I have been to Nigeria in the late 1990's. Nice place to visit, not if you want to move. I heard that this country has great oil resources. Seriously if the country got this much oil, Lagos would not be a slum infested place, people would not need mega-churches that will defraud their money they give, and would be a nice place to live. As a matter of fact:
Nigeria produces over 2 million barrels of oil a day (currently valued at roughly $40 billion per year) which accounts for 90% of its export earnings and 80% of government revenue.
Instead my father's homeland is poor, with corruption rifed in the Government, particulary in it's national oil corporation. Counterpunch's article,
Oil Inferno, highlights this dispair.
The slum world of Lagos defies description, in part because its operations remain a mystery. In Ajegunle, one of its vast swamp shanty towns, perhaps 1.5 million people inhabit eight square kilometers. In a recent New Yorker article, George Packer describe the city as a burning garbage heap, populated by armies of scavengers that are superfluous and ultimately disposable. It is no wonder that Governor Bola Tinubu of Lagos saw in the charred remains of Abule Egba, 'the shame of our nation'.
It's a great read, including for me because I'm a Nigerian-American too. It's a damn shame that Nigeria is stuck in this suituation.
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