Written by Sam Nda-Isaiah
Sunday, 26 April 2009 21:44
Crude oil, also called black gold in some parlances, is a worthy commodity. It has transmuted the fortunes of nations and made some people some of the wealthiest in the world. It powers the wheels of civilisation and has even been at the root of wars between nations.
But the richest countries of the world are not the oil-producing countries. Or, putting it the other way, the oil-producing countries are not the richest countries of the world. In fact, for some oil-producing countries, notably Nigeria, the black gold has essentially been a curse. South Africa is the richest nation in Africa but it has no oil. It is richer than Nigeria, Libya, Angola and Equatorial Guinea, the main African oil-producers.
Now, let’s compare Nigeria with a few countries, starting with Singapore. Both countries received independence from the British at about the same period – Nigeria in 1960 and Singapore five years later. Nigeria was much more prosperous at the time. Nigeria then had several agricultural produce that earned her foreign exchange in the international market. Groundnut pyramids were a regular feature of the economic landscape of Northern Nigeria. We had export-grade cocoa in the South-West, rubber in the Midwest and coal in the South-East. This was even before the destiny-changing discovery of crude oil. Singapore, on the other hand, was only a tiny, barren fishing island that was once a British trading post. It was also a fishing outpost. But from 1965 when it received independence to this day, Singapore has outpaced Nigeria far beyond the human imagination. Singapore has no crude oil, but it has the biggest refinery in the world – refining, among others, Nigeria’s crude oil and then selling to us and making a handsome profit in the process. It has the biggest port in the world, and arguably the best airline and best airport in the world. These feats did not just happen to this tiny island by chance.
By the way, Singapore also happens to be one of the least corrupt countries of the world. All traces of corruption are punished very harshly and hard drugs offences are punishable by death.
One of Singapore’s main revenue earners is tourism. And it is not difficult to see why. Singapore is arguably the most beautiful city in the world. The country has sometimes been likened to one huge garden. It is neat and virtually crime-free. The people are genuinely friendly and the economy is strong. These are the raw materials for building a virile tourist economy. Because the economy is strong and stable, the country is also famous as a global banking hub. The biggest banks of the world have strong hedging presence in Singapore. The skyline is simply majestic. It has the largest ship-building operation in the world. Today, nobody remembers that Nigeria and Singapore became independent at roughly the same period.
South Africa is another country. Mandela’s country actually got liberated from an obnoxious apartheid regime only 15 years ago. The country has had black majority rule for only one and a half decades, yet the economy of the country has grown every single year since then. In fact, the country has become more prosperous since the blacks took over. They have conducted four free and fair elections in 15 years. The word “rigging” does not exist in the country’s lexicon. South Africa generates more electric power than all the other African countries put together. The country has no oil but it has functioning refineries. Though there have been reported cases of corruption and even rampant violent crimes, you can see a purposeful government trying frantically to curb them. Recently, hidden cameras were installed at different locations in the major cities to track crimes. The country’s main revenue earners are gold, diamond and platinum. It also earns huge revenues from tourism especially in the coastal cities of Cape Town and Durban. And despite the global economic downturn, tourism in South Africa has actually grown in the past one year.
Cape Town is one of the most exciting cities in the world and definitely the most gorgeous in Africa. South Africa is a land where the leadership has made optimum use of the sea, mountains, animals and its other God-given endowments to create a magnificent country. Nigeria has many more of these endowments. The tourism utility of our mountains and the topography have not arrested the attention of our governments at different levels; the wide variety of animals is only useful as bush meat for its citizens. South Africa earns forex from gold, diamond and platinum; we have many more metals and precious stones but we virtually earn nothing from them. Illegal miners and foreign construction companies steal these natural resources daily unchallenged.
Another country that shames us is Brazil. Like Nigeria, Brazil has crude oil but it is as an agricultural superpower that Brazil has earned its big name. It is the world’s largest exporter of biofuels, which it produces from the humongous harvest of corn and sugarcane every year. It is in fact the largest exporter of biofuels to the United States, which is today the biggest promoter of alternatives to fossil fuels. But we have the potential of producing even more biofuels than Brazil.
