An economic and neo-colonial gang rape!

Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation and its largest oil producer, is from all evidence being systematically thrown into chaos and a state of civil war. The recent surprise decision by the government of Goodluck Jonathan to abruptly lift subsidies on imported gasoline and other fuel has a far more sinister background than mere corruption and the Washington-based International Monetary Fund (IMF) is playing a key role. China appears to be the likely loser along with Nigeria’s population.

The recent strikes protesting the government’s abrupt elimination of gasoline and other fuel subsidies, that brought Nigeria briefly to a standstill, came as a surprise to most in the country. Months earlier President Jonathan had promised the major trade union organizations that he would conduct a gradual four-stage lifting of the subsidy to ease the economic burden. Instead, without warning he announced an immediate full removal of subsidies effective January 1, 2012. It was “shock therapy” to put it mildly.

Nigeria today is one of the world’s most important producers of light, sweet crude oil—the same high quality crude oil that Libya and the British North Sea produce. The country is showing every indication of spiraling downward into deep disorder. Nigeria is the fifth largest supplier of oil to the United States and twelfth largest oil producer in the world on a par with Kuwait and just behind Venezuela with production exceeding two million barrels a day. 1

The curious timing of IMF subsidy demand

Despite its oil riches, Nigeria remains one of Africa’s poorest countries. The known oilfields are concentrated around the vast Niger Delta roughly between Port Harcourt and extending in the direction of the capital Lagos, with large new finds being developed all along the oil-rich Gulf of Guinea.  Nigeria’s oil is exploited and largely exported by the Anglo-American giants—Shell, Mobil, Chevron, Texaco. Italy’s Agip also has a presence and most recently, to no one’s surprise, the Chinese state oil companies began seeking major exploration and oil infrastructure agreements with the Lagos government.

Ironically, despite the fact that Nigeria has abundant oil to earn dollar export revenue to build its domestic infrastructure, government policy has deliberately let its domestic oil refining capacity fall into ruin. The consequence has been that most of the gasoline and other refined petroleum products used to drive transportation and industry, has to be imported, despite the country’s abundant oil. In order to shield the population from the high import costs of gasoline and other refined fuels, the central government has subsidized prices.

Until January 1, 2012, that is. That was the day when, without advance warning President Goodluck Ebele Azikiwe Jonathan announced immediate removal of all fuel subsidies. Prices for gasoline shot up almost threefold in hours from 65 naira (35 cents of a dollar) a liter to 150 naira (93 cents). The impact rippled across the economy to everything including prices of grains and vegetables.2

In justifying the move, Central Bank Governor Lamido Sanusi insisted that “The monies will be used in provision of social amenities and infrastructural development that will benefit Nigerians more and save the country from economic rift.”3 President Goodluck Jonathan says he is phasing out the subsidy as a part of a move to “clean up the Nigerian government.” If so how he plans to proceed is anything but apparent.

The huge unexpected price hike for domestic fuel triggered nationwide protests that threatened to bring the economy to a halt by mid-January. The president deftly took the wind out of protester sails by announcing a partial rollback in prices, still leaving prices effectively double that of December. The trade union federation immediately called off the protests. Then, revealingly, Goodluck Jonathan’s government ordered the military to take to the streets to “keep order” and de facto prevent new protests. All that took place during one of the bloodiest waves of bombings and murder rampages by the terrorist Boko Haram sect creating a climate of extreme chaos.4

The smoking gun of the IMF

What has been buried from international accounts of the unrest is the explicit role the US-dominated International Monetary Fund (IMF) played in the situation. With suspicious timing IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde was in Nigeria days before the abrupt subsidy decision of President Jonathan.5 By all accounts, the IMF and the Nigerian government have been careful this time not to be blatant about openly announcing demands to ends subsidies as they were in Tunisia before food protests became the trigger for that country’s Twitter putsch in 2011. 

During her visit to Nigeria Lagarde said President Jonathan's 'Transformation Agenda' for deregulation "is an agenda for Nigeria, driven by Nigerians. The IMF is here to support you and be a better partner for you." 6 Few Nigerians were convinced.  On December 29 Reuters wrote, "The IMF has urged countries across West and Central Africa to cut fuel subsidies, which they say are not effective in directly aiding the poor, but do promote corruption and smuggling. The past months have seen governments in Nigeria, Guinea, Cameroon and Chad moving to cut state subsidies on fuel." 7

Further confirming the role US and IMF pressure on the Nigerian government played, Jeffery Sachs, Special Adviser to the United Nations (UN) Secretary General, during a meeting with President Jonathan in Nigeria in early January days after the subsidy decision, Sachs declared Jonathan's decision to withdraw petroleum subsidy  “a bold and correct policy.” 8

Sachs, a former Harvard economics professor became notorious during the early 1990’s for prescribing IMF “shock therapy” for Poland, Russia, Ukraine and other former communist states which opened invaluable state assets for de facto plundering by dollar-rich western multinationals. 9

Making the sudden decision to end the domestic fuel subsidy even more suspicious is the manner in which Washington and the IMF are putting pressure on only select countries to end subsidies. Nigeria, whose oil today sells for the equivalent of $1 a liter or roughly $3.78 a US gallon, is far from cheap. Brunei, Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia all offer their petrol very cheap to their people. The Saudis sell their oil at 17 cents, Kuwait at 22 cents.10 In the US gasoline averages 89 cents a liter.11

That means the IMF and Washington have forced one of the poorest economies in Africa to impose a huge tax on its citizens on the implausible argument it will help eliminate corruption in the state petroleum sector. The IMF knows well that the elimination of subsidies will do nothing about corruption in high places. 

