Africa, the world`s second largest continent by land mass, and the second most populous with over a billion people, is an immensely gifted continent. This continent which nature has conspired to embarrass not just with immense natural resources but also with the world`s youngest population should be soaring. Instead, for many years, it has remained stuck in the mire with the particular circumstances conducing to its stagnation foreshadowing even more woes to come.
By reason of nature`s generosity, the Democratic Republic of Congo is the second largest country in Africa after Algeria and the 11th largest in the world. It has a population of about 92 million people.
Staggering reserves of gold, cobalt, copper and coltan sit in the country`s soil. Considered one of the world`s richest countries in natural resources, its untapped deposits of raw minerals are estimated to be in excess of US$24 trillion. The Congo has 70% of the world`s coltan, a third of its cobalt, more than 30% of its diamond reserves and a tenth of its copper.
Apart from what the exquisite soil of the Congo holds, it is an ecological paradise. Its stunning wildlife which includes the rare okapi and many other endangered species, and striking natural landscapes often leave a beholder breathless. But its exquisite, mineral-rich soil is damp with the blood of its own people and it is not for nothing that its people remain among the world`s poorest. The inherent irony in it all would have been too jarring were it not for the omnipresence of conflict in the lives of its long-suffering people.
All over the Congo armed groups battle each other and the government. At the center of the unending conflict is control over Congo`s mineral resources. For what belongs to them, a people have known many slaughters, many rapes and the brutal evisceration of their national life as they knew it. The First and Second Congo wars began in 1996 and the smuggling of conflict minerals have helped fuel the war in the Eastern Congo.
The conflicts in the country have led to a disintegration of its security architecture, and it is not just children and their families that continue to be threatened as organized poaching and wildlife trafficking by armed units are severely threatening the survival of its iconic wildlife.
Like the DRC, like Nigeria, Africa`s most populous country and home to its largest oil reserves. The insecurity rippling through Nigeria today has not entirely resulted from battles for control over its staggering oil reserves. However, the discovery of oil in Oloibiri Bayelsa in 1956 undoubtedly led the country by the nose into becoming a mono product economy which has left it severely hamstrung.
Easy petrodollars streaming in from the country`s oil exports have also allowed a culture of complacency to seep into the national psyche. With other sectors of the economy conveniently abandoned for many years, a severe strain has been put on Nigeria`s oil resources and the Niger Delta environment. This has had the effect of ripping to shreds the fragile fabric of Nigeria`s unity.
There has also been a recent upsurge in criminal activities targeting Nigeria`s oil sector and the consequences have been cataclysmic. Only recently, over a hundred persons were burnt to death when an explosion cut through an illegal oil refinery in Abaezi Imo State.
There is no doubt that mismanagement reduces nature`s bountiful blessings to curses. Nigeria can learn from the DRC on how not to manage nature`s blessings.
Kene Obiezu,
