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The Oil Thieves of Nigeria

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Re: The Oil Thieves of Nigeria

#31

Post by from »

blitzar wrote: post #11
IntelMiner wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should the natural resources of a nation belong to anyone else? Are the Australian government "thieves" for taxing Rio Tinto?

> Why should the natural resources of a nation belong to anyone else? They should belong to the people. The state and the people are not the same thing in Australia and certainly not the same thing in Nigeria.

Basically no country with substantial resources looks at things this way except America. They all either have government owned drilling companies or the companies that do exist pay substantial royalties to the government. I agree with it but from most country’s perspective it doesn’t really make sense to let all the oil wealth which was not really invented or require any work to go to a bunch of foreigners or <20 locals who got lucky.

Re: The Oil Thieves of Nigeria

#32

Post by [deleted] »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #30
pydry wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You're comparing Australia to Nigeria? Yes, because Australia has been developing a resource heavy economy with dysfunctional politics to match while Nigeria's has been completely resource dominated for a long time and been a basket case for most of its history because of it. >Hell, I almost included Russia(!!) in my comment because even they have quite functional and non-corrupt government A country more resource…

>It's weird that I even have to utter this sentence but... Russia is not non-corrupt, by the way. Russia is corrupt. They aren't "owned by shell". They don't have organized crime siphoning off their pipelines. The gangsters they do have are working with the state at a high level and with the state's permission, not competing with it, paying off locals, etc. That's a whole different categorical level of corrupt than N…

[deleted]

Re: The Oil Thieves of Nigeria

#33

Post by nisegami »

2Gkashmiri wrote: post #9
boeingUH60 wrote: post #5

A very long and interesting read…a true story of how incessant corruption and incompetence is making my country fall apart daily…but sure, people still continue to vote in the corrupt and inept leaders. I honestly think people largely get what they deserve. We’ve decided to shun competence and embrace corruption…no surprise we’re seeing the results in a failed economy. Really hope the Labour Party candidate wins the…

> honestly think people largely get what they deserve. >but sure, people still continue to vote in the corrupt and inept leaders. i live in a military state so i don't see much of "democracy". Many years ago, 1986 to be exact, people came out and there was a grassroots level movement for "rights" and people did lots of campaigning and the whole exercise of "elections" but the union government saw that as an attack on…

The only language the state speaks is violence. Until you meet them where they are, your people cannot effect change.

Re: The Oil Thieves of Nigeria

#34

Post by [deleted] »

nine_k wrote: post #24
naijaboiler wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i struggle to get on board with "corruption as a cultural value". What's deeper than these are usually more positive values, perhaps it's entepreneuralism, or often its just a sense of justice (communal resources belong to members of community). What you see is "corruption at every level" is just a systemic lubricant necessary for business to occur in the absence of rules and regulations that arefair, just, "followab…

Struggle not. Imagine that you grow up in an environment where laboring is a way to sustain a so-so existence, and never anything more. The only way to make it big is to steal big. It's a life goal. If you get to a position if any power, you are expected to steal. If you do, others envy you. If you don't, others, including the regular folk, despise you, because they see you as an inept fool; were they in your positio…

[deleted]

Re: The Oil Thieves of Nigeria

#35

Post by from »

pydry wrote: post #21
dsfyu404ed wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>When resources dominate an economy like in Venezuela or Nigeria or Iraq or Russia then the spoils get contested and that fighting inevitably leads to unstable governments, authoritarianism, corruption, economic stagnation, etc. etc. Oh please. Last I checked the midwest and Austrialia were doing just fine. There are tons of commodity exporters that don't fit this pattern.

Are you serious? You picked two places with badly dysfunctional politics. Australia started out pretty good and has a long way to fall, but it is getting worse all the time - and most of its dysfunction is thanks to lobbying from resource extractors like Gina Rinehart. Even so they have actual functioning non-resource economies unlike Nigeria and Venezuela and resource extraction can not dominate politics nearly as m…

Watch this video: https://youtu.be/watch?v=IQtB4KSzSyY

This is not about fuel theft but a related crime called fuel smuggling where they buy subsidized gasoline and then illegally export it to neighboring countries (the government bans this to prevent exactly this kind of arbitrage). If you watch the video they actually follow along with a fuel smuggler, pay bribes (only $1-2 each) at several checkpoints, and just proceed as usual. The checkpoints exist just to facilitate bribe collection! Later in the video they mention that if you go frequently enough you can get some kind of pass or placard on your car so that you only have to pay once per month. This kind of bribery at every level of government does not exist in any first world country. Yes, politicians in most first world countries take campaign contributions from big companies but that is way different than quid pro quo bribery schemes where padded contracts are literally doled out based on who gives a bigger bribe. If you offered food inspectors in America or Australia $500 to ignore violations some might say OK but most would say fuck off. I'm not saying this kind of thing is inherent to Nigeria either -- rampant bribery existed in every major city in America in the 1800 and early 1900s but basically went away due to a persistent effort by good-government reformers, Protestants, and aggressive prosecutors. I don't know about Australia specifically but it seems most countries that are not corrupt today have taken a similar path.

