At Real Clear Politics Peter Brookes, a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation and columnist for The New York Post, diagnosis our acute case of the Niger Delta Blues. We now import more oil than ever from Africa — moreso even than the Middle East, according to Brookes, though such numbers tend to be volatile — and yet instability and corruption in places such as Nigeria make for a potentially problematic, indeed explosive, situation.
Brookes’ solution is somewhat obvious:
In the end, it's going to take skilled diplomacy. Washington must engage-quietly, if necessary-Abuja to address development issues, political grievances, corruption and the ongoing security challenges, especially to the oil industry.
And yet the obvious solution in Africa so rarely emerges among American policymakers that those of us who write about African affairs tend to resemble voices in the wilderness when we voice them. Of course much of the burden, as Brookes makes clear, lies with the Nigerians themselves, but we will have to be skillful in our wielding of sticks and proferring of carrots to help promote stability, good governance, and a reduction of the almost overwhelming corruption that comes with oil riches in the Niger Delta. The question is whether we are up for the task. We seem so rarely to be when it comes to our African affairs.
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