Oil Nigeria. Oil production in Nigeria
The beginning of 2010 was marked by a very remarkable event - the official visit of Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi to Kenya, Sierra Leone and Nigeria. The greatest attention was paid to the trip to Nigeria, with which Beijing has established a strategic partnership since 2005 and which has become a kind of testing ground for Beijing to practice methods of “conquering” on the African continent the resources so necessary for the Chinese economy.
Of all Chinese investments in Africa, more than 80% ($6.5 billion out of $7.8 billion) was invested in the Nigerian economy, primarily in the oil industry. Chinese state oil companies only received licenses to develop three oil fields in 2008–2009, and in addition, they bought Nigerian fields from Western companies. Thus, the Chinese petrochemical corporation Sinopec in the middle of last year acquired the oil producing corporation Addax, headquartered in Switzerland, for $7.6 billion (more than 50% of Addax's gas and oil locations are concentrated in Nigeria, the rest in Gabon and Iraq).
But most importantly, the Nigerian government intends to transfer at least 16 of the 23 oil production licenses that expire this year, owned by the world's largest oil corporations, to Chinese companies. Today they produce 70% of the country's oil. According to some reports, Chinese oil companies offered Lagos $50 billion for them, which is more than the offers of transnational companies.
Surprisingly, Western oil companies themselves are not too opposed to the loss of licenses. Thus, Royal Dutch/Shell, which has been operating in this country for 70 years, itself offered to sell oil fields and undeveloped blocks for $5 billion.
Oil impasse
Nigeria is a member of OPEC and ranks 10th in the world in terms of oil reserves. Until recently, up to 80% of Nigerian oil exports went to the United States. But Nigeria’s importance in the world oil market is much higher, and it is determined primarily by high quality produced oil, reserves of which even in Arab countries have sharply declined in recent years. In 2009, the country received more than $58 billion from oil sales, although budget revenues barely exceeded $65 billion.
At the same time, this African country does not have any oil refining facilities and completely imports gasoline and other types of fuel. If just a few decades ago Nigeria had an agriculture capable of feeding a population of 150 million and an economy fairly balanced for Africa, now the country is virtually exclusively oil-producing. Any other developed industries there is practically no economy. Oil revenues not only provide 90% of budget revenues and 95% of exports, but also account for 25% of GDP.
The vast majority of the country's population ekes out a miserable existence with an income of less than $300 a year. Moreover, it should be noted that, despite a noticeable increase in the cost of energy resources, household incomes have decreased by more than three times over the past 30 years. Nigeria is now among the thirty poorest countries in the world. There are practically no roads and no semblance of modern medical care or education. At the same time, in the oil-producing province in the south of the country, oil pipelines are laid that pump oil into tankers, and not far from the coast, on the shelf, oil is extracted using modern drilling rigs. The oil majors have built a few modern neighborhoods in Lagos and some other cities. It is not surprising that such a situation causes sharp displeasure among a significant part of the population and leads to constant terrorist and simply gangster actions directed both against the central government and against foreign companies.
For the past decade, the oil-producing provinces of the Niger Delta have been essentially guerrilla warfare. According to the American administration, the country is on a par with Iraq and Afghanistan in terms of violence. Almost every month foreign specialists are kidnapped, for whom a serious ransom is then demanded. Despite the most stringent security measures, 75 foreigners were kidnapped in the past year alone. And this despite the fact that in 2009 significant progress was made in protecting foreign citizens. One of the latest cases is the kidnapping of five ExxonMobil employees in October last year, although the year before that the company completely withdrew its staff from the “burning” Niger Delta. Only $3 million was paid for their release.
Due to the threat of kidnappings, the cost of specialists from Europe and the United States increases sharply: due to risk payments, as well as due to the need to maintain military special forces to protect specialists and build well-fortified villages. The result is that the cost of oil production in Nigeria for international corporations is significantly higher than in other African countries, for example in Angola. Terrorist actions contributed, in particular, to the fact that Royal Dutch/Shell last year reduced production from 1 million to 380 thousand barrels.
Western corporations pay Lagos very impressive sums for the use of mineral resources. The same Royal Dutch/Shell has paid out almost $300 billion over the past 20 years. But the money does not reach the population, ending up in the hands of the ruling elite and officials at all levels. Nigeria is one of the most corrupt countries in the world; according to the “Corruption Perceptions Index” rating of an international organization Transparency International, it ranks 147th among 179 countries. At the same time, Western corporations are unable to directly assist in the creation of economic infrastructure, since their foreign specialists are under constant threat of kidnapping. Attempts to use local specialists are unsuccessful due to the same corruption.
Chinese approach
In such a situation, the appearance of the Chinese suits almost everyone. Thus, the cost of Chinese labor on projects in Nigeria is incomparably lower than European and American ones. A Chinese mid-level manager earns an average of $560 per month, while the cost of a Western specialist starts at $4,000. Due to this, China can use its workers and employees in Nigerian projects in much lower positions, for which Western companies were forced to hire unskilled and undisciplined locals. As a result, the quality of all work performed improves and revenue increases.
