MAKING REALITY; ASK WHY?
Contrary to public opinion, China’s national oil companies are not ‘locking up’the lion’s share of African oil as part of a centralised quest for energy,”wrote Erica Downs, a China specialist with the Brookings Institution, in a
recent paper. “With the exception of a handful of projects in Sudan, Nigeria and
Angola, most of the African assets held by China’s national oil companies are of
a size and quality of little interest to international oil companies.”
Ouch! The media and bloggers are often misleading. One more example of the ills of blogging about Africa while living outside Africa. I was sold on the hypothesis that China pretty much had the African energy sector wrapped up. My blogging philosophy for 2008 is, "Ask Why?" (borrowing from Enron). I find myself pondering this days about what events are newsworthy, and what events aren't. I also wonder about the influence of the citizen media on mainstream media, with respect to the distortion of reality. It appears that the more one wonders about these, the more it becomes obvious that the mechanics of news is changing. The margin of error between reality and the experts and pseudo experts opinions seem to be growing wider. Meanwhile the confidence of the 'experts', often steeled by the social media, seem to be growing in bounds.
Since you're his number one fan, you're already biased, I'm biased as well since i'm definitely not a fan.
We all remember Abacha's regime quite well but why would anyone want to compare Obj and Abacha's regime. One was a corrupt undemocratic regime that trampled on the rights of Nigerians while the other was ....
Prior to last month's elections i would have said Obj did a 'slightly below average' job, but after that fiasco i think he failed (as in "F9" for those who still remember WAEC's GCE scoring ..lol), all he has done now is saddled us with a government that will spend most of it's time looking for ways to make itself 'legitimate'.
Through his selfishness and 'know it all' attitude he has destroyed our fourth attempt at democracy. Just like IBB is remembered for 1993's annulled election, history will remember Obj as the man who organised the worst elections in Nigeria's history.
On a lighter note i'm throwing you a challenge (if you're brave enough to accept lol) to tell us exactly what Obj did to 'move Nigeria forward' and i'll provide a rejoinder showing you how with the resources and goodwill at his disposal he could have done a much better job.