There’s a funny story that Chief Audu Ogbeh once told me. The former PDP chairman and Second Republic minister of communications had travelled to India where he was introduced to a plant called Jatropha, which he believed he was hearing about for the first time. Jatropha is supposed to be the best source of biodiesel because it doesn’t tamper with the fragile food security situation of the world. India was making waves with the plant and Chief Ogbeh, who has earned the sobriquet of Nigeria’s chief farmer, thought he should smuggle some of its seeds into Nigeria for the benefit of Nigerians. He then got some Jatropha seeds and packaged them so cleverly in his travelling bags in order not to attract the attention of pesky Indian airport officials. He made sure the container of Jatropha seeds was very well concealed. He got into Nigeria without any problem and thought he would be creating a Jatropha breakthrough for the Nigerian nation. He took the seeds to his farm in Kuje, Abuja, and started nurturing them in a small nursery. When his police orderly saw him planting what was considered a weed in his village, he was alarmed. What has happened to oga? he thought. He now asked Chief Ogbeh why he was planting a weed which he even named in his language. Chief Ogbeh, who was also quite shocked at this point, asked him if he knew the plant. Of course, he said, even pointing to the bush around the farm where the plant, Jatropha, had been growing in the wild without anyone paying attention to it.
It is a story Chief Ogbeh loves telling. And, that is the story of Nigeria. A country from where the Malaysians took oil palm seedlings and, several years later, export better oil palm products to the same country; a country that is the world’s largest producer of cassava but which does not export a single cassava product; a country that has the potential of becoming the world’s largest producer of gum arabic but which has allowed a backwater country like Sudan to enjoy the monopoly in the international market.
It’s time for Nigeria to get serious and recover lost grounds. It’s time to make Nigeria a global economic superpower, which is very possible. That is why I am inviting everyone to this year’s LEADERSHIP Conference with the theme “Beyond Oil: Diversification Options”, which will hold tomorrow and Wednesday under the chairmanship of Malam Adamu Ciroma, at the International Conference Centre, Abuja.
Sunday, 26 April 2009 21:44
Crude oil, also called black gold in some parlances, is a worthy commodity. It has transmuted the fortunes of nations and made some people some of the wealthiest in the world. It powers the wheels of civilisation and has even been at the root of wars between nations.
But the richest countries of the world are not the oil-producing countries. Or, putting it the other way, the oil-producing countries are not the richest countries of the world. In fact, for some oil-producing countries, notably Nigeria, the black gold has essentially been a curse. South Africa is the richest nation in Africa but it has no oil. It is richer than Nigeria, Libya, Angola and Equatorial Guinea, the main African oil-producers.
Now, let’s compare Nigeria with a few countries, starting with Singapore. Both countries received independence from the British at about the same period – Nigeria in 1960 and Singapore five years later. Nigeria was much more prosperous at the time. Nigeria then had several agricultural produce that earned her foreign exchange in the international market. Groundnut pyramids were a regular feature of the economic landscape of Northern Nigeria. We had export-grade cocoa in the South-West, rubber in the Midwest and coal in the South-East. This was even before the destiny-changing discovery of crude oil. Singapore, on the other hand, was only a tiny, barren fishing island that was once a British trading post. It was also a fishing outpost. But from 1965 when it received independence to this day, Singapore has outpaced Nigeria far beyond the human imagination. Singapore has no crude oil, but it has the biggest refinery in the world – refining, among others, Nigeria’s crude oil and then selling to us and making a handsome profit in the process. It has the biggest port in the world, and arguably the best airline and best airport in the world. These feats did not just happen to this tiny island by chance.
By the way, Singapore also happens to be one of the least corrupt countries of the world. All traces of corruption are punished very harshly and hard drugs offences are punishable by death.
One of Singapore’s main revenue earners is tourism. And it is not difficult to see why. Singapore is arguably the most beautiful city in the world. The country has sometimes been likened to one huge garden. It is neat and virtually crime-free. The people are genuinely friendly and the economy is strong. These are the raw materials for building a virile tourist economy. Because the economy is strong and stable, the country is also famous as a global banking hub. The biggest banks of the world have strong hedging presence in Singapore. The skyline is simply majestic. It has the largest ship-building operation in the world. Today, nobody remembers that Nigeria and Singapore became independent at roughly the same period.