The strength of Chinese companies is that they are closely linked to the state, and therefore it is not just about oil production. Thus, representatives of the Celestial Empire managed to obtain the agreement of Lagos that about 20% of payments for the use of oil licenses would go to the economic development of specific Nigerian territories. Preferential loans provided by Beijing are also used for the same purposes. And these funds are being developed by Chinese companies whose management and engineering staff are entirely Chinese. They are building schools, hospitals, installing landline and mobile telephone communications, building roads and railways, and implementing a whole range of social programs. The projects are being implemented primarily in the Niger Delta, where extremist sentiment is strongest and where most of the oil is produced.
It is not surprising that the local population is more sympathetic to the Chinese than to international companies. Over the entire last decade, there was only one case of the kidnapping of five Chinese workers (in January 2007), but after a week they were released, and, according to the parties to the conflict, without any ransom. The use of Chinese managers and engineers allows us to solve another critical problem in Nigeria - the problem of corruption. Thanks to this, projects are implemented and money is not completely stolen.
Beijing is also making efforts to attract small Chinese businesses to the country. Chinese entrepreneurs who decide to start a business in distant Africa are offered preferential, often interest-free loans, and are provided with technological and diplomatic support. Such a policy began to be implemented only in the 21st century, but today more than a thousand small Chinese enterprises operate in Nigeria. This is mainly the service sector: restaurants, shops, various service services. In addition to the fact that this activity is in great demand, enterprises also hire the local population as workers, which also has a beneficial effect.
Finally, Beijing is training African students in Chinese universities and organizing retraining courses directly in Nigeria. In 2009, 14 thousand Nigerian students studied in China. This is more than twice the number of Nigerian students in Europe and North America.
Nigeria is a very typical example of getting hit Chinese business to the African continent. It is noteworthy that Chinese capital spends relatively little financial resources to enter one or another African country. But their effectiveness significantly exceeds Western investments. As the need of the PRC economy for raw materials will increase, the Chinese presence on the Dark Continent will only increase, and within 10 years it may become predominant.
http://www.expert.ru/printissues/expert/2010/05/nigeriyskiy_placdarm/
http://www.circleofblue.org/waternews/2009/world/war-on-water/
http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/africa/nigeria_gas_1979.jpg
http://mondediplo.com/maps/africanigeriamdv51
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/war/nigeria-maps.htm
Nigeria Direct -Official Information Gateway of the Federal Republic of Nigeria
http://www.nigeria.gov.ng/
Federal Capital Territory - Official website of the Federal
Capital Territory
Africa
Africa is the youngest fuel production region. About 3.5% of all the world's fuel and energy resources are concentrated on the continent, while the region is poorly explored. It is increasingly difficult for the main energy exporting countries to meet the global demand for energy resources from the rapidly developing industry, so African deposits of fuel resources are becoming increasingly important worldwide.
According to EIA data as of 2010, the region contains 9.5% of the world's oil reserves and 7.9% of natural gas. Some African states are among the ten largest countries in the world in terms of reserves of fuel and energy resources. For example, Nigeria and Algeria rank 7th and 8th in natural gas reserves, Libya and Nigeria rank 8th and 9th in oil reserves.
The distribution of fuel and energy resources on the continent is characterized by a high degree of territorial concentration. The main region for hydrocarbon reserves is the Maghreb countries (Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Tunisia). In second place in this indicator is the Western region, especially the countries of the Gulf of Guinea. Oil and gas reserves are still limited in South Africa, although the search for it has been going on for many years. The Central region does not have sufficient oil reserves; significant oil resources are contained only in the subsoil of Gabon. The subsoil of East Africa is the least explored.
According to the IEA, the following countries have commercial oil reserves in Africa: Algeria, Libya, Nigeria, Gabon, Congo, Angola, Zaire, Egypt, Cameroon, Tunisia. Industrial gas reserves - Algeria, Libya, Egypt.
Nigeria
Nigeria is an important global exporter of oil and LNG and is a member of OPEC. According to the EIA, Nigeria is Africa's largest oil producer and was the world's fourth-largest exporter of LNG in 2012. According to EIA data for 2013, Nigeria has reserves of 4.97 billion tons of oil. According to BP, between 2000 and 2011, oil production increased by 21% and reached 138.8 million tons per year. About 150 oil fields are exploited in the country, about half are located in the Niger Delta. Most of the oil produced comes from two fields - Akpo, Agbami Field and Bonga Field. Nigeria exports most of the oil produced; in 2010, exports amounted to 130 million tons. The main buyer of Nigerian oil is the USA (about 40%) The rest is Europe (20%), Asia (17%), Brazil, South Africa.
