Winners and Losers [2]

By

Sam Abbd Israel

Then, if annual reports of oil companies cannot be relied on to give accurate statistics of operations; if published data on barrels of oil lifted per day are all cooked up; if NNPC, the eye, hear and brain of the Federal Government, does not have direct access to actual production cost and production out-put; if the oil companies deliberately and technically blacked out Nigerian workers and government officials from important aspect of their operations; if local villages and communities, like the Ogoniland, have no control whatsoever over their land or what is taken out of it or could not ask for redress over pollution and environmental degradation of their land, where is the check and balances that would ensure that Nigeria as a country enjoy the most favourable deals from this natural God-given exhaustible wealth?

Lest we forget, it should be mentioned that the oil wells are not inexhaustible resource. Even if they are inexhaustible, the spade of technological development will ensure that the future demand of oil will be negligible, if not nil. What then is Nigeria going to do when the whole oil sector collapses? Bearing in mind the level of environmental damages the oil companies have caused, bearing in mind that the agricultural sector has long died and buried, bearing in mind that Nigeria has no reserve or savings of any kind from all the mammoth wealth it derived from this sector since the 1950s, and bearing in mind that our creditors are greedily waiting by the borders to cart away every assets at their reach in case of a final default, what then shall become of the unity of Nigeria and her teeming population? Would those political hawks and wolves that are arguing that the unity of Nigeria is the only thing worth keeping still be around when the oil well dries up?

This is why every thinking Nigeria should be furious and be filled with moral outrage at the careless manner the affairs of this country have been handled by the prodigal sons and the political gangsters. This is what draws out the anger in Obafemi Awolowo against the white colonial government when he wrote the following, "The history of British rule in Nigeria...is characterised by a policy of aimlessness, drift and want of imagination. It is dangerous to behave irresponsibly with the political destiny and general well-being of a people." Is there any sign of bitterness among Nigerians today against the charlatan class of Nigerians who still go about the country parading themselves as leaders of the people? Or is it that we are all bereft of shame, anger, bitterness, moral outrage and all other human emotions that should be brought to the fore when a sane person finally discovered the cause and source of his/her misery?

In spite of the massive reap-off by these oil companies, over the years, it is now on record that Nigeria owes the mother countries of these companies to the tune of $38 billion. How far shall our clever Caucasian friends go in exploiting the foolishness and stupidity of their dumb African partners? This is like the case when a stronger and clever man took everything of value in the home of a rich but not so wise friend who came into wealth through inheritance. Not only did his so-called friend under the disguise of helping him to manage this wealth cart away everything of value but also afterwards left him with an outrageous mountain of debt in return for the ‘good services’ he had rendered to a dear friend.

Nigeria has become a classic case of a casino-type. Nigeria is like Las Vegas or Monte Carlo where the casinos Moguls lure in wealthy but stupid clients. The casino operators would ply the rich client with drinks and other pleasure in good measure before deliberately setting him up on the black jack or whatever they fancy in the casino. At the end of the night, it is usually a night affair, the wealthy client would have exhausted every credit facilities in his bank accounts, would have put down his limousine in the packing lot as betting chips, and would have signed off his palatial house and other assets as guarantees for money borrowed for betting. When the casino operators have done with him, after first stripping him off his gold wrist watch, chains and other paraphernalia of wealth around his persons, he is pushed out of their premises, penniless and alone.

Don’t be surprised by the suggestion of the heading of this section that seems to imply that the issue at stake here is a white man-black man prejudice. Of course it is, at least from the perspective of the white race. This is the conceptual frame on which the international global relations are erected. They are built on a white-superior and black-inferior philosophy. The atypical white man is still having the opinion and belief as well, that he is brighter, stronger, cleverer and mightier than his black counterpart. In a nutshell, he sees himself as very much far superior to the black man. As a result of this fallacy, in the design of all relationships with the black race, the white man assumes the leading role as a matter of course. If challenged by an enlightened black person, he takes it as a serious unforgivable affront to his person and to his divine authority.

