Comparable to the size of Venezuela, Nigeria outranks Japan as ninth most populous country in the world and continuing to explode. The United Nations claimed it had 130 million people in 2004, which may be low by some 10 million; about one of every five Africans is a Nigerian. Colonized by the British, Nigeria has more Muslim people than almost any Arab nation, who vie for power along multiple ethnic and religious lines in a land that includes sand dunes, lush rainforest and savannah. Though one of the most biodiverse countries in the world, human density, living standards, global warming and industrial disasters--particularly by energy giants like Exxon and Chevron--leave the future stability of one of the world's primary oil producers in grave question. This very minute, climate change is sweeping the breadth of Africa at unprecedented rate and threatening the Nigerian people's future.
All of these images are, to the best of my knowledge, public domain, so I'm posting 'em linked to their wikipedia pages. If I have overreached any copyright laws, let me know and I'll take down the offending picture -- nulwee.
Africa: the graveyard of many a brave explorer and conqueror. Climate change, globalization, global population control, endangered species, future biodiversity, development and the relationship between religion and society will all be won or lost by the human race in Africa.
Desert is the only growing climate zone on the planet, and right now the world's largest desert spreads further and further. In the central-south of the Sahara Desert you can the dark blue of Lake Chad standing out from the lifeless soil in the north. It's one of the largest lakes in the world, (but going the way of the Aral Sea) and below it to the left, south to the Atlantic, is Nigeria, signatory to the UN Convention to Combat Desertification.
The Sahara, and West Africa:
Though Sudan is a country south of Egypt, the Arabs gave the name "the Sudan" to all the parts of the Sahara and southward where "the blacks" lived. In the least fertile north-east of Nigeria near Lake Chad, land of the Kanuri, Sharia law is practiced by tribal courts. Among the global and local humanitarian community this has become an outrage, as the stoning of women and female circumcision are condoned. In the center of Nigeria, the capital Abuja sits on a grassland. The wetter and closer to the main rivers or the sea, the more dense the population.
Political & Topographical Maps of Nigeria:
In a BBC article titled, Nigerian Houses Swallowed By Sand, nothern Nigeria's changes offer evidence of global warming and for the water-is-the-new-oil crowd:
A middle-aged Muslim woman who did not want her photograph taken says women in Bulamadu now spend most of the day travelling long distances in search of potable water... "Water has become more precious than gold now," the woman who introduced herself as Mairo said, as she sat frying bean cakes known as kosai.
The next part kept reminding me of Haiti, which is now approx. 98% deforested, only Haiti is currently still mud and not desert:
"The villagers do not seem to see any link between their large appetite for firewood and the advancing sand dunes. The need for firewood overrides other concerns.
They keep cutting down trees in the vicinity and using sun-dried branches as wood fuel or even as an income earner.
"The impact the advancing desert is having on communities in that area is quite serious," says Jacob Nyanganji of Nigeria's University of Maiduguri which runs a specialist centre for arid zone studies.
"It is true that homes and farms have been lost to desertification in the area and it is also true that people's livelihoods have either been lost or changed completely as a result."
Incidentally, the fishermen near Lake Chad have been devastated by a transfer of governance of the region to Cameroon, while the land around them suffers desertification. In the former article Nigerians talk about continuously moving southwards, but there's only so many resources avaiable. (The Horn of Africa (Somalia, Ethiopia...) and Sudan began seeing calamatous drought 20-some years ago, drought that is directly related to all of the wars and genocide that have come since; desertification is the greatest threat to the political security, food-production and drinking water of the world.)
On the south, the Niger Delta is where the west-south Niger river meets the ocean, (not too unlike the Mississippi) and the oil powers base themselves. And home to some of Nigeria's heaviest fighting. Yet again another country where the oil fields act as a magnet for conflict. Big oil was not only directly linked to conflict, it was an active and armed participant. As Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had a Chevron tanker named after her due to her long history in the energy industry, President Bush naturally met with Chevron Texaco CEO's Dave O’Reilly in Nigeria itself. As Vincent Farley, a former U.S. diplomat in Africa remarked, the Bush Administration may be considering that:
"If the U.S. intervention in Iraq does not bring peace in the Middle East, then the U.S. may have to look to other sources of oil." He said, 'And Africa is at the top of the list.'" (Democracy Now!)
Who better to go to than Chevron, which owns much of the wealth of the most oil-ridden country in Africa? Not only Chevron but Shell not only have some Nigerian skeletons in their closet, but are also lying about the climate change they've unleashed destroying the rest of the country--the parts it hasn't already devastated with an annual average of 300 oil spills and especially global-warming-linked and toxic gas flaring.
