With barely controlled rebellions in the north and the south of the country and low oil prices, there is some reason to be concerned that the West African nation of Nigeria is coming unstuck. ADVERTISING With barely controlled rebellions in
With barely controlled rebellions in the north and the south of the country and low oil prices, there is some reason to be concerned that the West African nation of Nigeria is coming unstuck.
It would be easy for Americans to say now that it doesn’t matter much over here. The U.S. economy no longer really needs Nigeria’s oil and its production is falling in any case.
The trouble occurring there is for the most part either in the inland far northeast or in the Niger River delta area and does not imperil any significant American interests.
At the same time, Nigeria’s estimated population is a substantial 180 million. U.S. armed forces have been drawn into Nigeria’s conflict with an Islamic group, Boko Haram, which has also spilled over to a degree into neighboring Cameroon, Chad and Niger.
There are a number of Nigerians in the U.S. Finally, in general, it is not to America’s advantage for a large, important African nation to simply collapse, as Nigeria risks doing in the face of its problems.
Two — or, perhaps, three — rebellions are currently underway in Nigeria. The first, years in length, is in its northeast. Boko Haram is a brutal, difficult-to-stamp-out Islamic movement that has been terrorizing the region around Maiduguri for several years now. Its most media-worthy event was the 2014 kidnapping of 276 girls from a school in Chibok, but its activities have drawn the attention of the military of Nigeria’s neighbors as well as its own. The U.S. has provided support to the local armies, based on Boko Haram’s Islamic link.
The other rebellion is in Nigeria’s southeastern Niger River delta region, where the country’s oil comes from. One group, which calls itself the Niger Delta Avengers, is rooted in the long-standing grievance that Nigeria’s enormous income from oil does not benefit appropriately the people of the region and, in fact, takes a heavy toll in environmental damage. Another group opposed to the government is a reborn group of the Biafra independence movement, which waged war against the central government from 1967 to 1970.
Perhaps the biggest threat to Nigeria’s stability comes from the major drop in the world price of oil. Nigeria at one time had a somewhat diversified economy. That funneled down to almost total dependence on oil, so that, when the world price drops, Nigeria’s income, employment and general level of economic well-being plummet catastrophically.
Efficiency and stamping out endemic corruption would make a big difference, but neither flourish in modern Nigeria and, so, disaster now looms.
— Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