South Africa is another country. Mandela’s country actually got liberated from an obnoxious apartheid regime only 15 years ago. The country has had black majority rule for only one and a half decades, yet the economy of the country has grown every single year since then. In fact, the country has become more prosperous since the blacks took over. They have conducted four free and fair elections in 15 years. The word “rigging” does not exist in the country’s lexicon. South Africa generates more electric power than all the other African countries put together. The country has no oil but it has functioning refineries. Though there have been reported cases of corruption and even rampant violent crimes, you can see a purposeful government trying frantically to curb them. Recently, hidden cameras were installed at different locations in the major cities to track crimes. The country’s main revenue earners are gold, diamond and platinum. It also earns huge revenues from tourism especially in the coastal cities of Cape Town and Durban. And despite the global economic downturn, tourism in South Africa has actually grown in the past one year.
Cape Town is one of the most exciting cities in the world and definitely the most gorgeous in Africa. South Africa is a land where the leadership has made optimum use of the sea, mountains, animals and its other God-given endowments to create a magnificent country. Nigeria has many more of these endowments. The tourism utility of our mountains and the topography have not arrested the attention of our governments at different levels; the wide variety of animals is only useful as bush meat for its citizens. South Africa earns forex from gold, diamond and platinum; we have many more metals and precious stones but we virtually earn nothing from them. Illegal miners and foreign construction companies steal these natural resources daily unchallenged.
Another country that shames us is Brazil. Like Nigeria, Brazil has crude oil but it is as an agricultural superpower that Brazil has earned its big name. It is the world’s largest exporter of biofuels, which it produces from the humongous harvest of corn and sugarcane every year. It is in fact the largest exporter of biofuels to the United States, which is today the biggest promoter of alternatives to fossil fuels. But we have the potential of producing even more biofuels than Brazil.
There’s a funny story that Chief Audu Ogbeh once told me. The former PDP chairman and Second Republic minister of communications had travelled to India where he was introduced to a plant called Jatropha, which he believed he was hearing about for the first time. Jatropha is supposed to be the best source of biodiesel because it doesn’t tamper with the fragile food security situation of the world. India was making waves with the plant and Chief Ogbeh, who has earned the sobriquet of Nigeria’s chief farmer, thought he should smuggle some of its seeds into Nigeria for the benefit of Nigerians. He then got some Jatropha seeds and packaged them so cleverly in his travelling bags in order not to attract the attention of pesky Indian airport officials. He made sure the container of Jatropha seeds was very well concealed. He got into Nigeria without any problem and thought he would be creating a Jatropha breakthrough for the Nigerian nation. He took the seeds to his farm in Kuje, Abuja, and started nurturing them in a small nursery. When his police orderly saw him planting what was considered a weed in his village, he was alarmed. What has happened to oga? he thought. He now asked Chief Ogbeh why he was planting a weed which he even named in his language. Chief Ogbeh, who was also quite shocked at this point, asked him if he knew the plant. Of course, he said, even pointing to the bush around the farm where the plant, Jatropha, had been growing in the wild without anyone paying attention to it.
It is a story Chief Ogbeh loves telling. And, that is the story of Nigeria. A country from where the Malaysians took oil palm seedlings and, several years later, export better oil palm products to the same country; a country that is the world’s largest producer of cassava but which does not export a single cassava product; a country that has the potential of becoming the world’s largest producer of gum arabic but which has allowed a backwater country like Sudan to enjoy the monopoly in the international market.
It’s time for Nigeria to get serious and recover lost grounds. It’s time to make Nigeria a global economic superpower, which is very possible. That is why I am inviting everyone to this year’s LEADERSHIP Conference with the theme “Beyond Oil: Diversification Options”, which will hold tomorrow and Wednesday under the chairmanship of Malam Adamu Ciroma, at the International Conference Centre, Abuja.
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