Were the IMF and World Bank genuinely concerned with the health of the domestic Nigerian economy, they would have provided support for rebuilding and expanding a domestic oil refinery industry that has been let to rot so that the country need no longer import refined fuels using precious state budget resources to do so.  The easiest way to do that would be to expedite a two-year-old deal between China and the Nigerian government to invest some $28 billion in massive expansion of the oil refinery sector to eliminate need for importing foreign gasoline and other refined products.

Quite the opposite—the criminal cabal inside NNPC and the Government making huge profits on the old subsidy system are suddenly making double and potentially triple more to maintain the old corrupt import system, and, of course, to sabotage Chinese refinery construction that could put an end to their gravy train.

Cutting their nose to spite the face…

Rather than benefit ordinary Nigerians as the IMF proclaims to want, the elimination of the subsidies has further pauperized the 90 per cent living on less than $2 a day, according to Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, the Nigerian Central Bank governor.12 An estimated 40 million Nigerians are unemployed in the country of 148 million.

Because transport costs are a significant factor in delivery of food to the cities, food price inflation has soared along with costs of public transportation for the majority of poorer Nigerians. According to the Nigerian Leadership Sunday, “prices of commodities which shot up as a fallout of the fuel pump price increase have refused to come down.” Everything from street vegetable sellers to carwashes to roadside photographers are feeling the shock of the rise in fuel prices. Unemployment is rising as small businesses fold. 13

The argument of the IMF and  the Jonathan Administration  is that by freeing fuel prices, funds would be available to  more social services and rebuild Nigeria’s “infrastructure.” Both the IMF and the Government know it would have been far more economically viable to replace the current corrupt system of importing refined gasoline and fuels with investing in rebuilding Nigeria’s domestic refining capacity.

Son Gyoh of the Nigerian Awareness for Development organization stated, “Would it not be more expedient to pressure government to service the refineries to full production capacity given the implications on overhead and competitiveness for local industries?”  14

Gyoh pointed to the source of the problem: “Why have successive governments left the refineries in a state of disrepair while spending huge on subsidy? Is there any chance that the savings from subsidy withdrawal will go directly into rehabilitating the refineries? Does deregulation imply NNPC will no longer operate a monopoly in importation of refined petroleum product or is this lobby a self-serving lifeline to continue its monopoly? ” He concludes, “In any case, there is good reason to doubt subsidy removal will solve the fuel scarcity problem as the cabal will only regroup to change tactics, a fact Nigerians are only too aware of.” 15

After Nigeria partly nationalized its oil sector in the late 1970’s they also took control of Shell Oil’s Port Harcourt I refinery. In 1989 Port Harcourt II refinery was built. Both refineries fell into serious disrepair after 1994 when the Abacha military dictatorship cut the “take” of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) from domestic sale of refined oil products such as gasoline from 84% to 22%. That caused a cash crisis for NNPC and a halt to refinery maintenance. Today only one of four refineries operates at all.16

What developed since was a system of NNPC importing foreign gasoline and other refined products for Nigeria’s domestic needs, naturally at a far more expensive cost. The price subsidies were to relieve that higher import cost, hardly a sensible solution but a very lucrative one for those corrupt elements in the state and private sector making a killing, literally, off the import process. 

NNPC criminal enterprise

The IMF is well aware of the real cause of Nigeria’s fuel industry problems. A Nigerian legislative committee examining the sources of the industry’s problems recently released a report documenting that at least $4 billion annually is taken from taxpayers in fuel industry corruption with the state Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) at the center. According to the commission, “every day, fuel importers drop off 59 million liters of fuel. The country consumes 35 million liters daily. That leaves 24 million liters of oil available for smugglers to export, paid for by government fuel subsidies. This costs the Nigerian people roughly $4 billion yearly, according to Reuters.” 17

The Nigerian government has said that the 7.5 billion dollars spent yearly on fuel subsidies could be used to provide desperately needed infrastructure. But they omit any mention of the rampant siphoning off of $4 billion of oil by black market smugglers, reportedly with connivance of high NNPC government officials, to sell to neighboring countries at a hefty profit. The refined imported fuel is reportedly smuggled into neighboring countries like Cameroon, Chad and Niger where petrol prices are far higher, according to Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, Deputy Governor of Kano State.18 

China as IMF target?

One major geopolitical factor that is generally ignored in recent discussion of Nigerian oil politics is the growing role of China in the country. In May 2010 only days after President Jonathan was sworn in, China signed an impressive $28.5 billion deal with his government to build three new refineries, something that in no way fit into the plans of either the IMF or of Washington or of the Anglo-American oil majors.19

China State Construction Engineering Corporation Limited (CSCEC) signed the deal to build three oil refineries with Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), in the biggest deal China has made with Africa. Shehu Ladan, head of NNPC, said at the signing ceremony that the added refineries would reduce the $10 billion spent annually on imported refined products. As of January 2012 the three Chinese refnery projects were still in the planning stage, reportedly blocked by the powerful vested interests gaining from the existing corrupt import system.20

A report in China Daily last November quoted Nigeria’s Olusegun Olutoyin Aganga, the minister of trade and investment that Nigeria was seeking added Chinese investors for its energy, mining and agribusiness industries. Last September on a visit to Beijing, Nigeria central bank governor Lamido Sanusi  announced his country planned to invest 5 percent to 10 percent of its foreign exchange reserves in China's currency, the renminbi (RMB) or yuan, noting that he sees the yuan becoming reserve currency. In 2010 China's loans and exports to Nigeria exceeded $7 billion, while Nigeria exported $1 billion of crude oil, Sanusi stated.21

Until now Nigeria has held some 79% of her foreign currency reserves in dollars, the rest in Euro or Sterling, all of which look dicey given their financial and debt problems. The move of a major oil producer away from dollars, added to similar moves recently by India, Japan, Russia, Iran and others, augurs bad news for the continued role of the dollar as dominant world reserve currency. 22 Clearly some in Washington would not be happy with that.