The case of Professor Bolaji Akinyemi, the Minister of Foreign Affairs during the Ibrahim Babangida’s era, is a good example of this kind of egocentric myth. Bolaji Akinyemi during his tenure in office was a man who was cocksure of his personal worth as a human being. He carried (I hope he still does) himself as a man who truly believed he had every right to be the equal of every other human being on the planet earth. He allowed this reality to inform and to encapsulate his official responsibility and the policy direction of his ministry as the Minister of Foreign Affairs for Nigeria. This type of air, this type of refinement, and this type of manners coming from a black man and belonging to a debt-ridden country was strange to his counterpart in London and Washington. Their discomfort with this Minister soon became apparent within a short time. Two examples would suffice to demonstrate the nature of the international relationships African countries are subjected to by the racially motivated developed countries.

First, at the height of this quiet cold war, the United States Assistant Secretary of State for Africa Affairs set up meetings with Babangida, the then self-styled President of Nigeria. Washington brazenly set aside the niceties of protocol, which entails going through the office of his counterpart in Lagos, that is, the Minister of Foreign Affairs for such intergovernmental meetings. It was a quiet diplomatic manoeuvring that seemed to be suggesting to FGN that the United States of America does not wish to and cannot do business with the man Nigeria has appointed to be her spokesperson in Foreign Affairs. Secondly, the diplomatic imbroglio that arose because of the actions of the officials of the British High Commission in Lagos while setting up a new Visa Office in Lagos at the edge of Dodan Barracks. The British officials attempted to take the law into their hands without seeking official permission from the office of the Minister knowing fully well that Dodan Barracks was the residence and office of the President and Commander-in-Chief of Nigerian Armed Forces. It was quite clear that London and Washington could not just stand the intellectual dispositions and the self-assured manners of this unusual Nigerian.

What did Akinyemi do wrong to offend the sensibilities of these ‘friends’ of Nigeria? Nothing much. Akinyemi was astute in his duties. His personal integrity as an incorruptible Nigerian was just too much for them to swallow. He was conscious of his rights and confident of his worth as a person who is equal to all other persons on earth. He understands the culture, the philosophy and the thinking of his white colleagues and so they had no hiding place whenever they planned to play the diplomatic fuddy-duddy game. He was therefore seen as proud, lacking in manners and without respect for his superiors. For these sins, London and Washington nearly burnt him alive with all kinds of innuendoes, evil machinations and diplomatic ‘whitemail’ of all sorts. A British official from the British High Commission in Lagos, at an unguarded moment or maybe deliberately let it slip that, at the next cabinet reshuffle Akinyemi would be removed from office and replaced. It never happened though at the time envisaged by this official but it sure did happen eventually at a later date.

If you are still in doubt as to the depth of this belief among our white business partners or diplomatic and expatriate colleagues, let us quote from Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965), a German Christian priest, scholar, musician and medical doctor who is on record to have done so much laudable work in Africa for Africans but still had this to say about his African friends,

Akinyemi’s type is the missing link in the Nigerian establishment - the type that blatantly refused to accept any white man as an elder brother but rather as an equal. He refused to behave to type as expected by the big powers. They saw him as a small man throwing his weight around on the international scene without permission. They were irritated by his manners that seem to suggest that he fears no king or power. This was too much for them to swallow. They cleverly set about dictating to his boss, as diplomatically as possible, that Akinyemi should be replaced. Another man who came close to this type is Professor Tam David West who had similar experience with his counterpart in the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), an association dominated by the Arab imperialists. He ended his political career under Babangida as Minister of Petroleum Resources almost tainted with the tar of corruption and nearly lost his life in addition. He became by the warped conventional wisdom of Babangida’s administration, the only corrupt official of that government who was arraigned before a Tribunal on charges of corruption.

The point one is trying to make is that in the design of the philosophy that informs both the structure and the super-structure of international relations of diplomacy, trade, business, economics, banking, insurance, law, science and technology, Africans have remained totally inconspicuous. Africans are yet to make any significant contribution whatsoever to the defining of the character of any of these relationships. And from all practical observations, Africans have remained mere passengers that seem to be very comfortable with just hiking a ride on the global journey of life. Collectively, Africans have neither influence on the political and economic drivers nor on the purpose or the destination of the journey.

