Nigeria
A decision by the Nigerian government to halt a hefty fuel subsidy on January 1 prompted one of the largest and most coordinated protests in Nigeria’s history. Though the protests are over, the issues that prompted them remain.
UPDATE, 2/9/2012: Yesterday, President Goodluck Jonathan appointed his rival in last year’s presidential election, Nuhu Ribadu, as chairman of a new oil task force dedicated to tracking revenues paid to the government, and monitoring crude oil production and exports. Mr. Ribadu is formerly the chairman of Nigeria’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, and accepted the post at the helm of the 21-man Petroleum Revenue Special Task Force despite his political affiliations because of the “national consensus” on the “deadly impact of corruption.”
Occupy Nigeria movement. Photo credit: Temi KOGBE/ fatcityafrica.com
What is the fuel subsidy?
Though Nigeria produces more than 2 million barrels of oil a day, the vast majority of Nigerians see limited benefits from their country’s natural resources. Nigeria has four oil refineries that only operate at about 23 percent of their potential capacity — and as a result, the government has had to import refined products such as petrol to meet the needs of citizens. The government paid the importers in order to control the price, kept low at $1.70 a gallon, thus ensuring that Nigerians were able, until January 1st, to enjoy the low fuel price as one of the benefits of the crude oil they produce.
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Earlier this week, the Nigerian government removed a fuel subsidy that had kept gas prices in Nigeria artificially low. Because of this action, gas prices doubled basically overnight. As you could imagine, many people in Nigeria are not happy with this development (from CNN):
Furious Nigerians have since taken to the streets, staging ‘Occupy Nigeria’ protests and mass demonstrations across the country.
Police have responded forcefully with many arrests. At least one person has died amid the unrest: 23-year-old student Muyideen Mustafa was allegedly hit by a police bullet in Ilorin, Kwara State.
A police spokesman in Kano State also confirmed to CNN that they fired teargas into a crowd staging a midnight protest Wednesday in order to disperse a largely peaceful demonstration by Muslims and Christians.
For more information on the clashes, CNN has been following this story pretty closely and up-to-the-minute. And for a digestible rundown on the background leading up to the Nigerian government’s decision to eliminate the fuel subsidy, I’d recommend this useful Wikipedia entry.
Read the original post on ONE’s Africa Blog.
The Nigerian elections were scheduled to commence on Saturday, April 2nd with the parliamentary elections preceding the April 9th presidential elections and the April 16th gubernatorial elections.
The elections started hours late and after millions of people successfully cast their votes, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) issued a directive to all wards to stop voting. The official reason stated for postponing the elections was said to be a delay in getting the ballot papers to all the wards, especially in remote areas of the country, because of their late arrival into the country.
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Once again, Nigerians have been ranked the happiest, most optimistic and most hopeful in the world. As one of many Nigerians dissatisfied with the way things are going in the country, it’s easy to disagree, especially given how the country and its people are portrayed in the media. Nigerians have spent the majority of our 50 years of independence under military self-rule and the country ranks among the highest in corruption indicators every year. We’ve been beset by militant religious and ethnic strife in some regions, and of course, we’ve failed the democratic electoral process three times in a row.
So, why are we so happy?
The answer may defy conventional wisdom. Despite assertions made by scholars about colonial boundaries forcing ethnic groups into national conglomerations that can’t coalesce, the nation-building exercise is working in Nigeria. We believe in our country. If Nigeria hasn’t lived up to its potential, it’s not because the country is unsustainable. It’s because Nigerians haven’t lived up to Nigeria’s potential. I think Nigerians are innately, if unconsciously, connected to our national identity. We love the idea of Nigeria. We still feel that we are a young nation with the power to shape our future. We are a patriotic people, but we don’t measure our commitment to the country by a willingness to sacrifice our lives for it — we do so by our willingness to be identified as Nigerians. One of our leaders once said, “I won’t die for Nigeria, but I’ll live for Nigeria.”
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This week in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, the critically important party conventions to decide the candidates for the April 2011 elections have been underway.
The incumbent party, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), proceeded first on January 13th. The convention took place in the middle of Abuja, the capital city, amidst tight security aimed at preventing a repeat of the Christmas day bombings that resulted in the deaths of several Nigerians out celebrating the holidays. The Movement for the Emancipation of the
Niger Delta (MEND) rebel group claimed responsibility for those attacks and had warned that they would continue to disrupt any attempts to convene political events.
