In the shadow of Tony Blair's Africa commission report and the continuing debate on aid and debt relief for Africa, not enough is being heard of the complicated and disturbing story of Africa's most populous country—Nigeria. Most rich countries ignore Nigeria, except as a source of oil, and those that do pay some attention tend to be too indulgent of President Olusegun Obasanjo, the former Amnesty prisoner, and his economic team, who claim that Nigeria is becoming more transparent and deserves more help.
Yet beneath this decorous veneer, much of Nigeria's elite is still mired in corruption. Political murders and assaults and the looting of government funds are commonplace. Worst of all, many Nigerians say, is that gangsterism in public life has increased since Obasanjo's inauguration in 1999 ended more than 15 years of often brutal military rule in the country.
Discussing African development without first working out how to have a mature, constructive relationship with Nigeria is a bit like talking about South America while ignoring Brazil. Nigeria is sub-Saharan Africa's second largest economy, and its 130m people are thought to constitute at least one sixth of all Africans. It is the continent's largest oil producer, and provides 10 per cent of US crude imports.
Since civilian rule returned in 1999, Nigeria has shown little sign of emerging from crisis. Despite $300bn-plus of oil revenues earned since independence in 1960, its people are no better off than those in resource-poor countries. Average income hovers below $1 a day and a fifth of children are estimated to die before the age of five.
The easing of centralised military control has in some ways speeded up the social fragmentation of a country prone to regional tensions ever since it was created by the British in 1914. Nigeria comprises people from hundreds of ethnic groups speaking hundreds of languages: the question of whether it is a viable nation has provoked debate, civil war and a patchwork of localised conflicts. Obasanjo opened a three-month conference on constitutional reform in February, but many opposition figures have complained that it is too narrowly focused and packed with cronies of the ruling People's Democratic party.
The present rule by fiefdom suits many members of the elite, particularly since state governors and local government have direct control over almost half the nation's annual oil revenues of more than $20bn. In the predominantly Muslim north, a dozen state governors have demonstrated their autonomy by applying Islamic Shari'a law punishments, such as amputation for stealing and stoning to death for sex outside marriage. The issue has triggered religious riots that have contributed to the more than 10,000 deaths thought to have occurred in communal fighting since 1999. Taking into account murders by the country's often brutal security forces, Obasanjo's presidency is probably the bloodiest period since the 1967-70 civil war.
The president's flagship commission on public sector corruption has yet to bring a single successful high-profile prosecution. Joshua Dariye, People's Democratic party governor of the central state of Plateau, continues to rule despite his arrest last year by British police over alleged money laundering. The presidency has publicly criticised Dariye, but no one from the ruling party—which has dominated parliament for almost six years—has seriously tried to remove the immunity clauses protecting Dariye and other officials from prosecution.
Against such a background, the finance ministry's praiseworthy anti-corruption reforms look piecemeal and hard to sustain. The decision to publish monthly oil revenue allocations to the various branches of government is welcome, but the ministry's website stopped disclosing the details in June last year. A long-promised audit of the state oil company has not happened.
For many Nigerians, the defining moment of Obasanjo's presidency was the widespread ballot fraud that helped return him in the 2003 national elections. In Rivers state, source of much of Nigeria's oil, I did not see a single person cast a vote legitimately all day. Instead, I saw ballot box-stuffing and heard accounts of voting materials being stolen by armed thugs. In Ogoniland, I watched as returning officers leafed through a sheaf of results sheets recording 100 per cent turnouts and 100 per cent votes for the president. Crowds expressed their fury to me while waiting for ballot boxes that never arrived, knowing the election was being stolen from them.
Obasanjo mostly brushed off the criticism. He was helped by the support of an international community that was no doubt relieved to have shifted Nigeria from its list of pariah dictatorships. The US, Britain, the EU and others endorsed Obasanjo's re-election, even though the EU's own monitors said the polls were seriously undermined by fraud in at least a third of the country's 36 states. A Nigerian court recently voided the results in several districts in the oil-producing Niger delta and in Obasanjo's home state of Ogun, where he officially registered 99.92 per cent of the vote.
London has a strong interest in ensuring good relations with the Obasanjo government. Britain expects to source 10 per cent of its oil and gas needs from Nigeria by 2010; at a time of foreign office cutbacks, one of a handful of new posts that has been created is for a London-based diplomat to cover west African energy issues. The department for international development intends to triple aid to £100m a year by 2007-08, and Britain is helping to persuade other rich nations that they should listen to Nigeria's campaign for help in dealing with its $34bn foreign debt—even though, because of its oil, it may not be considered poor enough to qualify as a debt relief priority.
But British companies and other western businesses have played a significant part in creating and sustaining the country's self-destructive political culture. Chris Finlayson, Shell's chief executive officer for exploration and production in Africa, admitted to me in December that the company had experienced "significant" problems with corruption in its community programme, on which it spent almost $100m in 2002 and 2003. An international construction consortium, including a Halliburton subsidiary, is being investigated in three countries over allegations that it paid more than $170m in bribes to Nigerian officials and expatriate managers. Britain has failed to return more than a fraction of the $1bn loot stolen by the late dictator Sani Abacha and his associates, which was processed through British financial institutions.
Obasanjo's defenders protest that he is well intentioned, experienced and personally honest. He is a founder member of Transparency International, and was imprisoned for years under the dictatorship. But whatever his personal qualities, he has presided over the entrenchment of a rotten system. Even if he genuinely wants change now, he has lost popular credibility and he cannot repudiate the governors whose gerrymandered states delivered him so many votes.
This should not be used as an excuse by rich nations to exclude Nigeria from debt relief. If the country had met its past debt service obligations in full, the payments would have consumed a third of government revenues. Given the responsibility of rich nations for many of Nigeria's troubles and the frustrated talent of so many Nigerians, relief is both morally right and could be liberating in the longer term. But it is also a risk. Aid and debt relief must be given in the knowledge that they will in part help sustain a political system plagued by violence and venality.
The anti-corruption reforms deserve to be encouraged, but outsiders should look at them sceptically until the government makes more of the disclosures it has promised. Placing conditions on aid is no longer fashionable, mainly because it is too hard to enforce. But rich countries should consider directing aid to organisations outside government where possible.
Nigerian author Chinua Achebe may judge Nigeria "too dangerous for silence," but few of those promoting 2005 as a year of African renaissance are giving the nation the serious and nuanced consideration it deserves.
