Population and Corruption in Nigeria

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The desperate condition of much of Africa is due to a matrix of rapid population growth, widespread corruption, and global indifference that goes back more than 50 years.

It remains to be seen whether any part of this matrix can be chiseled down, but there are some faint signs of hope.

The first sign is that fertility rates, while still breath-takingly high, are beginning to slowly fall, with rapid declines in some important countries (such as Kenya).

The second hopeful sign is that leaders in both the U.S. and in Europe are beginning to turn some attention to Africa (the Bush Administration's HIV efforts and MCA initiative are two examples).

Finally, there may be some attempts at genuine political change as "first generation" dictators and despots die off or are voted out of office (Kenya and Ghana are two examples).

If there is hope, however, it is a faint ember in many countries, and it remains to be seen whether this ember can be fanned into a flame by an unlikely cavalry of politicians (such as ex-President Jimmy Carter and current Sen. Majority Leader Bill Frist), celebrities and rock stars (such as Bono and Bob Geldof), philanthropists (mostly American, but some European and Japanese), and nongovernmental organizations.


QUO VADIS NIGERIA?

A classic case of a country whose future swings in the balance is Nigeria.

With 129 million people, Nigeria is the most populated country in Africa.

With a total fertility rate of 5.8, demographers expect Nigeria's population to soar to over 204 million by 2025, and 303 million by 2050.

Though population growth presents Nigeria with a crushing load, experts say an equally large problem is corruption, which can be found at almost every level of society, from military leaders to dock workers, from government ministers to local police officers.

Despite the fact that billions of dollars a year pour into Nigeria in the form of oil royalties, more than 70 percent of all Nigerians live on less than a dollar a day while vast sums of money continue to disappear into offshore accounts in Switzerland, Saudi Arabia, the U.S., and the Caribbean.

The good news is that earlier this year Nigeria had its first national election in 20 years.

The bad news is that despite winning the election, President Olusegun Obasanjo (who had been in power since 1999) has had little success in getting Nigeria's economic house in order. Billions of dollars in revenue stolen by former President Sani Abacha remain largely unaccounted for, while over a billion dollars a year continues to "disappear" (presumably into offshore bank accounts).

The twin forces of corruption and population growth are having a very direct impact on Nigeria's environment. With over $30 billion in foreign debt, and rising social service needs, the Nigerian government recently imposed a 50% hike in kerosene prices, which it hoped would prevent cross-border resale of subsidized kerosene in neighboring countries while raising badly needed revenue.

The dramatic price hike in kerosene has sparked social unrest and forced scores of millions of Nigerians to return to cooking with wood.

The result has been a rapid increase in forest lost. Alarmed environmentalists note that if Nigerian fuel prices remain high, the country's last tracts of forest may disappear within a few years. More than 95% of Nigeria's original forest cover is already gone, and many once-common plants and animals now teeter on the edge of extinction.

Species that have already been extirpated from Nigeria include the cheetah, the pygmy hippopotamus, the giraffe, the black rhinoceros and the giant eland. About 10 to 12 species of primates are under threat (including chimps and gorillas) while many species of birds are being pushed past the edge (including the once-common African Gray parrot).

And all of this is occurring in one of the most oil-rich countries on earth!


THE CENTURY AHEAD

While Nigeria teeters on the edge of forest loss, social unrest, and economic collapse, the rest of Africa does not fare too much better.

The good news is that large new oil fields are being developed in the Gulf of Guinea, and more than $200 billion in new revenue is expected to flow into Africa in the next 10 years -- a sum that is at least 10 times greater than the amount of western aid that will flow during the same period of time.

The bad news is that, if past is prologue, very little of this money will ever reach Africa's poor or be invested in the kind of social and economic support systems that are clearly needed in the rural countryside: clean water wells, good roads, health clinics, universal access to contraception, schools, food storage facilities, dams, flood control, and land conservation initiatives.

Even as oil revenues flow into Swiss bank accounts, Africa's population is expected to continue to grow for all of the next Century. Demographers now expect Africa's population to rise to around 2.5 billion by 2100, or one quarter of the human race.

In the absence of political reform and family planning, the faint embers of hope that now exist in some African countries, may be extinguished altogether.