The Global War On Oil Now Makes Its Way to Africa

These days, if Uganda government officials are not issuing statements about the upcoming Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Kampala, or the stalled peace talks in northern Uganda, they are beating their chests about the latest “spectacular” oil find around and the exciting new world of being an oil producer.

But like the Russians, Canadians and the Danes at the North Pole, Uganda has to deal with its immediate neighbours to the west; for Lake Albert is not entirely theirs. The stakes are high enough that just over two weeks ago, the dispute broke into a fight – with guns – in which a British oilman became the first, but certainly not the last man, to be killed.
It doesn’t help either that oil appears to bring out the worst in anyone with a gun. In Washington for example, the politicos convinced themselves and others that they were invading Iraq (which incidentally has the world’s second largest proven oil reserves) to remove Weapons of Mass Destruction, and later that bad man Sadam Hussein. But only the truly naive believed them.

In Nigeria and Angola, oil has been a source of internecine warfare and mafia-type crime on a massive scale even by African standards. In less troubled oil producing countries like Gabon, Guinea and Cameroon, national affairs are conducted by boisterous kleptomaniacs who use the proceeds only for personal gain.

Oil is the latest gold card for finding traction with energy-hungry China (and India), whose future seems to have arrived; as well as with the traditional big powers in the West and Japan. African leaders are aware that as long as one has oil, one need not necessarily be a democrat.

AllAfrica