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Published 12th July 2019

Vol 60 No 14

Nigeria

False starts for the clean-up

Gas flares in the Delta. Pic: Mark Allen Johnson/Zuma Press/PA Images
Gas flares in the Delta. Pic: Mark Allen Johnson/Zuma Press/PA Images

Incompetence and corruption threaten the latest government body to be set up to tackle oil pollution

The Ogoni area of the Niger Delta is one of the world's most severely contaminated stretches of land and water, and yet no relief is in sight. Eight years ago, after publishing a comprehensive survey of the environmental damage, the United Nations Environment Programme recommended setting up a US$1 billion fund for the first five years of a project to clean-up decades of pollution caused by oil spills that could take 30 years in all. The government in Abuja has raised nearly $200 million from its own funds and from the oil companies, but relief for the people in this 404-square-mile area where so many oil pipelines and wells converge remains elusive. The levels of benzene in Ogoni people's drinking water were found by UNEP to be 900 times above World Health Organisation (WHO) recommended safe levels.

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HYPREP’s checkered rep

The environmental agency Abuja created has a bad record. It is even believed to be relaxing the clean-up benchmarks

The Hydrocarbon Pollution Remediation Project (HYPREP) is only the latest iteration of Nigerian government agencies charged with using oil revenues to compensate for the effects of...

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Military roadblocks

The ruling generals in the sprawling security system will try to control the transition, whatever the cost

The security structures – the rival armed and intelligence groups – that grew up under the National Islamic Front (NIF) and its successor National Congress Party regime...

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THE INSIDE VIEW

Disbelief was ostentatiously suspended when heads of state gathered at the African Union summit in Niamey to proclaim a new era of cooperation with the full launching of the African continental free trade area (ACFTA) on 8 July. After winning over Nigeria, almost in extra time, the pact's promoters managed to get all the 55 member states of the union on board, except for Eritrea.

The numbers – a market of 1.3 billion people, worth an estimated US$3.4 trillion – look c...

Disbelief was ostentatiously suspended when heads of state gathered at the African Union summit in Niamey to proclaim a new era of cooperation with the full launching of the African continental free trade area (ACFTA) on 8 July. After winning over Nigeria, almost in extra time, the pact's promoters managed to get all the 55 member states of the union on board, except for Eritrea.

The numbers – a market of 1.3 billion people, worth an estimated US$3.4 trillion – look compelling, but in the short term the proclamation of the ACFTA will change little but aspirations. Two realities dominate the agenda: an impressive number of political speed bumps; and the need for gradualism and painstaking commercial diplomacy.

For now, the main task will be to get the regional economic communities to work much better. Only in the East African Community has there been much convergence towards a single market in goods and services.

More diversified economies such as South Africa, Kenya and Morocco will have a greater incentive to push for cutting tariffs and opening up markets for their exports. In the case of South Africa and Kenya, they will put more pressure on the regional economic groupings that they already dominate in southern and east Africa. Morocco's market strategy is undermined by its cold war with Algeria, and Nigerian manufacturers remain sceptical about any short-term benefits from the treaty.

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