Printer-friendly versionSend by emailPDF version

When Nigeria threw off military rule and restored democracy in 1999, the country's newly elected leaders immediately set their sights on eliminating the worst aspects of the old regime. They ended long lines at gasoline stations. They set about shoring up the country's crumbling infrastructure. They went to war on corruption and tried to balance the books.

Nigerians' Hopes in Elected Leader Fade
Gas Shortages, Neglected Infrastructure Hark Back to Years of Military Rule

By Douglas Farah
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, March 21, 2001; Page A23

LAGOS, Nigeria -- When Nigeria threw off military rule and restored democracy in 1999, the country's newly elected leaders immediately set their sights on eliminating the worst aspects of the old regime. They ended long lines at gasoline stations. They set about shoring up the country's crumbling infrastructure. They went to war on corruption and tried to balance the books.

Two years later, the gas lines are back. The infrastructure is still a shambles. The latest government budget includes $330 million for a national soccer stadium -- more than will be spent on health or education. And Nigerians are wondering why the promising future is starting to look so much like the dreary past.

When he took office in May 1999, ending 16 years of corrupt and brutal military rule, President Olusegun Obasanjo, a retired general, raised hopes at home and abroad that he would be able to make the tough choices necessary to revive the economy of Africa's most populous nation. He immediately made funds available to purchase fuel and ended the shortages that, even though Nigeria produces 2 million barrels of oil a day, had forced motorists to wait in long lines and led to massive blackouts, hampering the economy and impeding foreign investment.

But those hopes have faded. Gasoline lines have reappeared in recent weeks, and the electricity supply is dwindling, largely because politicians and former military leaders are siphoning off the fuel to sell at a 400 percent markup on the black market, according to diplomats, government officials and irate motorists.

At the same time, Obasanjo not only included the new stadium in his latest budget but also allocated tens of millions of dollars for new jets for himself, the vice president and other senior government officials, and for new office furniture for the government. The planned expenditures contrast sharply with Obasanjo's rhetoric during his first two years in office, much of which was spent globe-trotting to seek relief from Nigeria's $35 billion foreign debt while promising austerity and poverty reduction at home.

Diplomats and politicians here say Obasanjo and other political leaders are gearing up for elections in 2003. In their efforts to cement political alliances and win over various constituencies, they are allowing this nation of 120 million to slip back to the edge of economic collapse in a budget-busting binge characterized by a refusal to make potentially costly decisions on halting corruption and privatizing the vast, inefficient state-run economy.

"This is what happens when you start running for reelection two years early: You can't make the tough choices," said a diplomat who follows economics. "You try to give everyone something. It stinks politically."

Even Obasanjo's critics acknowledge that he inherited an enormous task, taking office with an empty treasury, billions of dollars of debt and an infrastructure that had suffered from decades of neglect. But there is growing concern at home and abroad that he is committing many of the same mistakes that helped Nigeria's military justify its last takeover, in 1983.

While few say that the now discredited and demoralized military poses a threat to democracy, there is concern that a return to ostentatious government spending and the resulting lack of economic growth will fan the regional, ethnic and religious rivalries that constantly test the strength of the Nigerian federation.

"People generally are disgusted," said Tunji Braithwaite, a lawyer and former presidential candidate known for his opposition to the military. "Things like the stadium are absolutely a white elephant, with no rational thinking. Corruption is surging, not declining. It is criminal to have gas lines in this country, yet they are growing worse.

"It is hard to see where this is going to end."

Nigeria's immense population and prodigious oil production ensure that concern about the country's future extends far beyond its borders. The United States views Nigeria as a vital ally in West Africa, a region beset by conflict in nearby Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea and political instability in Ivory Coast, U.S. officials said. And while the Bush administration has been largely silent on policy toward Africa, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell told the House International Relations Committee this month that "I think we can be sort of proud now as to the start that President Obasanjo has made putting his country back on the right path."

But a State Department report released this month said Nigeria's economy is "static, with growth still impeded by grossly inadequate infrastructure, endemic corruption and general economic mismanagement. The country's ports, roads, water and power infrastructure are collapsing."

What economists, analysts and diplomats find especially worrisome is that the government has made so little progress in setting up a viable economic program at a time when oil prices have skyrocketed on the world market, providing millions of dollars in extra revenue.

"The pervasive corruption so cripples the system it makes it impossible for any solution or formula to work," said Mofia Akobo, a former oil minister who now works as an environmentalist. "What is worse is that Obasanjo appears to be totally unable to deal with the situation. It is a very tricky and dangerous situation for the country."

Obasanjo recently joked that the fuel supply was "jinxed" and said he could do little to solve the shortages because the legislature had blocked all moves to deregulate the heavily subsidized price of gasoline, making smuggling inside and outside the country extremely profitable.

Jackson Gaius-Obaseki, director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corp., said in a report released this week that the fuel crisis was caused by an increase in demand for gasoline coupled with the fact that the nation's four refineries, hobbled by lack of maintenance, were operating at only 31 percent of capacity.

But gasoline is readily available all over the country. Busy intersections and gas stations are lined with young men openly displaying five-gallon plastic jugs full of fuel -- available for four times the official price of 80 cents a gallon.

While most gas stations receive a limited amount of fuel to sell at the official price, tankers arrive at night and unload much larger quantities that are then sold on the black market, according to gasoline sellers.

That is part of what makes people such as Emanuel Seuger so bitter. Waiting in a gasoline line that stretched a least a mile in the southern city of Port Harcourt, Seuger said he blamed the government for the problems.

"I wait in line every day for at least two hours. Sometimes I lose the whole day or spend the night in line," he said, sitting in the cab of his pickup truck, inching ahead one car length every few minutes. "I blame the government for not being able to fix the problem. We have two refineries in Port Harcourt. How can we not have gasoline? I feel like I'm trapped in hell."

[Planned weeklong protests against a proposed 50 percent increase in gas prices started yesterday in some of Nigeria's 36 states, and a major rally is planned today in Lagos, the Reuters news agency reported.]

As for the budget's soccer stadium, Obasanjo has defended building a world-class facility for the nation's premier sport as necessary for the country to host international games. And he has argued that Nigeria's aging fleet of official aircraft endangers the lives of those they transport.

But economists and international analysts here say the new budget is not only wasteful, it jeopardizes a vital $1 billion emergency standby loan authorized by the International Monetary Fund and seen as crucial to easing Nigeria's constant liquidity crisis. This is because the budget spends far more on projects such as the stadium than the government agreed to when it negotiated the loan.

"We have an economy that has almost reached its capacity for inefficiency," said one diplomat. "On a positive note, things can't get much worse. But there is nothing I can point to that this government has done to make things better."

© 2001 The Washington Post Company