According to the EIA in 2012, natural gas reserves in Nigeria amount to 5.1 trillion. m3. Between 2000 and 2011, the level of gas production in the country increased almost 3 times and reached 36 billion m3. The bulk of gas is produced from oil fields located mainly in the Niger Delta and the Gulf of Guinea. The majority of natural gas production is provided by just two fields - Akpo and Bonga Field. One of the main problems of the Nigerian gas industry is the open burning of 40% of produced gas at production sites. According to the IEA, in 2011 Nigeria exported 25.5 billion m3, with over 95% of exports coming from liquefied natural gas. The bulk of gas is exported to the EU countries - more than 55%. Of these, about a quarter goes to Spain, and France (14%), Portugal (10%) and Japan (10%) are also major buyers.
According to IEA data for 2011, energy production is represented by oil by 53%, combustible renewable energy sources by 37% and natural gas by 10%. According to the EIA, the consumption structure of primary energy resources is dominated by combustible renewable energy sources, which account for 84.9%. Oil accounts for about 9.4%, and gas - 5.3%.
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I admit I was wrong. Despite all the efforts of the Duma with its draconian laws, Roskomnadzor with its stupid prohibitions and blockings, and even the Basmanny Justice with its imprisonment of oppositionists, to become the second North Korea We can’t do it no matter how hard we try. Will not work. As long as Russia has oil, our closest reference point is Nigeria.
Unfortunately, the Russian average person knows unforgivably little about Nigeria, although we are not only very similar, but also closely connected economically: after all, largely thanks to our geopolitical partners from the fraternal peoples of Ogoni, Igbo and Ijaw, oil now costs not $20, but about $50 per barrel , and the ruble is one and a half cents instead of one.
Energy superpower
Let's start with the fact that Nigeria is a real energy superpower, if we use this soothing term coined in Russia (about Russia and for Russia). Nigeria ranks 11th in the world in oil and gas reserves, 13th in production, and controls the Gulf of Guinea region, which is strategically important for the global energy market. She is also doing great with gas.
Nigeria's population is larger than Russia's - 180 million and, unlike ours, is growing rapidly. There is an average of 4.8 children per woman, so by 2050, Nigeria, according to all forecasts, will be the 5th largest country in the world in terms of population.
There is, however, a hefty fly in the ointment in their barrel of oil: in terms of living standards, Nigeria is in 153rd place out of 166, that is, below the baseboard. Therefore, Nigerians live very short lives: men, on average, are 46 years old, women - 48. More than 3% of the population suffers from AIDS, and child mortality is off the charts. The proverb “they lived unhappily, but not for long” is right about Nigeria.
How is it that Nigeria can be one of the richest countries in the world, but in fact turns out to be one of the poorest?
Features of national exports
Once upon a time, Nigeria's main export was the blacks themselves. On August 1, 1619, the first African slaves were brought to North America, and since then the slave trade in Nigeria has not stopped for a day. True, since it dawned on white people that using slave labor even in agriculture is not economically feasible, and allowing lazy and uneducated slaves to access complex industrial equipment is simply scary, the scale of the slave trade has dropped sharply.
However, even now in Nigeria there are up to 870 thousand people in slavery, and Nigerian women are illegally transported in batches to brothels in Europe. In the capital of Nigeria, Abuja, a girl costs about $300 (not for a night, but for the rest of her life), and locals often offer them to their business partners as a gift. The slave trade is, of course, illegal, but the police turn a blind eye to it. The act of purchase and sale is secured by a voodoo ritual, during which the purchased girl pronounces a special oath calling upon her head terrible punishments if she escapes from her owner.
The UN estimates that over the past thirty years, more than 30 million women and children have been sold into sex slavery. According to the UN Center for the Prevention of International Crimes, Russia ranks first in the list of slave-supplying countries, followed by Ukraine, Thailand, Nigeria, Romania, Albania, China, Belarus and Bulgaria. According to the International Organization for Migration, in 2000 alone, 120 thousand women from post-Soviet states were trafficked to European countries.
But let's return to the Nigerian economy. Although the slave trade continues to exist, it has ceased to be its dominant export. British colonial authorities taught Nigerians how to grow cocoa and peanuts, but agricultural production fell sharply after Nigeria gained independence. This is understandable: in order to grow something, you need to work, and aversion to work is almost a national trait of Nigerians.
Currently, 97.3% of Nigeria's exports come from energy sources - oil (82.5%) and liquefied natural gas (14.8%). In Russia it’s about the same - oil and gas account for 74% of exports. True, in addition to oil, we also export metals and mineral fertilizers, so that according to official data, the share of raw materials and primary products in Russian exports is close to 90%.
Petronomics
For some, wealth is a blessing, but for others it is a curse. In some countries, oil export revenues help develop the economy, while in others they destroy it. Nigerians are unlucky: out of all the variety of opportunities, they are left with only three main activities:
oil pipeline security;
stealing oil from an oil pipe;
attempts to blow up an oil pipe.
Those who are more nimble are busy doing just that, and everyone else either serves them or is engaged in agriculture, that is, they are left to their own devices and are trying to get food for themselves in a rapidly deteriorating environmental situation.
