The Oil Curse goes round…..

The discovery of oil is customarily seen as a symbol of hope for poorer nations to experience wealth and economic growth. One can not deny the obvious development in the oil rich nations such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Libya. There is no doubt that the rapid development and wealth of these nations are purely based on oil. However, African countries such as Nigeria, Chad, Sudan and Angola have only experience the curse of oil rather than the blessings of oil discovery. The presence of oil in these developing countries has made life worse and unbearable for most of the people who live there mostly the poorest people are the obvious victims and unemployment and financial hardship increases not decreases. Somehow it looks as if the discovery of oil is designed to be a blessing to a few and the rest are rewarded with the curse of oil.

The devastating harm that oil has caused the developing nations is so great to amount to a conspiracy to keep the poorer nations poor and the rich nations richer. Chad has a source of oil wealth but also the oil has fuelled fighting in Chad and not surprisingly the living standards are some of the lowest in the world. The Niger Delta is home to about 27 million Nigerians who have experience one of the worst injustice and environmental distraction in the history of man kind, their livelihood as fishing and farming community has been almost eradicated. Oil has been extracted from the Niger delta region since 1975 and it has made Nigeria Africa’s biggest producer of petroleum. Foreign oil companies have extracted hundreds of millions of barrels of oil and have pocketed hundreds of trillions of dollars at the expense of the people of Nigel delta whom so far have not benefited from the oil exploration in their community. When desperation forces them to result to violence in an attempt to gain a reasonable standard of living, their corrupt government seeks help from Britain in “Clamping them down” what ever that means. The curse of oil among other resources such as diamond contributed significantly to a long civil war in Angola. The painful stories of people all over African who continue to suffer the curse of oil should not be ignored and my hope is that Ghana listens to their stories and learns from it. The finance minister of Ghana Mr. Kwabena Duffuor seems to think that Ghana’s “oil will be a blessing and not a curse.” I so hope he is proven right.