On the southwest coast of Nigeria, the former capital Lagos is the most populous city, in fact the most populous of the continent. People in Lagos live in such destitude that locals were tapping into a petrol line for fuel, which exploded on December 26th, killing 500 people, burning them alive.
"A witness saw hundreds of bodies, most burned beyond recognition, lying at the scene of the explosion as emergency workers tried to put out the fire"(link)
While the areas outside of post-British law are the most directly theocratic, being run with Sharia courts, all of the country is having problems adapting to the modern world with its manifold people. A recent diary by sfbob chronicled how Nigeria's Parliament is set to strip gays and lesbians of all civil rights. Such legislation, while condemned by South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, had the crucial backing of Peter Akinola, the Archbishop of the Nigerian Anglican Church. The High Churches and evangelical organizations are the most homophobic and anti-contraceptive in their African branches. There is almost no gay "community", despite awareness of the concept of a homosexual identity, from Africa's western shores all the way south to the significant European populations, because of ongoing hostility by powerful Muslims and church leaders like Akinola and deep rooted prejudice in culture.
"To penalize somebody for their sexual orientation is the same as what used to happen to black South Africans for something about which we could do nothing," -- Desmond Tutu.
The process of scapegoating minotities is a damning omen that recalls the libels the conquistadores spread about Indian people, spread about the Armenians, the Jews, the Tutsis. Nigeria's problems have nothing to do with gays and lesbians, and killing them, which is currently done on the streets, is not going to stop hunger, disease or poverty.
There are two million Nigerians living in Europe; many are women being trafficked because they are the sole economic support for their families.
If you had the chance to see Children of Men, where a walled, armored, overcrowded fascist England circa 2038 fights desperately to exist in a world without any other functioning governments and massive global migration, you saw a brilliantly fantastical-yarn. Yet Europe's relationship to Africa is quickly becoming frighteningly similar to that fascist pinnacle Britain represented in the movie. Many Nigerians, like their West African neighbors, boat in dangerously small watercraft miles from the coast, travelling northwest all the way the Canary Islands before going on to Spain. Some travel by land through North Africa, and attempt to pass Morocco to Spain's African cities of Ceuta and Melilla.
"In 1997, more than 16,0000 mainly north and sub-Saharan African immigrants were detained in Ceuta and Mellilla. Some thought that the fences would not prevent illegal immigration because Moroccans from the surrounding province of Tetouan - as a special exception to the Schengen treaty - can enter Ceuta for the day without a visa"
Hundreds of people drown throughout the Mediterranean and Atlantic, trying to reach Spain, Italy and beyond. And this harrowing bit from the story of a Moroccan smuggler:
"About 50,000 illegal immigrants are seized at Europe's ports or at sea every year, but there are no exact figures recording how many get through or die in the attempt.
Only last week, Spanish police caught 550 people, most of them Moroccans, trying to sneak into southern Spain and the Canary Islands in rubber boats.
One Moroccan charity estimates that in the past five years more than 4,000 illegal immigrants have perished in the treacherous currents of the busy strait.
Some of the smugglers on the beach at Tarajal admitted taking up to 400 euros (£300) a time to smuggle African immigrants across the sea border to Ceuta. "The Africans can't swim so they pay us to swim with them on our backs," said one youth.
"It can take four or five hours because we have to go quite a way out to sea to avoid the patrols and it's very dangerous, especially for the Africans. We tell them not to panic, but sometimes they do. If that happens and we can't hold on to them, we have to leave them."" (Telegraph)
Africans literally get shot in the back while trying to cross into Ceuta and Melilla, and the ones caught are sent back, though it's popularly known Morocco's police-state kills the returned refugees.
I've seen some Freeper-types yuck it up while the concern-trolls get hennypenny over Europe turning Muslim, but it's really turning African, from the Basque country (via Senegal) to Sweden. What may be especially unknown is Spain has two giant border walls around Ceuta and Melilla (est. $35 million) turning Morocco and its cannabis-covered Rif Mountains near the Mediterranean into another northern Mexico.
Nigeria and many of its regional neighbors are caught in an overpopulation cycle. The scarcity and distribution of resources is stretched further by the density of people, yet Nigerians continue to have more children than they can support. Why? For the sake of familial and future security--most Nigerian children live in the malaria belt, other diseases like cholera are a problem, and Nigeria is mostly lacking in modern medicine. More children increases the odds of your family's survival.
Fortunately, while the Nigerian people know just about every kind of strife on the planet, they're still one of the most pro-American countries, (though the comparative countries are rapidly tanking) we as Americans are far less limited in our diplomatic and humanitarian abilities than many other crisis, such as Sudan, Iraq, Afghanistan or Somalia's.