We are confidently moving in the same direction, industrial production is falling in most industries, and almost everyone in our country who went through the 90s at a conscious age already has experience in growing potatoes on six hundred square meters.
Nigeria is not able to produce its own oil due to its extreme technological backwardness, so instead large international oil companies are developing fields; all equipment is imported, and all qualified specialists are foreigners.
We are one step away from this, although the “patriots” do not like to talk about it. Our beauty and pride, the world's largest oil platform, Berkut, was built by a consortium that includes ExxonMobil (30%), SODECO (30%), ONGC (20%) and Rosneft (also 20%). It was built by Samsung Heavy Industries according to a design by Worley Parsons (Australia) at a shipyard in Okpo (Republic of Korea).
All that remains for “our” share is the concrete base of the platform, built on the site of the Russian port of Vostochny near Nakhodka on Far East company... "Aker Solutions" (Norway), or more precisely, its division "Aker Contracting Russia AS". During construction, Aker Solutions was reorganized and Aker Contracting Russia AS was renamed Kvaerner.
It’s about the same story with another source of pride - Gazprom’s Prirazlomnaya platform. Its lower part was laid down at Sevmash in 1995 (almost 20 years ago!), and the upper part was the decommissioned Norwegian Hatton platform, built in 1984 (exactly 30 years ago).
Sticking to the pipe
Tax revenues from oil exports are “saved” by the Nigerian elite, the budget is stolen at all levels, and almost every president resigns, having withdrawn several billion dollars from the country to foreign accounts. In general, the situation is familiar to us, except that the scale of corruption in our country may turn out to be even more serious.
In the areas where oil is extracted and through which oil is transported, there are tribal gangs of up to 20 thousand people in Nigeria who make money by cutting into pipelines, stealing crude oil from them, selling it smuggled at a price 3-4 times lower than the world price and /or cover all this activity. Well, they don’t disdain side businesses, like the slave trade and drug trafficking, either, but this is for the soul.
In general, calling them gangs is not entirely correct. Rather, it can be considered something like traditional folk crafts that entire villages practice in Nigeria. And they also burn entire villages when an accident occurs while cutting into an oil pipeline, which happens quite often.
There was a case when more than 100 people burned during an oil pipeline accident. Moreover, as it turned out during the investigation, local residents crashed into the oil pipeline several weeks before the accident, the local police knew very well about this and did not act, although they have the right to shoot at oil thieves without warning.
Those who are too lazy to steal oil simply blackmail oil companies. The simpler bandits simply tell the oil workers: “give them money, otherwise we’ll blow up the oil pipeline.” More advanced gangs have accounts on Twitter, have beautiful names (“Avengers of the Niger Delta,” for example) and demand money from oil workers for a reason, but exclusively for noble purposes - to restore the environment and compensate the local population for losses from the destruction of fish and pollution of arable land.
The remaining Nigerians go as mercenaries to oil companies to protect rigs, tanks and pipelines from the first two categories. In the end, all the money from evil bandits, noble avengers, and honest guards flows into the same hands - to local “authorities”, and the population, at best, receives crumbs.
Getting an education and working honestly becomes almost pointless - blackmail, smuggling and corruption do not require higher education, but are well rewarded. As a result, a large proportion of young Nigerians are members of various armed groups - official, unofficial or completely illegal.
There is practically no one to work, and there is especially no one willing to do it - over several rapidly successive generations, Nigerians have developed a dependent mentality, they firmly believe that everyone around them owes them something, and oil companies in the first place.
Things are not much better for us. Our youth for the most part dream of civil service - to sit on warm place with a good salary and the prospect of getting something done, and when there is less money in the budget, the ideals of the “dashing 90s” will come into fashion again.
Chicken with oil eggs
The tragedy of Nigeria is that in such a situation even oil production has become problematic. Constant attacks on oil production infrastructure have led to the fact that the total cost of oil production in Nigeria is now one of the highest in the world, and supply disruptions after another oil pipeline explosion are causing the entire oil market to fret.
Moreover, militants from the Movement for the Liberation of the Niger Delta and others like them regularly threaten to completely stop oil production in Nigeria, backing up their threats either by kidnapping oil workers or by attacking a drilling platform near the coast.
Now, when long-term oil demand remains a big question mark, this is tantamount to economic suicide for the country. There are more than enough people in the world willing to supply oil: Iran and Saudi Arabia will be happy to occupy Nigeria’s vacated niche, and this is to Russia’s advantage. But it will be difficult to regain market share once it is lost. Iran now has to dump, but it has a price reserve, while Nigeria, with its high cost, may not have a reserve. Moreover, Nigerians manage to deprive themselves of gasoline, causing additional damage to an already half-dead economy.
Nigerians, of course, are idiots, but look at our Gazprom - at the state level, these guys in expensive suits are doing exactly the same thing as the Nigerian “bandits with Kalash”: they tried to increase gas production, invested huge amounts of money in exploration and drilling and infrastructure, but for some reason they decided that they could blackmail gas buyers in Europe and Ukraine with impunity, threatening to “turn off the valve” and leave them without fuel in the winter.
