Book Review: Poisoned Wells

Poisoned Wells: The Dirty Politics of African Oil. Nicholas Shaxson. Palgrave MacMillan, 2007. 280 pages.

“Oil,” wrote Ryszard Kapuscinski, “is a great temptation… the temptation of ease, strength, fortune, power…wealth achieved through lucky accident…” We know too that oil can be a curse; world politics and dirty deals centre on oil. A country where oil is found in large quantities is much more prone to conflict, and extremes of opulence and stinking, violent poverty. In “Poisoned Wells”, Nicholas Shaxson, zeroes in on the politics of oil along the West African coast-line, from Angola to the Niger Delta. It is a bumpy ride with plenty of pot-holes and nasty shocks along the way.

In 2005 the United States imported more oil from the Gulf of Guinea than from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait combined. West African oil is in special demand: it is “light” and “sweet”, ideal for refining into motor fuels. Most of the region’s oil is off-shore, so that wars on the mainland can go on undisturbed –as happened in Angola, for example; and there are no pirates, no Suez Canal to prevent the transporting ships making a quick dash for America and Europe.

The author’s research, he says, taught him that the oil trade is about information; whoever knows the most makes the most money. Because of the complexity of the energy markets and their secrecy, transparency is difficult and corruption abounds. It’s everyone for himself.

People cheat for oil, they kill for it. It’s estimated that about half a million barrels a day in the Niger Delta are stolen by oil thieves. Yet despite the endless reserves of “black gold”, the huge majority of people in oil-producing areas are poor and backward; not only in Nigeria, but everywhere in West Africa. Like the legendary King Midas, they wish the “gold” were far away; it’s useless to them.

Shaxson likens the decline of honesty and decent standards in Nigeria to the life of musician Fela Kuti and his grotesque antics and gross exhibitionism; for many Nigerians he was “perhaps the best loved citizen of all time” because his pidgin lyrics expressed what they felt.

In Angola and Gabon –with an interesting study of the late Omar Bongo- he follows closely the links of the petroleum company Elf with French presidents and their close relatives, originating from the accords that secured strategic minerals for the colonial power as a condition for Independence. The Niger Delta is where the game is dirtiest: a combination of ruthless international politics, local militants with fast speed-boats mounted with machine-guns and the deleterious effects on the life of the community.
Congo-Brazzaville, he writes, provides a shocking example of where oil interests helped tip a country into civil war; by 2005 it had an unpayable foreign debt of $9 billion –over $2,000 per inhabitant- and had taken out loans from British and French banks which it was repaying at 5 per cent per month. And many more stories.

Sudan, Uganda, Somalia, possibly Kenya……… More large oil discoveries are being made in Africa. Will this be for the continent’s peaceful development and ultimate benefit, or will there be a huge price to pay: more conflict, greater rich-poor gap and environmental degradation?

Martyn Drakard is a correspondent based in Uganda and Kenya.