NIGERIAN WRETCHEDNESS

Nov. 27, 1995
In a wretched situation, the proper urge is to distinguish between constructive and destructive behavior and act accordingly. Of course, wretched situations by nature make possibilities for constructive behavior painfully obscure. Nigeria is a wretched situation. A military government jealously defends its power and dissipates the country's wealth. Corruption and brutality reign literally. On Nov. 10, the regime of Gen. Sani Abacha took Nigerian wretchedness to new lows. It executed nine

In a wretched situation, the proper urge is to distinguish between constructive and destructive behavior and act accordingly. Of course, wretched situations by nature make possibilities for constructive behavior painfully obscure.

Nigeria is a wretched situation. A military government jealously defends its power and dissipates the country's wealth. Corruption and brutality reign literally.

NEW LOWS

On Nov. 10, the regime of Gen. Sani Abacha took Nigerian wretchedness to new lows. It executed nine members of the Ogoni tribe who had opposed it and sought reparations for environmental damage from oil operations and sabotage. The government accused the Ogonis, led bv Ken Saro-Wiwa, of four murders and convicted them in a questionable trial.

There were immediate calls for international oil and gas companies to pull out of Nigeria. Attention focused on Royal Dutch/Shell, which tried quietly to prevent the executions. Shell quickly revealed its intentions by announcing that a group it leads would proceed with long-lived plans for a $3.6 billion LNG project.

The environmental activist group Green-peace responded with characteristic arrogance. "...Shell is sending a strong signal to Abacha that it's acceptable to murder critics of the company," it said in a statement. "The decision before Shell today should not be whether to continue with business as usual, but how to pull out of Nigeria altogether."

Shell should forget Greenpeace, difficult though that may become to do if the group presses a boycott of the company's products. Shell should do what seems constructive in its own terms, which relate to business and not politics. And it should receive support from other international companies for behaving that way.

If Shell were to take direct political action against Nigeria or any of the many other countries where it works as a guest, it would not last long in international business. Governments tend not to deal with companies thought to be politically jumpy.

Furthermore, the very hint of political activism by any multinational corporation would draw international criticism as foreign meddling in sovereign affairs. Much of that criticism would probably come from groups now demanding that Shell withdraw from Nigeria for patently political reasons.

The pressure on Shell and other multinationals active in Nigeria results from understandable but misdirected outrage. The companies did not convict and hang the activist Ogonis. Nigeria's military government did. The companies are not guilty of injustice because unjust rulers hold offices of a government with which they have business commitments - many of which predate the current regime and most of which probably will outlast it. Unfortunately, service stations in Europe represent handier targets for European outrage than do military thugs in Lagos.

WHO GETS HURT?

Withdrawal of Shell and other sources of foreign capital and talent would hurt Nigeria m general more than it would hurt the Abacha regime. It would deprive the Nigerian economy of its only means for turning natural resources into 'wealth. It also would compromise the companies' essential political neutrality in other countries.

To be sure, far too few Nigerians benefit from Nigerian oil and gas wealth. But that tragedy won't change until the government does. Are any of Shell's detractors prepared to extend their logic and demand that expatriate companies perform as instruments of such change? Surely not.

It remains the prerogative of Shell and other expatriate companies in Nigeria to pull out if wretchedness becomes too costly or dangerous. But the reason must be that the companies see no way to make their presence economically constructive. A pullout taken to appease simplistic and short-sighted moralizing might create momentary good feelings in some quarters. But it would hurt too many people in the long run.

Copyright 1995 Oil & Gas Journal. All Rights Reserved.