The threats did not go unnoticed - consumers began to look for more sane partners. As a result, Gazprom’s production volumes have updated historical minimums for two years in a row and in 2015 only 418.47 billion cubic meters were produced. m of gas with a capacity designed for 617 billion cubic meters. m.
With the cost of oil production, things are not simple for us either. It can be extracted cheaply on the mainland, but there are only a few mainland deposits left - almost all of them were developed during the Soviet years, and the cost of production on the Arctic shelf is higher than from the notorious shale sands, of which everyone has heaps. Moreover, we can neither produce equipment for offshore drilling (due to backwardness) nor buy (due to sanctions).
Politics the Nigerian way
The entire political life in Nigeria is a symbiosis of a corrupt central government, backed by the army, and regional semi-criminal leaders, backed by armed gangs. On the one hand, the government is trying to keep the gangs under control, on the other hand, it gives them enough opportunities to exist, deriving considerable benefit from this.
Firstly, all economic problems can be blamed on the gangs with a clear conscience. Secondly, the existence of gangs is an excellent reason to beg for money and weapons from transnational corporations, international organizations and countries interested in oil supplies (about half of Nigeria’s exports come from the United States). Thirdly, instability in the country is used as an excuse for violating democratic rights and freedoms. The alternative that the official authorities are offering the international community is very simple: full democracy or stable oil supplies - your choice.
As a result, this vicious system perpetuates and reproduces itself, the region has become one of the largest black markets for weapons in Africa, and the choice between democracy and stability has led to a lack of both in the country.
Russia is not yet begging for money from anyone, but the word “stability” has long become a convenient justification for any actions of the authorities to tighten the screws, and in the regions there are gangs associated with government officials (the most striking example is the “Tsapkov gang”). Despite all the apparent strength of the central government, we already have an entire republic (Chechnya) that is absolutely not under the control of Moscow.
Stop feeding Abuja
When the only reason for a country's existence becomes the enrichment of its ruling elite, people have an understandable desire to leave this viper. And if at the same time everyone begins to suspect that it is with their money that the elite leads a luxurious lifestyle or uses it to cover up their inability to solve the problems of society, then separatism immediately arises.
This is particularly noticeable in Nigeria. Like most African states, Nigeria was an artificial entity, crookedly cut and roughly stitched together by the British Empire from a whole heap of small and three large patches: the Igbo (Ibo) peoples in the southeast, the Hausa-Fulani in the north and the Yoruba in the southwest.
Literally a couple of years before gaining independence, oil production began in Nigeria, and 90% of its reserves were concentrated in the southeastern province. When its residents realized that all income went to the federal government and they would never see petrodollars under any circumstances, they became very upset. And to such an extent that they decided to separate along with “their oil.” According to the constitution, they had the right to do this, but for some reason the federal center did not like this idea.
The result of the disagreements was a long and bloody civil war, which lasted with varying success from 1967 to 1970 and claimed up to 3 million lives on both sides. The victims were predominantly civilians, who were literally decimated by disease and hunger. They managed to maintain control over the rebellious province, at the same time dividing it into several separate states. This has not fundamentally changed the situation, except that now it is not the entire south-eastern part of Nigeria that is fighting for independence, but only the southern part, where oil is produced and where the same Ogoni, Igbo and Ijaw people live that were discussed at the very beginning.
Those who were born in the USSR do not need to explain what separatism is. The Union republics sincerely hoped that as soon as they left the USSR, their lives would radically improve, because they were the ones who “fed everyone.” And they left.
The result was, to put it mildly, ambiguous - for some it turned out to be a good opportunity, for others it was a personal tragedy, so now Russian people is in a state of political schizophrenia - in the mass consciousness there are simultaneously contradictory ideas: “Crimean is ours” on the one hand, and “stop feeding the Caucasus” on the other.
They can get along together just as long as there is enough money for geopolitical games, at the very least, but enough. As soon as they end, separatist sentiments will reach a new level, the apogee of which may well be the slogan “stop feeding Moscow,” which one fine day will be uttered by the leaders of the self-proclaimed Republic of Siberia.
"Boko Haram»
It so happens that the north of Nigeria is inhabited predominantly by Muslim blacks, and the south by Christian blacks. It would seem - what should they share? There are blacks there and there are blacks here, pump oil, chew bananas, love each other, live happily.
So no. Islam is such a wonderful thing that its followers cannot sit idle - they immediately want to establish their own order everywhere, so that everything is according to Sharia law, as they like. At least in Palestine, at least in Syria, at least in Germany, at least in Africa.
Nigerian Muslims were no exception and organized themselves into a gang called “Jamaatu Ahlis Sunna Liddaawati wal-Jihad,” which translated from Arabic means “Society of adherents to the dissemination of the teachings of the prophet and jihad.” It is clear that the average Nigerian will not remember this, so for the locals the name was shortened to “Boko Haram”.