The Chinese are also bidding to get a direct stake in Nigeria’s rich oil reserves, until now an Anglo-American domain. In July 2010, China's CNPC (China National Petroleum Corporation) won four prospective oil blocks -two in the Niger Delta and two in the frontier Chad Basin, with plans to become core investor in the Kaduna refinery, and construction of a double track Lagos-Kano railway.23  As well China’s oil company, CNOOC Ltd has a major offshore production area in Nigeria.

The IMF and Washington pressure to lift subsidies on imported fuels is at this point in question as is the future of China in Nigeria’s energy industry. Clear is that lifting subsidies in no way will benefit Nigerians. More alarming in this context is the orchestration of a major new wave of terror killings and bombings by the mysterious and suspiciously well-armed Boko Haram. This we will look at next in the context of Nigeria’s recent transformation into a major narcotics hub.

F. William Engdahl, author of A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order 

         

Notes:

1 John Campbell, Nigeria’s Turmoil and the Outside World, January 12, 2012, accessed in http://blogs.cfr.org/campbell/2012/01/12/nigeria%E2%80%99s-turmoil-and-the-outside-world/#more-3994.

2 Chika Otuchikere and Chibunma Ukwu, Nigeria: Aftermath of Subsidy Crisis Food Prices Hitting Roof Tops, 22 January, 2012, accessed inhttp://allafrica.com/stories/201201231627.html.

3 Mustapha Muhammad, Nigeria: Billions Siphoned by Corruption Could Have Been Used to Maintain Fuel Subsidy, Inter Press Service, January 11, 2012, accessed in http://www.globalissues.org/news/2012/01/11/12407.

4 Mike Oboh, Boko Haram Islamist Insurgents Kill at Least 178 in Nigeria's Kano, January 22, 2012, International Business Times, accessed inhttp://www.ibtimes.com/articles/285620/20120122/boko-haram-islamist-insurgents-kill-178-nigeria.htm.

5 Christine Lagarde, Statement by IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde at the Conclusion of her Visit to Nigeria, IMF, Washington, Press Release No. 11/478, December 20, 2011, accessed in http://www.imf.org/external/np/sec/pr/2011/pr11478.htm.

6 Ibid.

7 Quoted in Idris Ahmed and Kate da Costa, Nigeria: IMF Pushing the Country to End Subsidy - - Report, 30 December 2011, accessed inhttp://allafrica.com/stories/201112300791.html.

8 Olutayo Olubi, Fuel subsidy: International conspiracy against Nigerians, National Daily, 15 January 2012, accessed in http://nationaldailyngr.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2825:fuel-subsidy-international-conspiracy-against-nigerians&catid=306:business-news&Itemid=561.

9 Ibid.

10 Ibid.

11 Ibid.

12 Ibid.

13 Chika Otuchikere and Chibunma Ukwu, Nigeria Aftermath of Subsidy Crisis:  Food Prices Hitting Roof Tops, 22 January 2012, accessed inhttp://allafrica.com/stories/201201231627.html.

14 Son Gyoh, Nigeria: The case against removal of fuel subsidy and the argument for deregulated petroleum sub sector, accessed inhttp://awarenessfordevelopment.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=66:nigeria-fuel-subsidy.

15 Ibid.

16 MBendi, Oil Refining in Nigeria--An Overview, accessed in http://www.mbendi.com/indy/oilg/ogrf/af/ng/p0005.htm.

17 Heather Murdock, Nigeria finds 4 billion dollars in fuel corruption, January 20, 2012, accessed inhttp://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/africa/nigeria/120119/nigeria-oil-fuel-corruption.

18 Mustapha Muhammad, Nigeria: Billions Siphoned by Corruption Could Have Been Used to Maintain Fuel Subsidy, Inter Press Service, January 11, 2012, accessed in http://www.globalissues.org/news/2012/01/11/12407.

19 Kerri Shannon, China Continues Its Run on African Commodities With $23 Billion Nigeria Oil Deal, Money Morning, May 15, 2010, accessed inhttp://moneymorning.com/2010/05/15/nigeria-oil-deal/.

20 Gavin du Venage, Everyone is a loser in Nigeria's fuel subsidy cut and partial restoration, The National, January 24, 2012, accessed in  http://www.thenational.ae/thenationalconversation/industry-insights/energy/everyone-is-a-loser-in-nigerias-fuel-subsidy-cut-and-partial-restoration.

21 China Daily, Nigeria seeking Chinese capital, November 12, 2011, accessed in http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/cndy/2011-11/12/content_14082411.htm.

22 Xinhua, Nigeria bank chief sees yuan becoming reserve currency, September 6, 2011, accessed in http://europe.chinadaily.com.cn/world/2011-09/06/content_13641562.htm.

Food for thought!

You Lazy (Intellectual) African Scum!

Culled from Mind of Malaka (January 18, 2012) and written by Field Ruwe

They call the Third World the lazy man’s purview; the sluggishly slothful and languorous prefecture. In this realm people are sleepy, dreamy, torpid, lethargic, and therefore indigent—totally penniless, needy, destitute, poverty-stricken, disfavored, and impoverished. In this demesne, as they call it, there are hardly any discoveries, inventions, and innovations. Africa is the trailblazer. Some still call it “the dark continent” for the light that flickers under the tunnel is not that of hope, but an approaching train. And because countless keep waiting in the way of the train, millions die and many more remain decapitated by the day.

