Wherever easy money pools, the scavengers arrive. It’s the law of nature: a slab of rotting meat will summon flies, and oil wealth is no different. Add a little structural opacity and you have the perfect breeding ground for corruption. Africa illustrates the point mercilessly—any country dabbling in the black goo carries corruption etched into its skin like a tattoo. Once inked, impossible to erase.
I once traveled to a West African nation that had no oil industry to speak of. Curious, since it sat between major exporters and the geology looked promising enough. When I asked my host why no one had ever bothered to drill, he smiled and said: because oil is a curse. It births parallel power structures, he explained—barons and militias who rival presidents. Better, in his eyes, to stay poor than to unleash that particular demon.Whether that was wisdom or cowardice, I still don’t know. What I do know is that the oil curse hadn’t sunk its teeth into his country. The cake was smaller, yes—but so were the thieves fighting over it.
https://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2025/08/14/nigerian_oil_tainted_by_corruption_1128993.html