"Boko" means "false" in the Hausa language and symbolizes Western education, lifestyle and values. “Haram” from Arabic means “taboo”, something forbidden.
The Nigerian government, from Boko Haram's point of view, is "corrupted" by Western ideas and consists of "non-believers", even though the Nigerian president is a Muslim.
It all started with the construction of a school and a mosque in the city of Maiduguri in 2002, and already in 2009 Islamists tried to organize an armed rebellion in the north of the country, the goal of which was to create a Sharia state. Government troops suppressed the rebellion, but the story did not end there.
Boko Haram still blows up churches and police stations, carries out terrorist attacks against civilians and burns down villages, and in 2015, Boko Haram militants swore allegiance to ISIS (the Islamic State is an organization banned in the Russian Federation) and decided to change their name to the West African Province of the Islamic State. It is not yet clear whether the rebranding has benefited them, but they are not going to give up.
Our radical Islamists live in the Caucasus - in Chechnya, Dagestan and Ingushetia. Are we engaged in de-Islamization of these regions? No, on the contrary, we are building one of the largest mosques in the world in Grozny with our own money, we are naming a bridge in St. Petersburg after Akhmad Kadyrov, despite the rising wave of indignation, we regularly pay tribute in the form of transfers from the federal budget, we allow federal laws to be ignored in Chechnya and create armed formations not controlled by Moscow.
Extremists, of whom there are more than enough in the Caucasus, can interpret this behavior only in one way: they, proud and brave horsemen, managed to bend the cowardly and stupid infidels. This means that you need to complete what you started when the right moment comes. The moment will come when Putin suddenly runs out of money, or Russia suddenly runs out of Putin - he is not eternal, after all.
Buka Suka Dimka and others
The dramaturgy of the change of top officials of the state is another feature that unites us with Nigeria. The higher the political culture in the country, the more boring this process is: nomination from the party, election program, election campaign, candidate debates, elections, the constitutional term of government, new elections and “goodbye” - that’s all, end of story. This is not the case in Nigeria.
Nigeria became an independent state in 1960, and the first president, Nnamdi Azikiwe, appeared only in 1963.
In January 1966, the first military coup took place, and six months later another one, as a result of which Yakubu Gowon came to power.
In 1975, Gowon was overthrown by a group of officers led by Murtala Muhammad.
Muhammad himself was killed in February 1976 during another, this time unsuccessful, coup attempt organized by Lieutenant Colonel Buka Suka Dimka.
Dimka was shot, and his replacement, Olusegun Obasanjo, handed over power to Shehu Shagari, who was elected to this post under very dubious circumstances.
In 1983, the Shagari administration was overthrown by a new group of military officers.
Elections were held in 1993, but the military refused to transfer power to the winner, Moshood Abiola.
In 1998, during the period of preparation for the nomination of the country's military dictator Sani Abacha to the presidency, Abacha died, and Abdusalam Abubakar, who replaced him, nevertheless transferred power - the elections were won by retired general Olusegun Obasanjo, already familiar to us.
After two terms, Obasanjo tried to change the constitution in order to run for a third term, but did not succeed, but pushed his protege, Umara Yar'Adua, into the presidency in 2007.
In 2010, while Umaru Yar'Adua was undergoing treatment in Saudi Arabia, Nigeria's federal court transferred powers to the country's vice president, Goodluck Jonathan.
In 2015, the first (!) more or less decent elections in 50 years were finally held, which were won by Muhammadu Buhari, the current president.
In our country, of course, everything was far from so fun and cheerful - the collapse of the country, the shooting of parliament, the appointment of a successor, two “castlings” bypassing the constitution - boring by Nigerian standards. Well, Russian statehood is only 24 years old, half as long as Nigeria. We still have time to catch up.
P.S. It is not entirely clear why we are repeating all the mistakes characteristic of relatively young post-colonial African republics, being located between Europe and Asia and having access to their culture. It seems that the years of Soviet power had the same destructive impact on society as centuries of slavery had on the former colonies.
And it’s also very clear that the “freebie” ( high prices fossil resources) only exacerbates the problems of immature societies, corrupting entire peoples. So, perhaps the fall in oil prices is an unexpected stroke of luck for us, our chance to realize the deplorable nature of our situation and change it for the better.
Well, or take a firm position on political map world place between Somalia and Rwanda - for many, many years to come.
For the past 50 long years, the production of hydrocarbons, namely oil and gas, Nigeria(in the Niger Delta) ensures the well-being of a select few, at a cost to local people and the surrounding environment.
In the list of the world's largest oil producers Nigeria is in eighth place, but it is still one of the poorest countries in the world. About 70% of its 150 million population live below the poverty line. Local nature also has to pay for the extraction of “black gold”. Approximately 500 million gallons of oil spilled into the Niger Delta during this time - similar to what would happen if the Exxon Valdez oil tanker accident occurred every year.
