http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/21/world/africa/governor-of-nigerias-central-bank-is-fired-after-warning-of-missing-oil-revenue.html?_r=0
President Jonathan of Nigeria dismissed the governor of Nigeria's central bank after the governor repeatedly addressed the president with reports that billions of dollars in oil revenue were missing from the treasury. The oil company responded to these charges by Mr. Sanusi, the governor, with outrage. Mr. Jonathan’s government ousted Mr. Sanusi, saying his “tenure has been characterized by various acts of financial recklessness and misconduct.” After he was dismissed the stock market in Nigeria took a plunge and their currency was valued at an all time low. Outside investors had seen Mr. Sanusi as an effective regulator of the country's troubled banking sector. This and many incidents like it in Nigeria under President Jonathan's administration raise concerns about the growing corruption and the dwindling willingness of the government to deal with it or fix it. Public opinion of the government in Nigeria among Nigerians has gone down hill at reoccurrences of such removals of good officials. Even supporters of Jonathan are now calling for an investigaion into the missing oil money.
Corruption of government officials like this, especially on such a large scale, is a sure step on the path straight to chaos, and the collapsing of government. Even whole countries. That may seem kind of dramatic, but one of the common characteristics of a failed state is that the government officials take the money from the people and national organizations and use them towards their own agendas rather than improving the state. That combined with the increasing terrorist activity and other unrest in the region I think puts Nigeria in a precarious position.
I agree, Mary Jo. This definitely puts Nigeria in a precarious position. With the direction that this is all going, if they do not work to fix things, they could make their way to a failed state. Hopefully they realize that this corruption isn't in their best interest.
ReplyDeleteMary Jo I completely agree with you regarding corruption. My article on Nigeria also discussed corruption. The poor country of Nigeria seems to full of corruption and chaos. I just wonder what would be able to help all of the people of that country.
ReplyDeleteIt seems like Nigeria has so much corruption that you should just assume that a politician or government official is corrupt. I don't know if the Governor should be held accountable for the missing money, but I am sure that if he is accountable, he is not the only foul player in this situation.
ReplyDeleteIn business, the investor comes first. And when investors aren't pleased that the people in charge of a company are losing money than they punish and punish hard. Now, the investor can't come first until the customer gets served because if theres no customers, theres no investors. Nigeria is an unstable country, so I wouldn't want to be a country customer either if Nigeria isn't gonna play fair.
ReplyDeleteNigeria seems to have plenty of messed up problems lately and they are far from small! They are already country that is on edge and they not even close to helping boost it up. I feel like many of their problems are preventable too. They are in for some even bigger consequences because of this missing money and I think it will be interesting to see what happens and what the government continues to do about it to try and fix it.. The corruption in this country is out of control!
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