The saga between Kosmos Energy, ExxonMobile and the Government of Ghana highlights the politics of Oil in which I truly hope the President Mills’s administration has learned quickly for mother Ghana’s sake. We Ghanaian must not under-estimate how international politics are shaped by the Oil & Gas industries and it’s entanglement with western powers.The recent entry visa denial to Ghanaian government official by the United State embassy it's a none issue bearing in mind how United State operate it Oil & Gas politics around the globe. When President Obama arrived in Ghana I wrote an extended article about the real reasons to his visit to Ghana which was obviously in connection to the discovery of oil in Ghana. I was gobsmack and ashamed that the Ghanaian media bought the idea that the visit was about Ghana’s “model of democratic election in Africa”. This notion of Ghana being labelled as a democratic State is simply a fallacy if one looks at countries such as Botswana and Cape Verde which have always had a democratic and peaceful election. Notwithstanding, the so called democracy recognised by the West is not and will never be ideal system to Africa and its people.
The external and internal pressure on any elected government in Ghana from now on will get to an extreme and I sincerely hope it will not crack the core foundation of the mother Ghana. There are many examples all over the world on the negative or positive effects of the Oil politics and the devastated effect on the countries at the receiving end of those policies are difficult to be ignored. The incomprehensible open wars, covert wars, destabilisation and complete destruction of any moral or tradition of a nation in favour of money, greed and “a seat at the table” are the operational tools of oil politics. Ghanaians do not need to look far, Just a glance around the African continent and the recent war in Iraq illustrate the devastate effect of Oil politics. The AFRICOM base makes the oil politics far easier to operate within the African continent.
Mother Ghana or GNPC can learn from Sonatrach (Algerian government-owned company) and Sonangol (Angolan state-owned Oil Company) in terms of exploration and production of hydrocarbons. Hopefully, the recent meeting with Angolan government and the Mill’s government will bear fruit in helping GNPC develop into well functional and an oil giant in the world.
