Nigerian refugees after Boko Haram insurgents attacked their town, Damassak. Flickr/European Commission. Some rights reserved.
The ‘resource curse’ is alive and well in contemporary Nigeria, where cultural and economic schizophrenia has created Africa’s largest economy, while also birthing the savage terrorist group Boko Haram.
The ‘resource curse’, also called ‘Dutch disease’, is a harmful imperial phenomenon that has followed the same, hackneyed script for generations: a valuable natural resource is discovered in a developing nation – like Nigerian oil – and the nation’s entire economy shifts to accommodate this exploding sector; government corruption festers with the help of foreign money; domestic inequality rises; infrastructure decays, and chaos ensues. Such is the case in Nigeria, where the government’s failure to protect its citizens and develop the whole of its economy has exposed a hollowed-out state whose shortsightedness endangers all that it has achieved. And while the glossy sheen of 21st century markets, modern banking and international treaties promise protections from economic exploitation and degradation, the rise of Boko Haram proves otherwise.