Re: The Oil Thieves of Nigeria

#36

Post by from »

eloff wrote: post #25
trabant00 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no lack of rules and regulations where I'm from - Eastern Europe. People are well aware they are breaking said rules. As for spreading wealth - far from it, everybody hoards as much as they can for themselves at the expense of others who are in many cases worse off. About cultural values, an anecdotal example: every time somebody gets prison time for stealing, fraud, embezzlement, etc, people comment things…

I met a Russian in the “banana export” business once. He espoused that exact same mentality: "4 years for X million euros? Would gladly take that deal". Interpol caught up with him since and he’s living that deal now while his wife manages his assets. I wonder if she’s still his wife and I wonder if he still thinks it was worthwhile.

How much do you think he made? Even if he got 20 years if he made $20 million it could still be worth it to him (assuming he was successful enough his wife probably doesn't know about all his assets anyways). Most of these people come from nothing and do this for living knowing the risks so I doubt prison is the end of the world for them.

Re: The Oil Thieves of Nigeria

#37

Post by lostlogin »

pydry wrote: post #18
trabant00 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eastern Europe (where I'm from) has no significant resources. The corruption is still rampant. So there must be another cause.

Eastern Europe has been routinely contested territory by great powers for the past 1000 years. It's got very unfortunate geography.

So have most other regions. Where hasn’t had this happen? The longer humans have been somewhere, the more they seem to fight.

Re: The Oil Thieves of Nigeria

#38

Post by from »

trabant00 wrote: post #17
pydry wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's neither values or "people getting what they deserve". Nor is it "socialism". Resources are just a curse. When resources dominate an economy like in Venezuela or Nigeria or Iraq or Russia then the spoils get contested and that fighting inevitably leads to unstable governments, authoritarianism, corruption, economic stagnation, etc. etc. The only country to really escape the resource curse is Norway and that's lik…

Eastern Europe (where I'm from) has no significant resources. The corruption is still rampant. So there must be another cause.

Well the government owned every legal business and then was pressured to dispose of all those businesses quickly when the USSR collapsed. It is not surprising that that kind of environment invites massive amounts of corruption, especially because there was almost no one before privatization who had enough money to buy those businesses for their true prices. At a lower level it probably has more due to do with low wages and general disillusionment with "the system."

Re: The Oil Thieves of Nigeria

#39

Post by kwere »

boeingUH60 wrote: post #5

A very long and interesting read…a true story of how incessant corruption and incompetence is making my country fall apart daily…but sure, people still continue to vote in the corrupt and inept leaders. I honestly think people largely get what they deserve. We’ve decided to shun competence and embrace corruption…no surprise we’re seeing the results in a failed economy. Really hope the Labour Party candidate wins the…

i read there is now a big divide across religious lines, muslim in the north an christian in the north, with muslim voters being more tribalist and in group biased, resulting in some of the most flashiest corrupt leaders in office, is it real or more like journalistic bias? how common folks deal with political corruption?

Re: The Oil Thieves of Nigeria

#40

Post by pydry »

from wrote: post #35
pydry wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you serious? You picked two places with badly dysfunctional politics. Australia started out pretty good and has a long way to fall, but it is getting worse all the time - and most of its dysfunction is thanks to lobbying from resource extractors like Gina Rinehart. Even so they have actual functioning non-resource economies unlike Nigeria and Venezuela and resource extraction can not dominate politics nearly as m…

Watch this video: https://youtu.be/watch?v=IQtB4KSzSyY This is not about fuel theft but a related crime called fuel smuggling where they buy subsidized gasoline and then illegally export it to neighboring countries (the government bans this to prevent exactly this kind of arbitrage). If you watch the video they actually follow along with a fuel smuggler, pay bribes (only $1-2 each) at several checkpoints, and just pr…

>This kind of bribery at every level of government does not exist in any first world country.

I'm acutely aware of what corruption is like there, thanks. I got shaken down by corrupt cops just outside of Ikeja three weeks ago.

Unlike Nigeria, first world countries have functioning economies that don't pale into insignificance compared to whatever resource extraction they do. This is the key difference you missed. Where resource wealth doesn't overwhelm everything else, the effect of the curse is lower.

Nonetheless, resources are still a curse for the first world even when they dont overwhelm their entire economy. For homework I suggest you contrast Oklahoma and Texas politics to those of New York and Washington State.

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