The historical factors that informed the imbalances and inequalities in the international relations among nations can be rested on the yet to be forgotten undignified status of Africans as a people of the conquered, pillaged, enslaved and raped race. The psychological impact of these grievous injustices is not yet fully cleared on both sides of the Atlantic. This is the genesis that can explain the heavy dose of inferiority complex found in the make up of 99 per cent of Africans. Bowed and cowed by this complex it is not a surprise to find that all African nations at the end of the twentieth century have no control whatsoever over their national resources, over their lives and over their posterity. One can therefore safely say, that, on the eve of a new millennium Africans have again been cleverly played into another legally sanctioned and internationally endorsed reformed slave trade. Who are the winners in this shameful saga of international reformed slavery? Who are the real winners of the mismanagement and corruption in Nigeria?

According to Frynas, "mismanagement and corruption in Nigeria were a big advantage for Shell because they increased the absorptive capacity."¹² Absorptive capacity is defined as the Nigeria’s ability to absorb oil revenues in good time. In a layman’s language, this means the propensity of Nigeria to behave as a spendthrift nation - a prodigal and extravagant nation. It means the irredeemable knack and profligate tendency to spend money as it comes; the pathological weakness and inability of its managers to keep and save for the rainy day; and the cultivated national love for ostentatious display of wealth from the top to the bottom of the classes. It means the obsession of Nigeria’s political and economic managers to be the first in the global race to partake of any new conspicuous consumption doing the rounds in the capital cities of rich nations; and the ability to clog the ports with all foreign junks on the special delivery order of the few rich fools. These are the kind of socio-economic indicators Shell found favourable for a good business climate in Nigeria.

Of course, Nigeria is a prodigal nation, thanks to its erstwhile redeemers in shining khaki armour. The only policy these vandals have instituted since they came on the political scene is ‘Spend. Spend. Spend.’ At the time they took their first short-term loan in the late 1970s, Nigeria was buoyant with gold and liquid cash reserves. The foreign reserve in 1980 was $10,640million. They were persuaded to take loans for their capital investments by the international banks and financiers whose vaults were flushed with deposits of petrol-dollars arising from the oil shocks of 1973. The international commercial banks aggressively pursued the less developed countries particularly oil producing ones and convinced them to borrow money for white elephant projects and other ridiculous consumption programmes on the basis of their oil reserves¹³.

As a fool, which is how their white colleagues see them, they succumbed to the temptations designed for ‘raising their esteem for things of no value’ and accordingly the international banks in New York and London have since being ‘receiving a very high price in return’. The Nigerian Press asked the Commissioner for Finance under Obasanjo’s administration, why was he taking a foreign loan when Nigeria has money sitting idle in the bank vaults? The Commissioner repeated the same mantra fed to him by the international bankers, why spend your capital when you can borrow cheaply for investments? Poor innocent Nigerians are now paying the price of that important financial investment wisdom.

The Nigerian ‘leaders’ were cajoled to borrow more of medium-term loans and worse still at floating interest rates. Unfortunately or by the design of their advisers, there "was a heavy concentration of maturity dates at a time when real interest rates were high and when Nigeria’s earning of foreign currency was declining." In 1983, the external debt was N12,000million but by October 1985, it has risen to N21,000million. According to McCaskie in Recent History of Nigeria, as a result of default "on the first repayments of debt principal totalling US $1,500million" in 1984, Nigeria was forced to reach a compromise with IMF, as part of the structural adjustment programme and therefore "agreed to accept ‘enhanced surveillance’ by the IMF."¹⁴

With that agreeable concession, there went the much fought for political independence of Nigeria. Nigerians should not be fooled by economic hotchpotch. What does enhanced surveillance mean in the lexicon of World Bank and IMF? It is similar to what happens when a company goes into receivership after bankruptcy has been declared. It entails external auditors scrutinising and combing the books to ensure that all creditors have a fair deal in the distribution of whatever assets remain in the company.

