Texas Company Fined for Bribing Nigerian Officials

Houston, Texas-based Halliburton Company, which until 2007 owned KBR (Kellogg, Brown, and Root) company, has been fined for bribing Nigerian oil officials. KBR wanted contracts in order to build a $6-billion gas liquefaction plant in the Niger Delta. This plant has been damaging to Nigeria’s economy in that it helps and supports major international oil companies to ship Nigerian crude oil out of the country for refining, which drops the profits that Africans could obtain for their valuable resource. KBR has yet to admit or deny this bribe. These alleged bribes occurred for an entire decade (1994-2004), during this time, KBR’s parent company, Halliburton was headed by Dick Cheney, who stepped down in 2000 to become vice president.

Nigeria relies heavily on its oil and gas-related resources which account for 87 percent of its foreign exchanges. Companies like KBR and the Houston oil companies are slowing and hurting the Nigerian economy but are not helping in any way; they are being selfish. Neither KBR nor most of Houston oil companies have provided any charitable services to help revitalize Nigerians, who have endured the foreign extraction of their local resource wealth.

Future political plans include Nigerian President Umaru Yar’Adua to supervise and control corrupt illegitimate robbery of public funds, and monitor the performance of multinational oil companies.

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This article relates back to what we have been learning in class through economic challenges, political power, and international interests. The Nigerian economy is mainly based upon oil, and with international powers taking away it's one valuable natural resource, it doesn't allow African's to be profiting as much as they should. Reforms to fix this issue depends on the President to monitor the international companies that Nigeria works with in order to support economic revitalization.

Power shortages

Nigeria is in a severe crisis. They have a shortage of power which is causing lots of chaos to the country, economically and socially. Social wise, families are dying because of poor quality electricity and power sets. Last month, a 75 year old man, his wife, and four family members were found dead due to fume inhalation from their electricity generating set. Economically, the president, Mr. Umaru Yar'Adua, said that electric power would be his priority, except there is not much advancement. There are so many generators around Nigeria. In fact, the amount of generators in just Lagos and Abuja alone could power all of Nigeria. People in affluent parts of town are using up energy from generators over selfish and unreasonable matters. The use of generators should be limited because of how expensive they are becoming and because it is causing stress among the country.

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This article relates back to what we've been studying by economic and social stresses. Also, political powers aren't doing anything to help this crucial problem. The nation is in a crisis because its leaders have failed to solve the problem although the president has acknowledge they are in a "state of emergency." The government itself is unwilling to sacrifice for the common good of the country which is the attitude of the entire country. No one is willing to give a little of what they have to benefit the whole. The main problem is management inefficiency, lack of maintainance of the generators that they do have, and the lack of spirit of working toward a common goal. If Nigeria is to survive as a modern nation, it must figure out a way to meet its electrical needs with an uninterrupted power supply.

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