“It’s amazing how you all sit there and watch yourselves die,” the man next to me said. “Get up and do something about it.”

Brawny, fully bald-headed, with intense, steely eyes, he was as cold as they come. When I first discovered I was going to spend my New Year’s Eve next to him on a non-stop JetBlue flight from Los Angeles to Boston I was angst-ridden. I associate marble-shaven Caucasians with iconoclastic skin-heads, most of who are racist.

“My name is Walter,” he extended his hand as soon as I settled in my seat.

I told him mine with a precautious smile.

“Where are you from?” he asked.

“Zambia.”

“Zambia!” he exclaimed, “Kaunda’s country.”

“Yes,” I said, “Now Sata’s.”

“But of course,” he responded. “You just elected King Cobra as your president.”

My face lit up at the mention of Sata’s moniker. Walter smiled, and in those cold eyes I saw an amenable fellow, one of those American highbrows who shuttle between Africa and the U.S.

“I spent three years in Zambia in the 1980s,” he continued. “I wined and dined with Luke Mwananshiku, Willa Mungomba, Dr. Siteke Mwale, and many other highly intelligent Zambians.” He lowered his voice. “I was part of the IMF group that came to rip you guys off.” He smirked. “Your government put me in a million dollar mansion overlooking a shanty called Kalingalinga. From my patio I saw it all—the rich and the poor, the ailing, the dead, and the healthy.”

“Are you still with the IMF?” I asked.

“I have since moved to yet another group with similar intentions. In the next few months my colleagues and I will be in Lusaka to hypnotize the cobra. I work for the broker that has acquired a chunk of your debt. Your government owes not the World Bank, but us millions of dollars. We’ll be in Lusaka to offer your president a couple of millions and fly back with a check twenty times greater.”

“No, you won’t,” I said. “King Cobra is incorruptible. He is …”

He was laughing. “Says who? Give me an African president, just one, who has not fallen for the carrot and stick.”

Quett Masire’s name popped up.

“Oh, him, well, we never got to him because he turned down the IMF and the World Bank. It was perhaps the smartest thing for him to do.”

At midnight we were airborne. The captain wished us a happy 2012 and urged us to watch the fireworks across Los Angeles.

“Isn’t that beautiful,” Walter said looking down.

From my middle seat, I took a glance and nodded admirably.

“That’s white man’s country,” he said. “We came here on Mayflower and turned Indian land into a paradise and now the most powerful nation on earth. We discovered the bulb, and built this aircraft to fly us to pleasure resorts like Lake Zambia.”

I grinned. “There is no Lake Zambia.”

He curled his lips into a smug smile. “That’s what we call your country. You guys are as stagnant as the water in the lake. We come in with our large boats and fish your minerals and your wildlife and leave morsels—crumbs. That’s your staple food, crumbs. That corn-meal you eat, that’s crumbs, the small Tilapia fish you call Kapenta is crumbs. We the Bwanas (whites) take the cat fish. I am the Bwana and you are the Muntu. I get what I want and you get what you deserve, crumbs. That’s what lazy people get—Zambians, Africans, the entire Third World.”

The smile vanished from my face.

“I see you are getting pissed off,” Walter said and lowered his voice. “You are thinking this Bwana is a racist. That’s how most Zambians respond when I tell them the truth. They go ballistic. Okay. Let’s for a moment put our skin pigmentations, this black and white crap, aside. Tell me, my friend, what is the difference between you and me?”

“There’s no difference.”

“Absolutely none,” he exclaimed. “Scientists in the Human Genome Project have proved that. It took them thirteen years to determine the complete sequence of the three billion DNA subunits. After they were all done it was clear that 99.9% nucleotide bases were exactly the same in you and me. We are the same people. All white, Asian, Latino, and black people on this aircraft are the same.”

I gladly nodded.

“And yet I feel superior,” he smiled fatalistically. “Every white person on this plane feels superior to a black person. The white guy who picks up garbage, the homeless white trash on drugs, feels superior to you no matter his status or education. I can pick up a nincompoop from the New York streets, clean him up, and take him to Lusaka and you all be crowding around him chanting muzungu, muzungu and yet he’s a riffraff. Tell me why my angry friend.”

For a moment I was wordless.

“Please don’t blame it on slavery like the African Americans do, or colonialism, or some psychological impact or some kind of stigmatization. And don’t give me the brainwash poppycock. Give me a better answer.”

I was thinking.

He continued. “Excuse what I am about to say. Please do not take offense.”

I felt a slap of blood rush to my head and prepared for the worst.

“You my friend flying with me and all your kind are lazy,” he said. “When you rest your head on the pillow you don’t dream big. You and other so-called African intellectuals are damn lazy, each one of you. It is you, and not those poor starving people, who is the reason Africa is in such a deplorable state.”

“That’s not a nice thing to say,” I protested.

He was implacable. “Oh yes it is and I will say it again, you are lazy. Poor and uneducated Africans are the most hardworking people on earth. I saw them in the Lusaka markets and on the street selling merchandise. I saw them in villages toiling away. I saw women on Kafue Road crushing stones for sell and I wept. I said to myself where are the Zambian intellectuals? Are the Zambian engineers so imperceptive they cannot invent a simple stone crusher, or a simple water filter to purify well water for those poor villagers? Are you telling me that after thirty-seven years of independence your university school of engineering has not produced a scientist or an engineer who can make simple small machines for mass use? What is the school there for?”

I held my breath.

