Do oil and Africa mix? Reading through "Oil Boon" in the September edition of National Geographic magazine, you'd think not.

First of all, let's review what we already know. What is National Geographic's opinion of oil? Answer: bad, bad, bad, bad, bad. Because oil companies suck all that crude oil out of the earth, build huge factories, disrupt wildlife, and spill oil from corroded pipelines and shipping accidents. Because emissions from the burning of gasoline and oil fill up the atmosphere with planet-warming gases. Because oil is going to kill us all.

Okay, so that's putting it a bit bluntly. But not many people accuse NG of going soft of oil companies, and this article (written by Nick Kotch) is no exception. It focuses on the oil-plagued nation of Chad, where a consortium of oil companies (ExxonMobil, Petronas, Chevron) are pumping 200,000 barrels a day from over a mile beneath the surface, down pipelines that lead into neighboring Cameroon and on to the coast, to be shipped for worldwide consumption. Don't be deceived by the big numbers, however. Chad is among the lower producers in the region, according to the map supplied in the article. At 2,400,000 barrels a day, Nigeria, another neighbor, dwarfs Chad's output thanks to the vast oil fields of the Niger River Delta. And Nigeria's known oil reserves are by far the greatest in the sub-Sahara--35 billion barrels, compared with Chad's 0.9 billion.

So why focus on Chad? The answer is that Chad's oil project is a bit of an experiment, a chance to see if oil can be an asset, not a curse. The oil companies, the Chadian government, and the World Bank have teamed up in an effort to "extract oil profitably, to share the proceeds in a transparent and equitable way, to protect the environment, and to spend most of the government's share on reducing poverty." The oil venture in Chad is an attempt to, in Nick Kotch's words, "ensure that--for once--the discovery of oil doesn't have to be a curse for ordinary folk."

Why would oil be a curse?  Because oil is liquid gold.  It's like the classic plot line of John Steinbeck's short novel, "The Pearl," in which the hero finds a priceless pearl that could be the answer to all his problems, but instead greed within and around him turns the pearl into a curse, eventually taking from him what he loved the most.  In this case the pearl is oil.  Greed has turned the oil into a curse for the African people.  Greed is the problem, not resources, not oil.

What sort of curses are the Africans suffering?  Lack of electricity and gasoline among themselves, widespread poverty, corrupt governments, civilian resentment of both government and oil companies, oil spills--the list could go on.  Shouldn't the big money gained from oil resources curb many of these problems?  Apparently not in Africa.  Many Africans are so poor they cannot afford electricity and gas, despite its abundance.  African governments are accused of hoarding or stealing the tax share of oil profits, as opposed to using it toward the improvement of their citizens' lives (The effort in Chad is aimed at stopping such government corruption through multiple levels of accountability.  But even in Chad, as in the other nearby oil-producing nations, the theme continues to ring:  "Where does the money go?")  African citizenry are resentful toward big oil because they feel the "rich" oil companies haven't compensated them adequately, and they're resentful toward their government because, well, they've just never trusted their government, or had a reason to.  And about oil spills?  Most are caused by local sabotage and theft.

It seems as clear as day to me that most of these problems are the direct fruit of selfish greed, not oil.

 Let's stop and talk about the benefits of oil.  It fuels jets that take food to starving African people groups.  It fuels ships and trucks that promote international trade and economic growth.  It creates jobs.  It powers generators and cell phone towers in Africa's remote regions.  The oil companies working in Chad have compensated over 14,000 individuals in Chad and Cameroon for use of land, building new homes, wells, schools, and even marketplaces if the people so demanded.  But many African locals don't think it was enough.  Are they justified in their accusation?  Are the interests of African peasants being downtrodden by big oil?  Or are Africans asking for a blank check, each hoping for his own pearl?  While National Geographic would like to point at oil, I think Nick Kotch's conversation with a Chadian peasant best epitomizes the situation of African oil:

"They said the majority of us would get rich, but we have just got poorer.  Nothing good has come from the oil," mutters Mbangtoloum Ngarambe, a lanky peasant farmer who grows cotton, rice, and millet in the fields around his village, Kayrati.  We stand in the shade of a mango tree, watching women and children filling their enamel basins at the new water pump, which seems to me to be working pretty efficiently.

"Isn't that something good?"  I ask, interrupting the flow of Ngarambe's displeasure and pointing at the contraption.

"Yes, that's good."

"And the new classrooms over there?"

"Yes, they are good."

Cleaning his teeth with a little stick, Ngarambe studies me out of the corner of his eye as we run through all the things that are lacking around here: a modern economy with jobs, a hospital close by, paved roads, security.  We talk in French, a legacy of Chad's period as a colony of France until 1960.

Playing devil's advocate, I ask him why he expects so much to be provided by foreign oil companies and so little by his own government.

"You know very well that our government isn't going to do those things," Ngarambe replies. 

Next time, we'll talk about Africa and AIDS.