Kind of reminds me of the transition from Jim Crow to integration
Quote of note:
The nations four refineries and the over 1 million jobs they created (consider the multiplier effect) are good pointers to the advantages oil bestowed on the nation. Then something happened.
I don"t know what though. But everywhere things were taking negative bends rather than the vice- versa.
First agriculture took a swiping blow and had never recovered since. The same fate befell almost all sectors from education to power.
Nigeria [opinion]: Why Borno Won't Mind the Oil Curse
Vanguard (Lagos)
OPINION
April 12, 2004
Posted to the web April 12, 2004
By Anthony Ochela
The dollarised curse may have induced underdevelopment in the country. ....
BEFORE the discovery of oil in Nigeria there were groundnut in the North, cocoa in the West, palm oil in the East and the regions had their peculiar sources of revenue and consequently never bothered to look across the Niger. They were, according to our history books, self-reliant.
There were therefore less social or civil frictions. All there were then were political hiccups in form of alliances and political self-assertions among the big boys. And even then, when the big boys quarrel, they always found ways of resolving issues because in the end they always fall back to their regions. Enter oil. And the quiet evaporated. Evidently the balance that held quiet (and regional balance) in place was swept away by the coming of the money-spinner. This is because the object in question chose a single region in the country to make its home.
Now it was making more money than General Yakubu Gowon, then Head of State, could handle.
