What if the oil was on their land?

What if they owned the coast lines and creeks?

In my own humble opinion, judging from recent happenings both past and present, I think the word "one Nigeria" would have been a thing of the past.

Let's share our views, no insults please.

God bless Nigeria.

My view?

The issue is having oil does not make anything better.

Better Nigeria had less resources...so that we would rely on our brains and our education and become an innovative and industrial economy.

If the North had the oil...they would probably be underdeveloped as well.

Want my honest opinion? Nigerians should stop fighting over oil...and go home and develop innovative and industrial based economies which would enable us to triple , even quadruple our GDP.

China did it, South Korea did it, Japan did it(And China and South Korea were not our mates back in the 60's.

By, contrast, says Schleicher, “in countries with little in the way of natural resources — Finland, Singapore or Japan — education has strong outcomes and a high status, at least in part because the public at large has understood that the country must live by its knowledge and skills and that these depend on the quality of education. ... Every parent and child in these countries knows that skills will decide the life chances of the child and nothing else is going to rescue them, so they build a whole culture and education system around it.”

Or as my Indian-American friend K. R. Sridhar, the founder of the Silicon Valley fuel-cell company Bloom Energy, likes to say, “When you don’t have resources, you become resourceful.”

Source

That is what we should be doing....instead of bothering over oil(that isn't enough for the South or even the Delta).
Oil is a curse.

bushdoc9919:
My view?

The issue is having oil does not make anything better.

Better Nigeria had less resources...so that we would rely on our brains and our education and become an innovative and industrial economy.

If the North had the oil...they would probably be underdeveloped as well.

Want my honest opinion? Nigerians should stop fighting over oil...and go home and develop innovative and industrial based economies which would enable us to triple , even quadruple our GDP.

China did it, South Korea did it, Japan did it(And China and South Korea were not our mates back in the 60's.

Oil is a curse.

Hmm. Nice opinion but I don't thin the oil is the curse but mad leadership is Our curse.

We could have been like Saudi with our oil but these same Northern past leaders kept us like this.

If the oil was in the north we would have been kicked out of Nigeria.

Check how the revenue was shared when groundnut pyramids abound the North and you quickly realise if they had oil they'd have "caliphated" their region.

Mogidi:
Check how the revenue was shared when groundnut pyramids abound the North and you quickly realise if they had oil they'd have "caliphated" their region.

Wow!
And here they ate scrambling for our God given wealth like its their Birth right.

GEJ -till 2023

SeunEatsGARRI:


Hmm. Nice opinion but I don't thin the oil is the curse but mad leadership is Our curse.

We could have been like Saudi with our oil but these same Northern past leaders kept us like this.

If the oil was in the north we would have been kicked out of Nigeria.

Saudi produces far more oil than Nigeria does....(9,900,000 barrels per day compared to Nigeria's 2,525,000 barrels per day)....and for a population of 11 million people(compared to Nigeria's 170 million people)...so we would have not been like Saudi Arabia.(Unless we want to tell 160 million Nigerians that they are not citizens of Nigeria).

At which point I quote Bushdoc's maxim of economic development...Oil producing economies that do well have populations below 20 million (Saudi and the UAE are good examples) and/or have a strong industrial base (Norway is a fine example....and it has 10 million people too).

Plus...even if the North had oil...they would still need access to the sea for exports. In your scenario, if they had oil and formed a separate country...they would still have to export the oil via the South's seaports...and that at an expensive price..because they would be paying something called customs duties.(Chad has to pay Cameroon for the privilege of exporting Chad's oil....a lot of money that they would not have spent if they had access to the sea.).

The problem with Nigeria is that we are a resource dependent society. And such societies, in brief, sell their resources ,import and live beyond their means...leading to huge debts and inflation. That is why we have never prospered as a nation...because of the sad thing called resource curse.

As this article puts it....

This can happen when the oil revenue windfall increases domestic demand for non-tradable goods and pushes up domestic prices leading to an appreciation of the real exchange rate which in turn reduces the competitiveness of the non-oil export sector. This will in turn lead to a reduction in non-oil exports in both quantum and value terms. The oil windfall may also lead to movement of the factors of production in the economy. For instance, capital and labor (and land) may shift from the non-oil export sector to the oil sector (in order to maintain or increase reserves and production) and the non-tradable goods sector (to take advantage of the growing domestic demand). This explains why the increase in oil prices and the subsequent oil revenue windfall in many oil-exporting countries have tended to depress their non-oil export sector while at the same time generating a boom in both the oil and the non-tradable goods sectors. With capital and labor shifting from the non-oil export sector to the oil-sector and non-traded goods sector, firms in the non-oil export sector are forced to either close down or reduce their scale of operation. The boom in the oil and non-traded goods sector increases the demand for imported goods. This may not be a problem in the short-term so long as the country has enough foreign exchange to pay for the imports. The depression in the non-oil export sector and the boom in the other two sectors have medium to long term implications for the economy because the oil windfall will not be permanent given the volatility, unpredictability and exhaustibility of crude oil. For instance, if there is a decline in oil prices and oil revenue, the lagging and collapsing non-oil export sector will not be able to compensate for the drop in oil revenue while domestic demand for the non-traded goods and imports remain sticky. Consequently, the country will be forced to borrow from the international financial market to compensate for the decline in oil revenue. Over time, external debts will increase and so will the debt service obligations. Even when oil prices go up later and there is another round of oil windfall, it is difficult to correct the earlier damage or distortions created by the initial or previous oil windfall. In some cases, the oil exporting country may be forced to adopt some form of structural adjustment program (SAP) to correct such distortions or imbalances. Some of these SAPs are painful and may increase the prevalence, depth and severity of poverty.

The above quote explains our underdeveloped nature well.

By the way....we should not aspire to be like Saudi. Finland, Japan, China, Germany are the countries we should be aspiring to be like...countries whose lack of resources has forced them to become resourceful.

What every state in Nigeria should be doing is investing in education....especially techincal education, as well as investing in power and transport...so that we can have the basis for strong industrial development(which is what we were doing in the 70's...before we became too resource dependent )

bushdoc9919:


Saudi produces far more oil than Nigeria does....(9,900,000 barrels per day compared to Nigeria's 2,525,000 barrels per day)....and for a population of 11 million people(compared to Nigeria's 170 million people)...so we would have not been like Saudi Arabia.(Unless we want to tell 160 million Nigerians that they are not citizens of Nigeria).

At which point I quote Bushdoc's maxim of economic development...Oil producing economies that do well have populations below 20 million (Saudi and the UAE are good examples) and/or have a strong industrial base (Norway is a fine example....and it has 10 million people too).

Plus...even if the North had oil...they would still need access to the sea for exports. In your scenario, if they had oil and formed a separate country...they would still have to export the oil via the South's seaports...and that at an expensive price..because they would be paying something called customs duties.(Chad has to pay Cameroon for the privilege of exporting Chad's oil....a lot of money that they would not have spent if they had access to the sea.).

The problem with Nigeria is that we are a resource dependent society. And such societies, in brief, sell their resources ,import and live beyond their means...leading to huge debts and inflation. That is why we have never prospered as a nation...because of the sad thing called resource curse.

As this article puts it....



The above quote explains our underdeveloped nature well.

By the way....we should not aspire to be like Saudi. Finland, Japan, China, Germany are the countries we should be aspiring to be like...countries whose lack of resources has forced them to become resourceful.

What every state in Nigeria should be doing is investing in education....especially techincal education, as well as investing in power and transport...so that we can have the basis for strong industrial development(which is what we were doing in the 70's...before we became too resource dependent )

Highly insightful..