced European trade policies and political programmes in Africa in the eighteenth century.

This writer has no quarrel whatsoever with that statement or what the colonial empire builders did with it as they explore, exploit and rape Africa to their heart’s desire. But my greatest disappointment comes from the realisation that after declaring our nation independent from those colonial overlords who claimed to be racially superior, our so-called leaders wittingly and thoughtlessly dragged us back into the commercial slavery, which was the main issue for the nationalist struggle. Nigeria, of all the African countries, had the wherewithal to free herself from this international chicanery by the virtue of the wealth nature has bestowed on her.

However, the paucity of brilliant and selfless men and women in Nigeria since 1960 who could stand firm on the foundation of true knowledge and as a result enamoured with courage to defend the honour and integrity of the black man has further made the racist slave masters more blunt, more cruel and more reckless in their pillaging endeavours. Nigeria, through the errors of omission and commission of her charlatan leaders, has failed the black race everywhere in the world. This is so because of the abundant human and natural resources at the disposal of Nigeria that was just begging for a judicious management. This is all that was missing and this is what, to the eternal shame of all Nigerians, Nigeria as a people could not provide.

The international trade relations and all other international relations for that matter are built around the principle of clever-dog-eats-the-dumb-dog. From Baron de Montesquieu’s, Alfred Marshall’s, Albert Schweitzer’s, and other European writers of the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries, the seed of the belief was sown that black Africans are as dumb as they come.

Elizabeth Isichei’s work on the History of Nigeria captured some of the memorable quotes on the nature of trade between Europe and Africa before 1900. It was recorded that the Europeans traders in Africa deliberately exported and exchanged shoddy industrial materials of very poor quality to Africa. One of the quotes was that of Isaac Newton, the celebrated English scientist and mathematician, in his reminiscences as one who was directly involved in the slave trade business. Newton remarked that, "Not an article that is capable of diminution or adulteration is delivered genuine or entire. The spirits are lowered by water. False heads are put into the keg that contains the gunpowder so that, though the keg appears large, there is no powder in it, than in a much smaller. The linen and cotton cloths are opened, and two to three yards, according to the length of the piece, cut off, not from the end but out of the middle."² Another valuable quote in Isichei’s came from a well informed observer in Birmingham who said, "immense numbers of guns were made, with the knowledge and certainty, that if they were ever fired out of, they were certain to burst in the discharge. These guns were made for one market - that of the coast of Africa."³

The idea of exchanging a bottle of worthless gin for the possession of the land mass of a country or of supplying fake but colourful bright metals as original gold in exchange for pure gold or other valuable mineral resource or of exchanging a whole human being for a packet of adulterated gunpowder and antique fire arms were the order of the day as a result of this belief. Still, this writer has no quarrel with that since the godless white men were using the advantage of mere literacy skill not education over their illiterate superstitious African partners. The calibre of white people that have found a profitable niche on the coast of Africa all these years can never be called educated.

To be educated means a person is cultured, principled and civilised with respect to cherished humane virtues. These are virtues that carry in their trails justice, mercy, fair play and respect for other persons. It does not matter whether the person is weak or strong, king or common, white or black. But the dumb servitude, the stupid greed, the foolish subservient relationship found between the Nigerian prodigal sons, the political gangsters, the unconcerned professionals, the uncivil servants and their equally morally depraved white partners since independence is what makes this writer very uncomfortable, very sad and very furious indeed.

The prodigal sons who mismanaged the Nigerian economy and bastardised the social values, norms and culture of the Nigerian nations were mere stupid accessories in the international trade scam called global economy of free market. When we look at the debt profile of Nigeria, currently put at $38billion as at 1998 (This figure depends on who you believe), we find that the leading identifiable national creditors are owed $17.7billion. This is distributed among them as follows: United Kingdom $4.9billion, Germany $3.8billion, Japan $3billion, France $2.8billion, Netherlands $1.2billion, Italy $1billion, and United States of America $1billion.⁴ The question is how did Nigeria come about this debt in spite of the mouth-watering wealth that accrued to it from oil since the 1950s? To fully understand the calamity facing Nigeria is to look at the level of ineptitude and profligate careless abandon with which these foolish boys handled the goose laying the golden eggs on which their greed, gluttony and debauchery depended.

Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation

The economy of Nigeria since the 1970s depends solely to the tune of between 70-90 per cent of annual budget on revenue from oil. The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) that was established in 1971 handles this all-important operation. The Corporation is the economic soul of the Nigerian nation. But because of the level of corruption, distrust and political instability, this company has never had a stable management. Therefore, the absence of management continuity at NNPC ensures there was no "coherent petroleum policy". It is on record that between 1971 and 1995, the corporation was practising a musical-chair management strategy whereby 15 different chief executives occupied the glamorous seat of the Managing Director of NNPC. THISDAY reckoned that, there was "an average of one chief executive every 13 months."⁵ Not bad at all.

This singular carelessness on the part of the Federal Government of Nigeria becomes a veritable instrument in the hands of the sharks and pirates vigilantly floating about in the international waters of global trade. The Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC-Nigeria) is the largest oil-producing venture in Nigeria. It is owned 100 per cent by Shell, a British company. Shell D’arcy was the first company on the scene in 1930s when geological surveys confirmed that Nigeria had oil. By the virtue of its national origin and favourable connection with the British Colonial Nigeria, Shell did not only get the first licence to explore and exploit for oil in Nigeria but also had access to all the intelligence reports of best locations of oil before any other company.

As at 1995, Shell’s exploration and production division generated 43 per cent - ($2.947 billion) of Shell International’s total earning of $6.85 billion with only 16 per cent of Shell’s total labour force. Within the exploration and production sector of Shell’s international portfolio, Nigeria is the third most important venture for Shell, only beating by operations in the USA and the UK.⁶ "It is estimated that Shell makes $170 - 190 million in profits out of Nigeria every year."⁷ Definitely, this amount will be higher. According to Jedrizei George Frynas, in ‘Political Instability and Business: Focus on Shell in Nigeria’, secrecy within oil companies and lack of data have often hindered researches in the oil sector and "even financial data, at first glance the most neutral of all sources, may be manipulated."⁸

As a result of lack of reliable data from the oil industry, the best anyone can do is to draw inferences from the scanty available information. Also flowing from the political instability in the country and the resulting management instability in NNPC, the actual regulatory and policing function of the oil companies by NNPC has been totally absent. SPDC virtually became a law on to itself. As a matter of fact it became the sole financier of the central government and therefore the clandestine behind-the-scene policy maker or the Grand Puppeteer of the successive military governments.

By its central and dominant position in the economy of Nigeria, Shell has evolved the necessary political clout and the management experience to influence the policy direction of every Military Administration in the country. It is therefore not surprising to find that key personnel of NNPC and Shell seem to be moving from a management position in Shell into political appointment in NNPC and other government posts or from senior position in NNPC to management position in Shell. This formidable symbiotic relationship between NNPC and Shell is at a great cost to the Nigeria-nation. Among other things, it ensures that Nigeria has no iota of control whatsoever over its only source of revenue and life-blood. Ernest Sonekan, Nigerian Head of State in 1993 and Edmund Dankoru, the Group Managing Director of NNPC in 1992, are two examples of some notable employees of Shell who have made this important and valuable transition.