The Poverty of Wealth

Oil! One of today's most sought after natural resources in the world. It would be believed that whom ever had control or access to such a rich resource would gain immense wealth through it's many pathways to "success."Yet Nigeria, being not only one of Africa's but one of the world's most oil rich countries suffers greatly from this most profitable resource. Tom O'Neill says it best in his essay Curse of the Black Gold: Hope and Betrayal on the Niger Delta, stating that "Everything looked possible--but everything went wrong."

Once all the oil companies, factories, rigs, pipelines, and businesses had built up, everything else seem to have fallen apart. The gap between wealth and poverty extended to a level that couldn't be bridged. Due to this new way of making money, other jobs and business in Nigeria became obsolete either because it was no longer need, or the effects from the oil mining destroyed any means of continuing such business. Jobs were lost, other natural resources were destroyed, and the desperation of poverty had began to take effect.

Throughout the reading of Tom O'Neill's essay, I discovered several heartbreaking things that have gone on, and continue even to this day because of this "rich" natural resource. I barely made it past the first page without reading shocking yet valid truths about Nigeria's situation. One statement goes as follows...

"Dense, garbage-heaped slums stretch for miles. Choking black smoke from open-air slaughterhouse rolls over housetops. Vicious gangs roam school grounds. Peddlers and beggars rush up to vehicles stalled in the gas lines....Port Harcourt should gleam; instead, it rots....There is no electricity, no clean water, no medicine, no schools. Fishing nets hang dry...Decades of oil spills, acid rain from gas flares, and the stripping away of mangroves for pipelines have killed of fish."

It deepens into worse things as it continues, talking about armed rebels and the steady depletion of a nation.

Everything that was expected to go good for Nigeria once receiving such wealth in such a short amount of time went completely wrong. Now there is no true gain from these actions besides the ones of greed which bring no profit to a nation in severe need. So what "wealth" was really earned from these occurrences? More importantly, what lies ahead for these people in the midst of greedy hands, covered in the residue of "black gold?"