P.Prazeres, The "cat is out of the bag" in Nigeria. I predicted about three months ago on this Thread that if Nigeria was not actively moving toward democracy as of October1st the date that the Military Junta promised free elections, that fighting will start.
A lot of bad things have happened in Nigeria in the last few weeks caused by the military junta that the international press chose not to report. If you all want to elucidate then I will, but it involved Northern Government troops going into Lagos hospitals and executing a number of wounded Yoruba anti-Government demonstrators, calling them "prisoners of war"!!! That needless to say infuriated the Yoruba Leadership in exile.
BTW part of the reason that Moshood Abiola was never allowed to serve as President is that the Northerners, the Hausa and Fulani minorities (about 43% of the population) did not consider Abiola a "proper Muslim". That is Abiola's last wife was a Christian Yoruba Woman. (She by the way was gunned down, shot in the head while sitting in her car at a traffic light in Lagos by six gunmen who immediately fled from the scene about three years ago. Abacha's Military Junta claimed that it was a robbery attempt!!)...
In any case Moshood let his children choose their religion and they chose to be Christians. That is not particularly significant in Yoruba culture as the Yoruba although overwhelmingly Christians are pretty laissez faire about religion. The Northerners, who are more fanatic Muslims figured that Moshood would set a "bad example" for Nigerians with his laisezz faire cultural attitudes and arrested him and put him in jail immediately after the 1992 elections.
In any case the Fulani/Hausa minority rules by way of junta and pockets all of the oil wealth while the southerners, who make up an ethnic majority in the country and who are overwhelmingly Christians (99.5% Roman Catholics amongst the Ibo in SE Nigeria, and about 75% generally Protestant denominations amongst the Yoruba, Ijaw, and Ogoni in S,SW Nigeria) are left to starve in total poverty. (By the way most African Americans are descendants of the Yoruba- the Yoruba are the professional class in Nigeria, bankers, doctors, lawyers,etc., but not the military types, much to their chagrin!).
I have seen a vicious fight over the issue of who would eat a cane rat that our car ran over and killed about six months ago in Ijaw Land. That is how poor and desparate the people are- yet Nigeria produces billions of dollars annually in oil wealth! Where is it going?? Right into the Bermuda bank accounts of a few corrupt Muslim rulers in Northern Nigeria. This Country is South Africa II where a corrupt and elite minority lords it over a desparately poor majority of peoples in the Country.
Will oil facilities be destroyed in the upcoming fight? No, neither side wants to kill the goose who lays the golden eggs. But more likely travel and movement in Nigeria will become impossible as chaos mounts, and there is a very real likelihood that the Country will disintegrate into two or four ethnic/racial/religious enclaves. That event will inhibit oil production particularly from Shell Oil Companies' onshore facilities....
In addition Shell's facilities are located in Iboland (SE Nigeria- you may know the area by the name of Biafra- the name that the Ibo would have given to their new country had their secession attempt in 1965-69 succeded) and the Ibo consider Shell to be a Government collaborator and strong supprter of the corrupt and decadent regime.... That combination spells serious trouble for Shell IMO, and its oil production...
Sincerely,
Doug F. |
