09/03/2024

Peter Zeihan talks about Nigeria in a talk titled ‘Nigeria, After America’¹. This is an astounding exercise in complete ignorance.

It seems that many in the Western geo-political talkspace have no time to study Africa or learn about Nigeria. We have David Oulaalou who knew nothing about Africa displaying this : ‘The rise of Sahel Alliance’ ² where he thinks the recent revolts in West Africa are something new, having no knowledge of the liberation struggles of 60- 80’s. Nor does he appear aware of the liberation thinkers such as Amilcar Cabral, Augustino Neto, Samora Machel, Fanon, Cesaire or the fact that the term ‘neo-colonialism’ was invented by Nkrumah. He talks of the issue of the genocide of Hutu vs Tutsi as if the West stepped aside rather than promoted the conflict. Oualaalou’s history is truly pathetic. He talks of the history of Africa as merely a history of colonialism even from the time of Greeks and Romans. This is just so pathetic to have 4,000 years of great Egytpian history followed by several centuries of Macedonian rule, following the invasion of Alexander the Great, telescoped into beginning with the arrival of Alexander! Great medieval African empires, Mali, Songhay, et al are simply lost altogether. Warm relations between Africa and China for millenia are dropped down a memory hole.

It seems that the popular Western geo-politicians all assume that what is required to appear expert and knowledgeable is to insult Africa and Nigeria as much as possible. To say the most stupid things one can imagine. Ziehan also describes the coups in 2022-23 as simply ‘coupsters’ and leaves out that they were coups against France not the people of their country and had vast popular support. There was never any chance that the Nigeria’s army would attack the people of Niger. Zeihan thinks Nigeria is in the Sahel. Really.

He talks of oil in a totally uninformed manner not recognising that oil is about 5% – 6% of Nigeria’s GDP.

According to Statista: ‘Between October and December 2020, the oil industry contributed to 5.9 percent to the total real GDP, a decrease of roughly three percentage points compared to the previous quarter. In the second quarter of 2023, the contribution of the oil sector to the country’s GDP reached 5.34 percent’³

According to Nigeria’s official data:

‘The Oil sector contributed 6.63% to the total real GDP in Q1 2022, down from the figures recorded in the corresponding period of 2021 and up compared to the preceding quarter’’ in official Nigeria data⁴.

Doubling the oil production only affects the foreign exchange situation. The departure of Western oil majors has more to do with the historical pressures to go green. There is an astonishing silence in his empty diatribe. China. Nigeria’s major customers for oil are The Netherlands, Indonesia , France and India.⁵ UK does not figure. But according to Zeihan France and UK will battle for supremacy in their race for oil. Given that UK has little dependence on Nigeria for oil and France’s position in Africa is seriously declining this is utter nonsense.

In the past, it was reactionary Western scholars who wrote abundant nonsense. Now the so-called alternative media is joining in.