Oil flows around a sunken boat in a bay near an illegal oil refinery in Ogoniland near Port Harcourt in the Niger Delta.
Local disasters have many causes: poor-quality equipment and poor maintenance, non-compliance with regulations, militant attacks, “”, not to mention unstable governments and malfeasance. According to WikiLeaks, Shell Oil has embedded its employees in all major ministries Nigeria, thus gaining the opportunity to influence key government decisions. From these photographs you can partially imagine how the country coexists Nigeria and oil and gas industry.
Near the city of Warri, a woman carries tapioca seeds, which she had previously dried by the fire of a gas torch.
Children swim past an oil pipe towards their home in the village of Andoni in Nigeria's Rivers state.
An aerial photo showing an outdated oil production facility and spills of oil spilling into mangrove swamps near the city of Warri.
A man looks at an oil well on the Nun River in the Niger Delta.
A woman places clothes to dry on the pipes of an oil pipeline passing through the Okrika area near Port Harcourt.
Aerial photograph of Total's oil platform at Amenem, 35 kilometers from Port Harcourt.
Gas flaring on a Total oil platform. Gas flaring is a common practice in the oil industry to get rid of associated gas that cannot be used or transported. Excessive combustion is considered wasteful and causes enormous damage to the environment as it emits a large number of toxic and greenhouse gases that cause health problems for people and affect the climate.
Nigerian oil companies flare the second-largest volume of natural gas in the world. In 2008, it flared approximately 15.1 billion cubic meters of gas, or roughly 70% of all gas extracted that year. The use of torches is so widespread that in NASA's nighttime image of Earth, the Niger Delta is brightly lit (bottom left). Nighttime flare activity from 1994 to 2007 can also be seen in a film presented by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). (The image shown was taken from a NASA map created by Robert Simmon, based on data from Defense Weather Satellite Program instruments processed at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Geophysical Data Center.)
An oil facility with two burning flares (top left) near Ogbogwu, Nigeria.
The flaring of associated natural gas at oil facilities owned by an Italian company in Abama in the Nigerian state of Bayelsa.
A Nigerian child is silhouetted against the backdrop of a gas flare at a Royal Dutch Shell oil facility in the Niger Delta.
Illegal oil refinery in Ogoniland near Port Harcourt. Referred to as “tankers” in local parlance, they have been an integral part of the African oil and gas industry for many years. They punch holes in pipelines and cause Nigerian and foreign oil companies billions of dollars in losses each year.
Illegal oil refinery in Ogoniland.
Oil barrels and oil-soaked soil at an illegal oil refinery in Ogoniland near Port Harcourt in the Niger Delta.
Smoke rises from an illegal oil refinery in Ogoniland.
Canoes in a backwater in Ogoniland used to steal oil for an illegal refinery.
A cameraman films mangrove forests near Bodo City that have been destroyed by an oil spill.
Oil spill in the Gulf near Ogoni.
A man stirs the water in a river to show the oil spill.
A boy in a canoe holds a hose prepared to pump oil from a river leak in the Ogoni region of the Niger Delta.
Aerial photograph of a village on an island near the site of the Ogoni oil spill.
For more than 50 years, crude oil and natural gas production in the Niger Delta has brought huge profits to a privileged few, but at a high cost to local residents. Nigeria, the world's 8th largest crude oil supplier, remains one of the poorest nations, with about 70% of its 150 million people living below the poverty line. Oil extraction causes enormous damage to the environment. About 500 million gallons of oil have already spilled into the river delta. The situation is also aggravated by a number of factors, such as poor quality equipment and maintenance, weak controls, militant attacks and illegal mining, not to mention political instability and corruption. According to data published by WikiLeaks, Shell Oil has people in all major ministries in Nigeria and is thus able to influence key government decisions.
