Nigeria May Face Collapse Within Next 15 Years, U.S. Study Says
May 25 (Bloomberg) -- Nigeria, Africa's biggest oil producer, faces an ``outright collapse'' within the next 15 years that may be sparked by a coup d'etat by junior military officers, according to the U.S. National Intelligence Council. Nigeria's collapse may ``drag down a large part of the West African region,'' the Washington-based council, which reports to the U.S. Director of National Intelligence, said in a 17-page report published on the Central Intelligence Agency's Web site.
Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo sent the document to the Senate on May 17 ``not because I am alarmed by the report but because if we know what others think of us and about us, we can prevent what they project for us,'' Lagos-based ThisDay newspaper today cited him as saying in a letter.
Africa's most populous nation with 130 million people, Nigeria returned to civilian government in 1999 with the election of Obasanjo, a retired general, after 15 years of military rule. As many as 20,000 people have died in political, ethnic and religious violence since then, according to the report.
Oil companies in Nigeria, led by Royal Dutch/Shell Group, pumped 2.4 million barrels a day last month, making the West African country the sixth-largest producer in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries last month, according to Bloomberg data.
Most of the recent violence in Nigeria has occurred in clashes between Muslim and Christian communities in the north and in the Niger River delta in protests over the distribution of oil revenue and calls for greater political representation of minority ethnic groups.
`Failed State'
``If Nigeria were to become a failed state, it could drag down a large part of the west African region,'' said the report, which was based on a conference of Africa experts held in January. ``If millions were to flee a collapsed Nigeria, the surrounding countries up to and including Ghana would be destabilized.''
``Further, a failed Nigeria probably could not be reconstituted for many years - if ever - and not without massive international assistance,'' according to the report, which the council said doesn't reflect the views of the U.S. government.
Obasanjo was re-elected in 2003 in the first back-to-back democratic polls since independence from the U.K. in 1960. Nigeria suffered a three-year civil war that ended in 1970 after killing as many as 1 million people.
In the letter to the Senate, Obasanjo defended his recent record and described the experts who contributed to the National Intelligence Council report, entitled ``Mapping Sub- Saharan Africa's Future,'' as ``the prophets of doom.''
``Our performance in the last three years has, in my view, been very good just as our performance in ensuring stability, peace, economic progress and good governance in West Africa and, indeed, the whole of Africa,'' ThisDay cited Obasanjo as saying.
To contact the reporter on this story: Karl Maier in Khartoum, Sudan at kmaier2@bloomberg.net. Last Updated: May 25, 2005 04:33 EDT