Counting the Cost of Mismanagement

Nigeria has been in receivership since 1984, thanks to the prodigal sons. Nigeria, as an independent nation has lost the freedom to undertake any meaningful project unless those approved by the IMF. The annual budget expenditure, the public sector borrowing requirements, the salaries and bonuses, the capital projects and investments and other public spending etc. etc. etc. since 1984 have been placed under the supervision of IMF. By 1997 nobody was even sure what the amount of the debt was, IMF put it at $31,407million, Federal Government said it was $28,060million while external creditors said it was $48,000million.¹⁵ Since IMF is the only organisation, which legally has the National Accounts of Nigeria in its possession, it will be safer to accept the debt figure submitted by it as $31,407million. Then, if the official exchange rate is N80 = US$1 as at 1997, therefore, the debt burden which was N21,000million (21Billion Naira) in 1985 had risen to N2,512,560million (or 2.5Trillion Naira) in 1997.

Let us do some simple arithmetical computation here. Again we have a little problem, since the census figures of Nigeria are all suspect it will be difficult to share this debt per head accurately. Nevertheless, let us assume that the population of Nigeria is 100million. If the figure of N2,512,560million is shared among the 100million Nigerians regardless of age or sex, then each Nigerian is owing N25,125.60. In other words each household of four people has a debt burden of about N100,502.40 hanging on their neck as at January 1998. To stretch the analysis further, each community or village with a population of 5,000 is facing a whopping debt of One hundred and twenty-five million, six hundred and twenty-eight thousand Naira (N125,628,000.00). This is the reality of the national economic situation that Nigerians are being shielded from knowing by their kleptomaniac leaders. Nigeria as a country is under the bondage of the super-powers of the world. Your life, my life, the lives of our children and the lives of our posterity yet to be born have since been bonded to the sharks and wolves in the financial and banking industry of London, New York, Paris, Frankfurt, Amsterdam, Rome and Tokyo.

Have you forgotten what happened to a debtor, even in the local history of our ancestors? A debtor is a slave. A debtor has nothing except what the creditor allows him. His home, wife, children, farmland etc. are no longer his. Everything a debtor owned before falling in to debt belongs to the creditor unless he pays what he owes as at the date due. This is how a good proportion of the ancestors of Africans in Diaspora became slaves. Nigeria has lost everything. It is high time Nigerians woke up to this reality. The message of this book is aimed at helping Nigerians to face reality in order for them to stop living in fools’ paradise. It is time Nigerians saw the so-called leaders for what they really are. They are incorrigible robbers and charlatans - nothing more nothing less.

It is unfortunate that history has been allowed to repeat itself again. It is common for revisionist and reparation crusaders to cast aspersions at the white slave traders while cleverly forgetting that the black man was the counterpart trader. If there is no seller there will never be a buyer. In those days, all the Africans taken away as slaves were led into the net of the foreign traders by the ‘enlightened and forward-looking’ men of their societies. These were the men who had earlier travelled away from their villages to the shores of their country where they met and were befriended by white slave traders. The white traders showed them a quicker method of striking it rich. They were the ones who went back to their villages to lure their old friends, relations and other acquaintances into slavery. These men became wealthy businessmen of their generation and the mover and shaker of their societies.

Now at the end of the twentieth century, it is obvious that for the international commercial banks, the investment banks, the financial markets of derivatives - futures, swaps and options - in New York and London to make their annual profits from the Third World, they would need local counterparts who understand the social, economic and political terrain. In Nigeria, these local counterparts are found among lawyers, bankers and accountants who are supported by the civil servants under the grand patron of the prodigal sons and political gangsters. These are the ‘professionals’ who sold the Nigeria-state to the dogs. These are the professionals led astray by their white counterparts who used old boys’ ties and college fraternities to pave the way for unprecedented lucrative business partnerships. They lured the local counterparts by capitalising on the weakness in human nature and by ‘raising their esteem for things of no value.’ Looking at the outcome of these business partnerships after 38 years, it is obvious that the Nigerian professionals were bereft of true wisdom. Although, they possessed academic laurels but since they lacked true knowledge, they fell like pack of cards to the clever machinations of their white partners.

To illustrate the above assertion, it was rumoured that during the Yakubu Gowon Administration a German construction firm was introduced to Nigeria and that the Nigerian lawyer who handled the legal papers became an instant millionaire. This example is not unique. This is the pattern of all international businesses in Africa. The operational philosophy was and still is, set one of the fools up for life and he will deliver his country on a platter of gold. This ideology is foolproof. It has never failed since the white man ventured into the ‘dark continent’.