“Do you know where I found your intellectuals? They were in bars quaffing. They were at the Lusaka Golf Club, Lusaka Central Club, Lusaka Playhouse, and Lusaka Flying Club. I saw with my own eyes a bunch of alcoholic graduates. Zambian intellectuals work from eight to five and spend the evening drinking. We don’t. We reserve the evening for brainstorming.”

He looked me in the eye.

“And you flying to Boston and all of you Zambians in the Diaspora are just as lazy and apathetic to your country. You don’t care about your country and yet your very own parents, brothers and sisters are in Mtendere, Chawama, and in villages, all of them living in squalor. Many have died or are dying of neglect by you. They are dying of AIDS because you cannot come up with your own cure. You are here calling yourselves graduates, researchers and scientists and are fast at articulating your credentials once asked—oh, I have a PhD in this and that—PhD my foot!”

I was deflated.

“Wake up you all!” he exclaimed, attracting the attention of nearby passengers. “You should be busy lifting ideas, formulae, recipes, and diagrams from American manufacturing factories and sending them to your own factories. All those research findings and dissertation papers you compile should be your country’s treasure. Why do you think the Asians are a force to reckon with? They stole our ideas and turned them into their own. Look at Japan, China, India, just look at them.”

He paused. “The Bwana has spoken,” he said and grinned. “As long as you are dependent on my plane, I shall feel superior and you my friend shall remain inferior, how about that? The Chinese, Japanese, Indians, even Latinos are a notch better. You Africans are at the bottom of the totem pole.”

He tempered his voice. “Get over this white skin syndrome and begin to feel confident. Become innovative and make your own stuff for god’s sake.”

At 8 a.m. the plane touched down at Boston’s Logan International Airport. Walter reached for my hand.

“I know I was too strong, but I don’t give it a damn. I have been to Zambia and have seen too much poverty.” He pulled out a piece of paper and scribbled something. “Here, read this. It was written by a friend.”

He had written only the title: “Lords of Poverty.”

Thunderstruck, I had a sinking feeling. I watched Walter walk through the airport doors to a waiting car. He had left a huge dust devil twirling in my mind, stirring up sad memories of home. I could see Zambia’s literati—the cognoscente, intelligentsia, academics, highbrows, and scholars in the places he had mentioned guzzling and talking irrelevancies. I remembered some who have since passed—how they got the highest grades in mathematics and the sciences and attained the highest education on the planet. They had been to Harvard, Oxford, Yale, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), only to leave us with not a single invention or discovery. I knew some by name and drunk with them at the Lusaka Playhouse and Central Sports.

Walter is right. It is true that since independence we have failed to nurture creativity and collective orientations. We as a nation lack a workhorse mentality and behave like 13 million civil servants dependent on a government pay cheque. We believe that development is generated 8-to-5 behind a desk wearing a tie with our degrees hanging on the wall. Such a working environment does not offer the opportunity for fellowship, the excitement of competition, and the spectacle of innovative rituals.

But the intelligentsia is not solely, or even mainly, to blame. The larger failure is due to political circumstances over which they have had little control. The past governments failed to create an environment of possibility that fosters camaraderie, rewards innovative ideas and encourages resilience. KK, Chiluba, Mwanawasa, and Banda embraced orthodox ideas and therefore failed to offer many opportunities for drawing outside the line.

I believe King Cobra’s reset has been cast in the same faculties as those of his predecessors. If today I told him that we can build our own car, he would throw me out.

“Naupena? Fuma apa.” (Are you mad? Get out of here)

Knowing well that King Cobra will not embody innovation at Walter’s level let’s begin to look for a technologically active-positive leader who can succeed him after a term or two. That way we can make our own stone crushers, water filters, water pumps, razor blades, and harvesters. Let’s dream big and make tractors, cars, and planes, or, like Walter said, forever remain inferior.

A fundamental transformation of our country from what is essentially non-innovative to a strategic superior African country requires a bold risk-taking educated leader with a triumphalist attitude and we have one in YOU. Don’t be highly strung and feel insulted by Walter. Take a moment and think about our country. Our journey from 1964 has been marked by tears. It has been an emotionally overwhelming experience. Each one of us has lost a loved one to poverty, hunger, and disease. The number of graves is catching up with the population. It’s time to change our political culture. It’s time for Zambian intellectuals to cultivate an active-positive progressive movement that will change our lives forever. Don’t be afraid or dispirited, rise to the challenge and salvage the remaining few of your beloved ones.

***Field Ruwe is a US-based Zambian media practitioner and author. He is a PhD candidate with a B.A. in Mass Communication and Journalism, and an M.A. in History.


Comments:

Foxcatcher
Re: You Lazy (Intellectual) African Scum!

Devastatingly true. Applies to just about any African country south of the Sahara.

Even South Africa, minus Bwana's input/influence.

Igwe
Re: You Lazy (Intellectual) African Scum!

"NO ONE CAN MAKE YOU FEEL INFERIOR WITHOUT YOUR PERMISSION" Said Roosevelt!

Some people may feel 'superior' all they want, but that doesn't mean others are feeling inferior. I certainly am not!

Does 'superiority' really consist in giving a few millions and then stealing twenty times that amount?

"We’ll be in Lusaka to offer your president a couple of millions and fly back with a check twenty times greater."

This is stealing, it has nothing to do with superiority, whether couched in skin color or not. Let's call a spade by its proper name!
And what happens to the leaders who say no to IMF and WB? What happened to the Nigerian leaders who said NO to IMF & WB? Who killed Patrice Lumumba? Who killed Thomas Sankara? Who just killed Gaddafi? Who overthrew President Laurent Gbagbo in Côte d'Ivoire? Who's supporting the present Nigerian govt that's faithfully following their (IMF & WB) dictates?

