Major Industries Sold Cheap In Exchange For Devalued Currencies

Rich African countries have fallen from grace to grass in less than half a century. The reasons and solutions are obvious but not rectified for advancement and progress. There are about two or three repeated assumptions with 1. Cheap Natural Resources 2. Currency devaluation. 3. Foreign economic advice that collapses the value of both natural resources and African currencies. Repeating the same thing for over 60 years without success is known as insanity.

The saga Nigeria faces today of the pros and cons of removing petroleum subsidies can be traced to the history of mismanaged mines and plants, sold in turn to fake competent private indigenous and foreign firms. This was how Nigeria, a major Oil producing country turned black gold into a curse. It was not too different from Ghana Gold mine or Sierra Leone Diamond Industries.

Though all the three Nigerian leading Presidential candidates agreed that oil subsidies must be removed, stopped or eliminated entirely. Yet, two that lost the Election are faulting the one that did exactly what all of them promised during the campaign. Of course, they could have done it differently. This selfish attitude points to one of Africa's weaknesses when it comes to National industries. The reason our new administrations abandon predecessors’ projects.

Some industries were bought and killed to avoid competition with foreign industries. Ajaokuta was a case in point since Russia, the builder, with a glut of steel in the world market, wanted no competition. The industries that were supposed to liberate and kickstart Africa's economy in order to reduce dependence on foreign imports. Indeed, with Structural Adjustment imports grow and they have become more expensive draining Africa's foreign foreign reserves.

How difficult is it for an oil producing country to have enough refineries to be self-sufficient and export refined petroleum products? When a country is named Gold Coast, it cannot be that difficult to produce and maintain a gold plant competing with the best in the world. If countries backed their currencies with gold or diamond, African countries should have the strongest currencies in the world.

African countries are encouraged to privatize the major industries they heavily invested in: as cheap scrap to be salvaged by the magic of another free market into the hands of leaders in cahoots with foreign partners. Usually experts were brought in to establish the industries. One would think if the so-called efficient partnership they claim is the best in the world, worked in the first place, there would be no need to sell again. New fraudulent experts replace another!

What is pertinent here relates to the Ajaokuta Steel Industry. Steel was supposed to liberate Nigeria economically so that other primary and secondary industries could take off from a solid base. The same argument or discussion on whether to scrap, revamp or sell the Steel Industry to private investors and how much would be saved are what we face with Nigeria refineries today.

There are deadly competitions with African industries from overseas foreign industries. It is not about capitalism or communism as political robbers would want us to believe. But about finding African partners willing to kill their own industries. There are no better examples of Africans working against Africa than in Nigeria's Electric Power system. More hard earned money has been poured into it than any industry with little to show.

Apart from the sabotage of Electric Power by Nigerians importing Generators, converting Gas Flaring from the Oil wells were flagrantly ignored despite law and regulations by each administration. You cannot regulate International corporations into making your industries efficient after the same politicians took kickbacks from them.

Nigeria had a car prototype by Professor Ajimobi of the University of Lagos as far back as the early 60s. After those days we killed our Peugeot and Volkswagen assembly plants with imported luxury cars. Right now, cars are still built in the Western and Eastern Nigeria begging for orders from patrons within.

It is not a matter of technical graduates refusing to train in mega projects but politicians that prefer foreign workers in order to launder money abroad. Unless anyone thinks that since Nigerians have acquired plants, factories, roads and bridges; no Nigerian graduates in training on the job are capable enough to be world class after 60 years.

This is how Nigerian politicians wanted to use P&ID to achieve what International Oil companies with the technical knowledge could not do at any profit after paying kickbacks. Enron defrauded many developing countries with the full backing of the United States President demanding access to African "free and open" markets that do not exist in their own countries. The political parties get corporate political contributions in return.

Bribes or kickbacks are not only practiced in African countries, we have seen progressive growth in Asian countries, increasing their middle class while poverty was reduced but poverty increased like never before in Africa. Nigerian politicians do not only inflate contracts, they leave projects uncomplicated and abandoned to start a new one for their own kickbacks. It was the same reason Virgin Airlines backed out of the Nigeria Airways deal.

Every major natural resource is mined and built by the experts from Western and Asian countries: from Gold mine in Ghana, Diamond in Sierra Leone to Oil in Nigeria are few cases in point. Even more painful are those mined in African countries surreptitiously in local villages without the full authorization of the Regional or Federal Governments. The local chiefs are paid off like they did during the slave trade.

Nigerian politicians without any contribution or investment want the lion share of the profit. There is more to African leaders' indifference and hero worship than we are willing to accept when we choose and vote for the same losers willing to repeat the same inefficiency for over half a century in a delusional sense of grandeur. The race to make money at neck breaking speed is so intense, Youths looking at their elders behavior cannot wait to get rich like them.