| A closer look at the numerous studies focused on the developing world has made it known that abundance of oil,which should have been a source of wealth for the mass,has brought negative result upon the economy and politics of the countries in this category.Some notable negative outcomes include stunted growth of the economy,states with weak institutions,and decline in the performance of the economy as well as the meddling of external bodies(oil MNCs).To find solutions for this,various bodies and individuals have taken their time to generate various literatures with the intention of analyzing this correlation as well as prescribing solutions fit for the resolving of the resource curse.This curse has been extensively looked into and there are various examples of countries that have their citizens squandering their resources repeatedly.They not only squander the proceeds from the mineral wealth,but they also leave their citizens to live impoverished lies.One very example for these developing countries is Nigeria.Comparing this country to those on the flip side like Botswana and Norway,shows that resource is not the issue but the utilization because these countries have ensured there is an adequate utilization and maximization of the mineral wealth.Looking at the above,one can conclude that oil portends great danger for any economic,yet can still serve as a blessing to growth and development of the economy.The countries,Norway and Botswana,had a per capita Gross Domestic Product of over $69,200 and $6,954 in 2006 and effectively utilized it rising to top among countries of the world that were natural resource rich.One do not need much research to understand that Norway rose to this position as a result of the oil windfall.Nevertheless,Nigeria had witness a disastrous decline in their economic development as a result of oil discovery.Nigeria is ranked one of the poorest countries in the world despite the billions the country supposed generated annually from oil revenue as a result of exporting.With a per capita lower than the regional average of any country in the Sub-Saharan African region,Nigeria made a Gross Domestic Product per capita of $1,951 and have recorded 54% increase on the level of poverty,which accounts for 90 million of the country's population.In other words,the countries that seeing substantial growth as well as the ones losing sporadically are those that experienced an abundance in their natural resources and the major thing that differentiates them is simply the utilizations of the returns of these wealth.The onus of the work had been placed on the various institution established to ensure its growth as well as the personalities that were meant to handle and formulate major decisions as regards the ways the countries can use the resources.Some of these major players are Oil MNCs and Government Intuitions as well as political elites.It is the opinion of various people that the moment the government establishes a transparent and balanced Oil MNC,there would a proper channelling of the resource revenue that will allow for the fostering of numerous transactions and activities in line of the economy created for the purpose of aiding the avoidance of the resource curse syndrome by the resource owners.More so,the institutions known to be grabber friendly would allow for the pushing down of the aggregate income and the political elites will have to take up their responsibility of creating the framework for the right policy,which will push for accountability and utilization of the resources generated.As noted before,individuals and institutions have explored the resource curse and the way these resources have been underutilized by the underdeveloped countries with rich resources,making these resources become a curse.The different works stand independent and have their own importance,yet are connected.However,the most important point of them all remains the fact that this curse is fostered by the activities as well as the involvement of oil multinational corporations.Very few works linked the oil MNC's to the problem creating the resource curse.And that is one distinctive feature of this work.It seeks to expand the knowledge of International Relations on Africa;moreover,it is an addition to the existing literature in International Relations.The paper allows for the encountering of conceptual insights alongside in-depth analysis relating to different forms the oil resources curse has taken on the political economy.To get this insights and analysis,an investigation was carried to ascertain that the presence of Shell Oil Company,the biggest oil MNC in Nigeria,in the country has been beneficial to its socio-economic growth in general,especially as it has garnered a lot of wealth through investment and crude oil exploration.Also,the paper debunk and put a new perspective to some of the resource curse theories used in supporting the phenomena of resource curse and the reason for the underdevelopment of these resource abundance countries when compared to countries that have less developed natural resource;in fact,it is more tilted towards showing some of the casual mechanisms used to exploit these countries.These mechanisms include working towards the interest of these oil MNC's and how the oil MNC's pursue their interest,which is done in such a way to exploit the weak institutions created by the developing countries,and this have enhanced the result of the resource curse.This study aims at evaluating the background information available about the resource curse and then at scrutinizing the Nigeria situation and the role played by the Oil MNC's.To that effect,this paper outlined methods suitable to curb the resource curse in Nigeria and some of them are the implementation of thorough macroeconomic fiscal policies,diversification of economic,Setting-up of funds for natural resource,implementation of transparent and accountable rules,and creation of direct mechanism for the wise distribution and management of mineral wise.It might be true that some developing mineral-rich countries have really implemented a fraction or more of these solutions but they have experienced limited success,although there have rare cases of countries like Botswana,Chile,and Malaysia).Nonetheless,we believe that this can be as a result of the lack of strong state institutions that characterize these developing countries or as a result of the government assuming state ownership over mineral wealth;consequently,the presence of external actors especially the oil MNCs have been a constraint on the state in the aspect of generating and distributing their resources.Nevertheless,there is an emergence of consensus placing capable political institutions in charge of disrupting of the link the mineral wealth has to the negative outcome mentioned,yet have little knowledge as regards planting such institution.One suggestion we made is that the government make policy that will put the bulk of the power in the hand of domestic private owners instead of leaving it with the oil MNCs.This suggestion has few appearances in literatures and its presence is often maligned.From our research,we discovered that it has a way of strengthening institutions thus creating a means to effectively put a constraint on state leaders as well as encourage to be more involved in the investment in the building of this institution because that will make way for a positive response from the system as regards commodity booms and busts.With what had been discovered,the study noted the cause of the country's contradiction in line of resource endowment and its development-the era of oil discovery by the colonial master was the major contextual variable.Then the Nigeria's oil industry was captured by externalforces such as oil MNCs to exploit the country because the Nigeria State did not move toward the adoption of measure that remould the oil abundance to an asset instead of the liability it has become.Therefore,our conclusion is that most developing resource rich countries like Nigeria are unable to escape the resource curse because of the dominance in the aspect of transportation and technology,weakness of the institutions,and the lack of the necessary autonomy of the oil industry. |
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