Walter is being clever by half:

QUOTE:“Are you still with the IMF?” I asked.

“I have since moved to yet another group with similar intentions. In the next few months my colleagues and I will be in Lusaka to hypnotize the cobra. I work for the broker that has acquired a chunk of your debt. Your government owes not the World Bank, but us millions of dollars. We’ll be in Lusaka to offer your president a couple of millions and fly back with a check twenty times greater.”

“No, you won’t,” I said. “King Cobra is incorruptible. He is …”

He was laughing. “Says who? Give me an African president, just one, who has not fallen for the carrot and stick.”

Quett Masire’s name popped up.

“Oh, him, well, we never got to him because he turned down the IMF and the World Bank. It was perhaps the smartest thing for him to do.”

So, why doesn't Walter point to Masire as a good example for others to follow and stop, in his own words, 'hypnotizing' other African rulers into taking their poison pills? How are the intellectuals in Botswana different from those of Zambia and other African countries? There are many countries in Europe that don't produce a pin!!!
And does Ken Saro-Wiwa fit into one of those 'lazy intellectuals'? But look at what happened to him!

What Walter is saying in effect is this: We need your resources and we need to keep you guys down. And we blame you for it, even though you are the victims of our greed. We blame you because we have a different skin color. And woe betide any one who plays 'smart' and doesn't want us to 'get to him.' We don't allow that!

All these considered, I'm highly disappointed that an African is blaming himself based on Walter's racial braggadocio. After his 'lecture', Walter jets off to Zambia to continue the oppression!!!

There sure are problems in Africa, a lot of them caused by Africans, but laziness is not the reason why we are having the problems we are having now. Even the so called Walter acknowledged that Africans are hard working. But he still has to find someone to blame. People who studied hard to earn degrees and who take a few moments off each day to relax, a practice that is prevalent in his own 'blessed' part of the world, come in handy: they are lazy!!! They are the reason Africa is backwards!!! What a thrash!!!!!!

We cannot solve our problems unless we fully understand those problems. Swallowing this kind of racially charged insults would produce the exact opposite effect. Listen carefully to Walter and you'd see that their so-called policies, which by the way are not good enough for they themselves, are part of the problems of Africa:

QUOTE: We’ll be in Lusaka to offer your president a couple of millions and fly back with a check twenty times greater.

When I was growing up, industries were springing up in my village in Anambra state, producing all kinds of things. Then the IMF policies weakened the naira, making importation very expensive and exportation unprofitable for many manufacturers. Many of them decided to import cheap goods instead of producing at high costs. That's very common in many parts of Nig and Africa. The present Zambian president, Michael Sata, wasn't the one who negotiated the fraudulent 'debt cancellation', a cancellation that, ironically, makes those whose debts are 'cancelled' even more indebted. But Sata must now honor that agreement or else he'd be in the black books of the West, with all we know as implications. The so-called fuel subsidy removal we're currently fighting in Nigeria is part of the so-called debt cancellation. Why not instead a demand to make the refineries functional and to build new ones as a way of dealing with the 'subsidy'? But no, such policies will not make them give a few millions and "fly back with a check twenty times greater"!

Instead of condemning this stealing with the contempt and disdain it deserves, many 'Africans' here are saying the guy is right. May be Walter is right, after all, that he "can pick up a nincompoop from the New York streets, clean him up, and take him to Lusaka and you all be crowding around him chanting muzungu, muzungu and yet he’s a riffraff."

A whiteman makes racially charged revelations of how they steal from Africans and the Africans on this forum are clapping for him. Shame on you all!!!!

Walter, for congratulating yourself for the way in which you STEAL FROM AFRICANS,shame on you. And you, Field Ruwe, for aping Walter by calling yourself a 'scum,' you are a disgrace to Africa!

Ka Chineke mezie okwu!

For those who have ears ...

From Global Research

For the fifth consecutive day, the Nigerian people have staged national strikes throughout their country in protest of the recent removal of fuel subsidies, which more than doubled the prices of transportation and commodities. In the northern city of Kano, protestors have demanded the immediate dismissal of their Minister of Finance, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the former Vice President of the World Bank. A worldwide spike in the price of oil could very well be prompted by an impending production halt as the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria and the Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers threaten to suspend their operations if a comprise is not met.

As turmoil ensues and Nigerian law enforcement officers begin to join the IMF-induced demonstrations, President Goodluck Jonathan’s recent declaration of the dire threat posed by Islamist group Boko Haram appears to be setting the stage for a coming initiative. A recent video posted online by alleged Boko Haram leader, Imam Abubakar Shekau successfully channels the theatrics of Bin-Ladenesque villainy, as he exclaims, “First we do not believe in the Nigerian constitution and secondly we do not believe in democracy but only in the laws of Allah.” Shekau familiarly goes onto pledge his groups’ commitment to wage jihad and bring death to America.

“Boko Haram” in the Hausa language translates into “Western education is sacrilege”, the group has claimed responsibility for a number of attacks across the country, most notably for the August 2011 suicide bombing of the United Nations headquarters in Nigeria’s capital, Abuja. Mohammed Yusuf, a Muslim cleric who was allegedly the victim of an extrajudicial execution at the hands of Nigerian security forces, formed the group in 2002. Under the command of Imam Abubakar Shekau, The group has shown to be violently opposed to secular leadership and Nigeria’s own Muslim elites, while striving to implement Sharia Law and the eventual establishment of an Islamic State in Northern Nigeria.

