The Ancient Greek Philosopher Aristotle defined a fool as “the man who goes back home to the intimate and the familiar and leaves the market place open to the thugs, the mediocre and the corrupt.”  Despite decades of Catholic social teaching by our church leaders, some of us may qualify as fools in Aristotle’s eyes.  We see the corruption, injustices and structures of evil around us, and our conversations are filled with pungent denunciations of the entrenched bad leadership.  But at the end of the day we go home to our usual lives and leave the rot in the system to fester.

There are many potential leaders among us who have good hearts and lofty ideals but lack the effective tools to  harness our enthusiasm, to transform ourselves into agents for social change.  This book on the huge oil and gas wealth of Nigeria is an instrument of empowerment for those who want to see an end to the vast anomalies in the distribution of wealth in Nigeria.  Our country is coming up to its 50th anniversary of successful oil extraction.  How can it be that such a country has flared gas from its wells for fifty years while so much of the nation sits in darkness for hours and days at a stretch?  How can we experience periodic shortages and frequent increase in prices of petrol, diesel and kerosene while millions of barrels of oil are being exported?  How can a nation  that is endowed with so much wealth continue to live in abject poverty and environmental degradation?

This book is a detailed, painstaking analysis of the history and development of oil and natural gas industry in Nigeria.  It also scrutinizes the various laws governing the industry, their ambiguities, obscurities and the resulting loopholes that allow abuses and fraud.  It beams the torch on the financial aspects of accountability and the complexities that make it next to impossible to understand just how much money is earned, how much is spent, how much is paid in taxes and how much is simply lost to corrupt practices.  It clearly elucidates the advantages that gigantic multinational oil corporations have over local enterprises and why the market is almost totally dominated by foreign corporations.  It gives a real insight into why there has been no quick and easy answer to development in Nigeria.

It is not an easy work to read because of the intricate details and enumeration of facts and figures it supplies.  It is not a simple pamphlet to be left in the pews for casual church-goers to pick up and read.  Nor is the purpose of this work to provide a scholarly research document for filling out collectors’ book-shelves.  It was assembled by a special committee of the Catholic Secretariat of Nigeria called the “Justice and Environmental Issues in the Extractive Industries in Nigeria.”  It is meant to be a clear annunciation of the position of the Catholic Bishops of Nigeria on this vital aspect of the Nigeria economy.  It attempts to explain the Church’s social teachings and how they apply specifically to the concrete issues of how the wealth from the gas and oil industries should be tapped for the common good.  But even beyond that, it is meant to be part of a process to convert analysis into action.  This socio-economic analysis of the extractive industry should hopefully inspire countless social-justice committees on the parish, diocesan and national levels to take constructive actions to eliminate the malpractices and anomalies in the oil and gas industry.

It is also hoped that those who are involved in government and in the extractive industries will consider this book and examine their ways action.  It is a challenge for them to respond as to how they analyse the information presented in this book, and to elucidate their own solutions to the gross inequities in our social structure.  Hopefully an open dialogue can begin between the civil society, the Christian leaders in position of influence, government officials and the operators in the oil and gas industries among many others. 

As the English philosopher Edmund Burke said “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” The more good people who study this book and then take up informed action, the sooner Nigeria can grow into an equitable and prosperous nation.

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