Is oil a 'curse' in Nigeria?

The Niger Delta holds some of the world's richest oil deposits, yet Nigerians living there are poorer than ever, violence is rampant, and the land and water are fouled.

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The oil game

The problem in a nutshell is that after 50 years, the oil companies are still searching for a way to operate successfully with the communities. The delta is littered with failed projects started by oil companies and government agencies'water tanks without operating pumps, clinics with no medicine, schools with no teachers or books, fishponds with no fish and the rest in tatters. I guess handing out cash to chiefs wasn't effective at all.

Nigeria's southern Niger Delta sits atop one of Africa's richest energy deposits but has electricity only when one of its young men paddles a canoe to the nearest city to buy fuel for a generator. With unemployment rampant, they dream of jobs with the oil companies, whose grounds are bustling and bright with floodlights.

Poverty and corruption fuel militancy and crime in the delta's neglected communities, where people living without electricity or clean water feel cheated out of the oil wealth being pumped from their lands.

Nigerian oil meets gunpowder: Militants vow to 'destroy lives' and provide the required spark

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Nigeria's federal system and politics are deeply flawed, contributing to rising violence that threatens to destabilize one of Africa's leading countries. The economic disparity in the Delta could also prove damning to Nigeria's upcoming presidential elections in April as well and jeopardize the democratic process at large.

Thousands of foreign oil workers have left the delta in the past year as attacks and kidnappings have multiplied. Nigeria produced 2.6 million barrels of oil a day in 2005 and exported 2.3 million; unrest between haves and have-nots thus has geopolitical and economic reverberations around the world.

Turning curse into a blessing

The delta people must be allowed to join in the lucrative sale of crude oil; only in this way can the cataclysm that is building up in the delta be avoided. It is clear that strong leadership is central to the solution of corruption and other social pathologies in Nigeria. Keeping in mind the present scenario, the Nigerian government seems to be both deaf and blind to the situation, and the anticipation is that this isn't going to get better. One of the militant groups, MEND ' 'Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta', demands of the Nigerian government for a more equitable distribution of revenue from oil production to the residents of the Delta, the oil capital of Africa's largest oil producer, where many live on less than one dollar a day.