Amidst the current economic unrest in the nation, sectarian violence has continued provoking retaliatory attacks between religious groups along the sensitive Niger Delta region, a prominent source of oil largely designated for export to the United States and others. Imam Abubakar Shekau's recent video transmission espouses fanaticism that may form the beginnings of a sectarian civil war, stating “Christians cheated and killed us to the extent of eating our flesh like cannibals; you did all you wanted to us. We are trying to coerce you to embrace Islam, because that is what God instructed us to do.”

Regardless of this group’s legitimacy, remarkable unoriginality and possible foreign nurturing, the case for marketing foreign military intervention to Western audiences is steadily increasing. As an OPEC member, an unstable political climate leading to inaccessibility of its enormous domestic oil reserves would have dramatic ramifications for global oil markets. As the fourth largest supplier of oil to the United States, it is clear that the American Government would behave forcefully to preserve its stake in the region. A recently released subcommittee report issued by the United States Department of Homeland Security entitled “Boko Haram: Emerging Threat to the US Homeland” is a further testament towards the shape of things to come.

The document insinuates the growing threat of Boko Haram by associating it with other terrorist groups in the region such as Al Qaeda in the Lands of the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and the Somalian militant group Al-Shabaab; the authors themselves reiterate on the sensitivity of the resources within the Niger Delta region:

Page 18

In May 2007, protestors from the Ogoni tribe in the Niger Delta overran an oil pipeline, cutting Nigerian oil production by 30 percent. That same month, militants from the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), bombed three pipelines, decreasing oil production by 100,000 barrels a day for the Italian oil company Eni. This disruption caused oil prices to rise by 71 cents a barrel in New York. A well-co-ordinated attack by Boko Haram could result in far worse damage, completely cutting off Nigerian oil production in a worst-case scenario. If that occurred, eight percent of U.S. oil imports would be cut off, which could result in a spike in oil prices worldwide and soaring domestic gas prices.Furthermore, in an effort to combat the emerging instability being seen throughout Nigeria, the authors of this document suggest implementing a military cooperation policy similar to that administered in Yemen, which ostensibly includes extrajudicial assassination and the use of unmanned aerial drone bombardments.

Page 24
It is critical that the U.S. work more closely with Nigerian security forces to develop greater domestic intelligence collection and sharing with the U.S. Intelligence Community. Military cooperation is vital to a successful counterterrorism strategy. A possible model includes Yemen, with whom U.S. built an effective intelligence sharing partnership following the Christmas Day 2009 attempted attack to hunt suspected militants. While this relationship continues to pose challenges, it has had notable success, highlighted by the killing of Anwar al Awlaki.Just as the Franco-Anglo-American triumvirate orchestrated the recent snatch-and-grab regime change in Libya, the same military-industrial players are offering their services in an effort to secure their share of domestic resources within Nigeria.  

Page 25
In a recent display of growing international concern surrounding the rise of Boko Haram,  France has offered military support to Nigeria. Meeting in Abuja with his Nigerian counterpart, Olugbenga Ashira. French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe stated: "We shall fight against this phenomenon. We are ready to share any information. We are ready to coordinate our intelligence services. We are ready also to give our help in training cooperation. France is directly concerned with the question of terrorism.” Lieutenant General Azubuike Ihejirika, the Nigerian Army Chief of Staff, said that in addition to the United States and France, Pakistan and Britain have also offered to assist with counterterrorism training.

Although the document admits that Boko Haram poses a low threat to the US homeland, it cites the case of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who attempted to detonate a bomb in his underwear during a Christmas day flight on Northwest Airlines Flight 253 as an instance where seemingly obscure terrorist organizations thought to lack capability to deploy militants to the United States were nearly successful, thus requiring increasing vigilance to combat an ever increasing threat. It certainly makes one reexamine the supposed threat posed by foreign terrorist groups when examining the mainstream media reportage of the Abdulmutallab incident, which famously omitted critical eyewitness testimony that exposed the involvement of various elements of the US Intelligence community.

If Nigeria continues to face severe instability, the actions foreign powers will take to preserve their economic and geopolitical interests is quite clear. At this stage, it remains uncertain whether Boko Haram is a legitimate indigenous extremist movement or a nurtured product of Intelligence communities working to benefit from destabilizing Africa’s most populous nation. The tired theatrics and recycled rhetoric of Boko Haram’s leadership certainly lends credence to the latter. As The United States African Command (AFRICOM) continues to expand its influence throughout the continent, the entity has long anticipated Nigerian instability; its 2008 war-game scenario envisioned 20,000 U.S. troops maintaining security of the Niger Delta oil fields within a dissolved anarchic Nigeria.

According to a Washington, D.C. based journalist, Scott Morgan, Nigerian military sources have confirmed that U.S. troops are scheduled to be deployed within Nigeria to help local forces do battle with Boko Haram. U.S. officials have not confirmed the deployment, however the increased presence in the region would be consistent with the cumulative expansion of an aggressive Pan-African foreign policy, spearheaded by America’s first President of African descent.

The fix is in!

From Global Research.ca

Lagos Dissents Under IMF Hegemony

Nigeria: The Next Front for AFRICOM

On a recent trip to West Africa, the newly appointed managing director of the International Monetary Fund,Christine Lagarde ordered the governments of Nigeria, Guinea, Cameroon, Ghana and Chad to relinquish vital fuel subsidies. Much to the dismay of the population of these nations, the prices of fuel and transport have near tripled over night without notice, causing widespread violence on the streets of the Nigerian capital of Abuja and its economic center, Lagos. Much like the IMF induced riots in Indonesia during the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis, public discontent in Nigeria is channelled towards an incompetent and self-serving domestic elite, compliant to the interests of fraudulent foreign institutions. 