The PDP conventions did go on peacefully, with voting by more than 3,000 delegates representing the 36 states of the country. The last tallies were not called until early on January 14th with the results favoring incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan. His main opponent, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, secured only 700 of the more than 3,000 votes cast.
The main opposition party, the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), followed the PDP’s convention with their Lagos-held event, which drew many of the leaders from the Southern States, where the ACN has developed their
stronghold, as well as a few northern leaders. The front contender in their convention was Mr. Nuhu Ribadu, popularly known for his role as Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes (EFCC) until he was forced to leave following his very successful but controversial efforts to tackle corruption in the government. Shortly after the convention started, the two other candidates withdrew their candidacy, leaving Ribadu to stand as the sole contender and eventually supporting his nomination as the 2011 ACN nominee for the presidential elections.
Last week, the former Head of State Gen. Muhammadu Buhari was elected as the presidential candidate of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) at its national convention. There was no opposition against him. This is the third time in a row that the former military Head of State is contesting for the presidency of the country. In the 2003 and 2007 presidential elections, he contested on the platform of the All Nigeria Peoples Party, ANPP. It is being speculated that the ACN and CPC will eventually strike a deal and form a coalition against the PDP. This could ultimately prove to be a very real threat to the PDP.
The last major convention scheduled, for the All Nigeria People’s Party (ANPP), will take place tomorrow, Saturday, January 15th, and contenders will include a former presidential candidate, Othman Tofa, the northern Kano State Governor, Ibrahim Shekarau and the wealthy politician, Harry Akande.
The response to the results of the conventions held so far have been mixed. Many feel that delegate votes are being bought while others have applauded the transparent manner in which the conventions are being conducted, televised from start to finish. If one were to take a pessimistic view you could say that when you buy votes, you save the trouble of stuffing the ballot box and can conduct “transparent elections”. Without any evidence to substantiate these claims, I’ll take the optimistic view and congratulate the parties for successfully conducted party conventions.
Osahon Akpata, an MBA graduate student at Columbia University, shares some great news about a new fund in Nigeria that could help save money for the country’s future.
Finally, Nigeria, Africa’s largest oil producer, has decided to set up a Sovereign Wealth Fund, safeguarding some of its riches for future generations. Since the discovery of large petroleum deposits in the late 1950s, there have been several attempts to put aside some of the unexpected bounty that comes from rising oil prices. The most recent version of these initiatives was the aptly named the Excess Crude Account (ECA).
At the end of 2007, there was $20 billion in the ECA, but sadly it has dwindled down to barely $400 million in recent months. The depletion was due to state governments claiming their share of the account in order to stabilize their local economies, which were affected by the financial crisis. There was no constitutional barrier to prevent the raiding of the account.
Nigeria’s new Minister of Finance, Olusegun Aganga, a former managing director at Goldman Sachs, announced in September that a Nigerian Sovereign Wealth Fund draft bill has been submitted to the National Assembly. The fund has already been seeded with $1 billion of capital.
This is very good news for the future generations of Nigeria since little of the $1.6 trillion the country has earned from petroleum resources has been conserved. It is important that the bill be passed because this will give the fund the necessary legitimacy to protect its assets from getting into the wrong hands and from the vagaries of changing regimes.
Osahon Akpata was born and grew up in Lagos, Nigeria. After completing his undergraduate degree in accounting and finance in England, he moved to the US where he has had an extensive career in finance and marketing. Osahon is currently enrolled for an MBA at Columbia University in New York City. He is working on a project evaluating Nigeria’s proposed Sovereign Wealth Fund as part of his coursework.
Great news on the transparency and corruption front: Nigerian President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan recently announced a multibillion dollar plan that would help repair and privatize the country’s corrupt national power grid.
Nigeria shouldn’t have had any problems with electricity in the first place — oil and natural gas are some of the country’s biggest resources. But the power grid was so corrupt and unreliable that people had to depend on their own generators for energy.
According to the Nigerian finance minister, moves to improve electricity production could bring economic growth of 10 percent a year by 2011. Experts also say it would help boost employment and productivity — imagine how much more work you could get done if you didn’t have to worry about the lights flickering on and off!
Although many people are doubtful whether President Jonathan will follow through (I guess it’s probably worth noting that he’s running for reelection in January), it’s still a big leap in the fight against corruption and should be recognized. Let’s not forget that Africa loses around $148 billion each year as a result of corruption alone.
While President Goodluck Jonathan probably won’t need our good luck, we wish it to him anyway. We’ll always be here to promote and support any move toward accountability, transparency and stability.