Crude oil gushes from a pipeline in Dadabili, Niger state, on April 2, 2011. (Reuters/Afolabi Sotunde)
Oil flows past a sunken boat near an oil refinery facility in Ogoniland near Port Harcourt in the Niger Delta, Nigeria, March 24, 2011. (AP Photo/Sunday Alamba)
A woman carries dried tapioca seeds near a gas torch near Warri, Nigeria, April 20, 2007. (Lionel Healing/AFP/Getty Images)
Children row a boat past an oil pipe near their home in Andoni village, Rivers State, Nigeria, April 12, 2011. (Pius Utomi Ekpei/AFP/Getty Images)
Aerial view of an oil facility and crude oil slicks in a mangrove swamp near Wari, Nigeria. (© Google/GeoEye)
A man looks at an oil facility on the Nun River in the Niger Delta, Nigeria, October 26, 2006. (Reuters/Akintunde Akinleye)
A woman places washed clothes on oil pipes that pass through the Okrika area of Port Harcourt in the oil-rich Niger Delta, Nigeria, October 7, 2006. (AP Photo/Sunday Alamba)
An aerial view of the Total oil platform at Amenem, 35 km from Port Harcourt in the Niger Delta, April 14, 2009. (Pius Utomi Ekpei/AFP/Getty Images)
A gas flare burns on the Total oil platform off the coast of Nigeria, April 14, 2009. Gas flaring is a common practice in the oil industry to destroy associated gas that cannot be properly used. Burning excess gas is detrimental to the environment because combustion produces huge amounts of toxic substances that have negative health effects and can lead to climate change. (Pius Utomi Ekpei/AFP/Getty Images)
Nigerian oil companies are the second largest in the world in terms of volumes of gas flared. In 2008, approximately 15.1 billion cubic meters were flared, or about 70% of all gas produced that year. There are so many gas flares that in this image of planet Earth at night, the Niger Delta (bottom left) appears lit up. (Image from a 2003 NASA map by Robert Simmon, based on data from the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program Operational Line Scanner, processed by the NOAA National Geophysical Data Center)
On the map " Google Earth» An oil facility and two gas flares are visible (top left) near Ogbogwu, Nigeria. (© Google/GeoEye)
Natural gas burns near an oil facility in Abama, Bayelasa State, Nigeria, March 12, 2004. (Reuters/Tom Ashby)
A Nigerian child is silhouetted against a gas flare near Royal Dutch Shell's Utorogu oil facility in the Niger Delta on April 16, 2004. (Reuters/George Esiri RSS)
An aerial view of an illegal crude oil extraction facility in Ogoniland near Port Harcourt in the Niger Delta, Nigeria, March 24, 2011. Illegal crude oil producers deprive Nigerian and foreign companies of millions of dollars in profits every year. (Reuters/Akintunde Akinleye)
An illegal crude oil extraction facility in the Ogoni people's territory in the Niger Delta, July 7, 2010. (Reuters/Akintunde Akinleye)
An aerial view of an illegal crude oil extraction facility, tanks and an oil-contaminated area in Ogoniland near Port Harcourt, Nigeria, March 24, 2011. (Reuters/Akintunde Akinleye)
Smoke rises from an illegal crude oil extraction site in Ogoniland near Port Harcourt, Nigeria, March 24, 2011. (Reuters/Akintunde Akinleye)
Shuttles used to transport crude oil to refineries float off the banks of a river in Ogoniland near Port Harcourt in the Niger Delta, Nigeria, March 24, 2011. (Reuters/Akintunde Akinleye)
A reporter takes pictures of mangrove trees killed by an oil spill in a river near the town of Bodo in the oil-rich Niger Delta on June 20, 2010. (AP Photo/Sunday Alamba)
An aerial view of an oil spill site in the Niger Delta in Ogoni territory, June 7, 2010. (Reuters/Akintunde Akinleye)
A man stirs up water to show reporters that oil has leaked in the Niger Delta in Ogoni territory on June 10, 2010. (Reuters/Akintunde Akinleye)
A young man in a canoe with a hose to pump oil from an oil puddle on a river near the Bodo settlement in the Ogoni region, June 10, 2010. (Reuters/Akintunde Akinleye)
An aerial view of a small village located on an island near the site of an oil spill in the Ogoni region of the Niger Delta, July 7, 2010. (Reuters/Akintunde Akinleye)
A child looks at an abandoned oil well leaking oil at Kegbara Dere in Ogoni territory. (Lionel Healing/AFP/Getty Images)
A port near the oil and gas terminal on Bonny Island, Nigeria, which is the main shipping point for crude oil from the Niger Delta. (© Google/GeoEye)
Royal Dutch Shell's oil and gas terminal is located on Bonny Island in the southern Niger Delta on May 18, 2005. (Pius Utomi Ekpei/AFP/Getty Images)
Local residents stand near a Royal Dutch Shell Nigerian pipeline in the town of Bodo in Nigeria's oil-rich Niger Delta on June 20, 2010. (AP Photo/Sunday Alamba)
Wooden ships carrying crude oil, intercepted by troops from illegal producers, go up in flames in the Andoni area of Rivers State, Nigeria, April 12, 2011. The battle group seized a barge carrying large quantities of crude oil and burned wooden vessels used by illegal miners to siphon oil from pipelines. (Pius Utomi Ekpei/AFP/Getty Images)
Crude oil floats on the surface of a swamp in the Niger Delta near Bodo village in Ogoniland, home of the Shell Petroleum Development Company, in Rivers State, Nigeria, June 24, 2010. (Pius Utomi Ekpei/AFP/Getty Images)
photographed in front of a plume of smoke from a burning oil pipeline near the town of Kegbara Dere, which is located approximately 55 km from Port Harcourt, Nigeria, on April 19, 2007. (AP Photo/Schalk van Zuydam)
Police officers and officials stand near a charred skeleton that lies on the ground near an exploded gas pipeline, in the village of Ilado, 45 km east of Lagos, Abuja, Nigeria, May 12, 2006. A damaged gas pipeline exploded while villagers were trying to get fuel. The explosion killed up to 200 people. (AP Photo/Sunday Alamba)