Although Nigeria holds the most proven oil reserves in Africa behind Libya, it’s people are now expected to pay a fee closer to what the average American pays for the cost of fuel, an exorbitant sum in contrast to its regional neighbours. Alternatively, other oil producing nations such as Venezuela, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia offer their populations fuel for as little as $0.12 USD per gallon. While Lagos has one of Africa’s highest concentration of billionaires, the vast majority of the population struggle daily on less than $2.00 USD. Amid a staggering 47% youth unemployment rate and thousands of annual deaths related to preventable diseases, the IMF has pulled the rug out from under a nation where safe drinking water is a luxury to around 80% of it’s populace. 

Although Nigeria produces 2.4 million barrels of crude oil a day intended for export use, the country struggles with generating sufficient electrical power and maintaining its infrastructure. Ironically enough, less than 6% of bank depositors own 88% of all bank deposits in Nigeria. Goldman Sachs employees line its domestic government, in addition to the former Vice President of the World Bank, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, who is widely considered by many to be the de facto Prime Minister. Even after decades of producing lucrative oil exports, Nigeria has failed to maintain it’s own refineries, forcing it to illogically purchase oil imports from other nations. Society at large has not benefited from Nigeria’s natural riches, so it comes as no surprise that a severe level of distrust is held towards the government, who claims the fuel subsidy needs to be lifted in order to divert funds towards improving the quality of life within the country.

Like so many other nations, Nigerian people have suffered from a systematically reduced living standard after being subjected to the IMF’s Structural Adjustment Policies (SAP). Before a loan can be taken from the World Bank or IMF, a country must first follow strict economic policies, which include currency devaluation, lifting of trade tariffs, the removal of subsidies and detrimental budget cuts to critical public sector health and education services.

SAPs encourage borrower countries to focus on the production and export of domestic commodities and resources to increase foreign exchange, which can often be subject to dramatic fluctuations in value. Without the protection of price controls and an authentic currency rate, extreme inflation and poverty subsist to the point of civil unrest, as seen in a wide array of countries around the world (usually in former colonial protectorates). The people of Nigeria have been one of the world’s most vocal against IMF-induced austerity measures, student protests have been met with heavy handed repression since 1986 and several times since then, resulting in hundreds of civilian deaths. As a testament to the success of the loan, the average laborer in Nigeria earned 35% more in the 1970’s than he would of in 2012.

Working through the direct representation of Western Financial Institutions and the IMF in Nigeria’s Government, a new IMF conditionality calls for the creation of a Sovereign Wealth Fund. Olusegun Aganga, the former Nigerian Minister of Finance commented on how the SWF was hastily pushed through and enacted prior to the countries national elections. If huge savings are amassed from oil exports and austerity measures, one cannot realistically expect that these funds will be invested towards infrastructure development based on the current track record of the Nigerian Government. Further more, it is increasingly more likely that any proceeds from a SWF would be beneficial to Western institutions and markets which initially demanded its creation. Nigerian philanthropist Bukar Usman prophetically writes “I have genuine fears that the SWF would serve us no better than other foreign-recommended "remedies" which we had implemented to our own detriment in the past or are being pushed to implement today.”

The abrupt simultaneous removal of fuel subsidies in several West African nations is a clear indication of who is really in charge of things in post-colonial Africa. The timing of its cushion-less implementation could not be any worse, Nigeria’s president Goodluck Jonathan recently declared a state of emergency after forty people were killed in a church bombing on Christmas day, an act allegedly committed by the Islamist separatist group, Boko Haram.The group advocates dividing the predominately Muslim northern states from the Christian southern states, a similar predicament to the recent division of Sudan. 

As the United States African Command (AFRICOM) begins to gain a foothold into the continent with its troops officially present in Eritrea and Uganda in an effort to maintain security and remove other theocratic religious groups such as the Lord’s Resistance Army, the sectarian violence in Nigeria provides a convenient pretext for military intervention in the continuing resource war. For further insight into this theory, it is interesting to note that United States Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania conducted a series of African war game scenarios in preparation for the Pentagon’s expansion of AFRICOM under the Obama Administration.

In the presence of US State Department Officials, employees from The Rand Corporation and Israeli military personnel, a military exercise was undertaken which tested how AFRICOM would respond to a disintegrating Nigeria on the verge of collapse amidst civil war. The scenario envisioned rebel factions vying for control of the Niger Delta oil fields (the source of one of America’s top oil imports), which would potentially be secured by some 20,000 U.S. troops if a US-friendly coup failed to take place At a press conference at the House Armed Services Committee on March 13, 2008, AFRICOM Commander, General William Ward then went on to brazenly state the priority issue of America’s growing dependence on African oil would be furthered by AFRICOM operating under the principle theatre-goal of “combating terrorism”.

At an AFRICOM Conference held at Fort McNair on February 18, 2008, Vice Admiral Robert T. Moeller openly declared the guiding principle of AFRICOM was to protect “the free flow of natural resources from Africa to the global market”, before citing China’s increasing presence in the region as challenging to American interests. After the unwarranted snatch-and-grab regime change conducted in Libya, nurturing economic destabilization, civil unrest and sectarian conflict in Nigeria is an ultimately tangible effort to secure Africa’s second largest oil reserves. During the pillage of Libya, its SFW accounts worth over 1.2 billion USD were frozen and essentially absorbed by Franco-Anglo-American powers; it would realistic to assume that much the same would occur if Nigeria failed to comply with Western interests. While agents of foreign capital have already infiltrated its government, there is little doubt that Nigeria will become a new front in the War on Terror.