While they got richer and richer, the mass of ordinary Nigerians got poorer and poorer. They ran an anticommunist regime, based on Western precepts of modernisation and development, promising political stability and economic, commercial and raw material flows from Nigeria to the industrial West. They took advantage of their situation for their own benefit, using the context of Cold War competition between the West and the Soviet Union to wrest as high a price as possible for their services. It shows that the end of colonial rule did not presage genuine independence for Nigerians but the transfer of political power to nominally Nigerian elites that continued to see the country as a set of resources for sale, at a price. The Wikileak cables that reveal the degree of penetration – colonialisation – of the Nigerian state by just one, admittedly massive, multinational corporation is not especially surprising but remains shocking nonetheless. With every transaction, Nigeria’s unpatriotic middlemen collected a fee for services rendered, enriching themselves and their Western overlords at the expense of the peoples of that artificially constructed country.
Nigerian elites effectively adapted the role they had long played since the days of the slave trade: middlemen between the resources of Nigeria and traders and others from the West who wanted slaves and minerals. In effect, ‘independent’ Nigeria was handed over to social, economic and political forces that were economically, militarily and intellectually dependent on the West, particularly Britain and the United States. Such penetration was organised by the British Colonial Office, funded by the Carnegie Corporation and other American ‘philanthropic’ foundations, and facilitated by a western-educated Nigerian elite whose mentality was entirely self- and Western-oriented. However, it is not just the Nigerian state that is infiltrated by Western multinational corporations: the university system was created by and operated largely for western interests in the run up to and after independence in 1960. This week saw significant revelations about the role of Royal Dutch Shell in Nigeria where over two-thirds of the population live in poverty in an oil-rich economy. Wikileak US embassy secret cables continue to educate, performing a significant public service and, hence, drawing fire from all ‘responsible’ quarters beholden to American hegemonic power.
Wikileaks, Shell and Neo-colonialism in Nigeria This research seminar work at the end intends to help contemporary Nigerians to know the negative impacts Neo-colonialism has created in Nigeria and how best to tackle it, for a better change and rapid development in this country, Nigeria. In contemporary Nigeria today, neo-colonialism is a mighty obstacle which prevents the countries from experiencing meaningful development.
However, Neo-Colonialism is more dangerous because of its system of operation, which leads to poor development and economic dependent on the countries involved. Neo-Colonialism resembles indirect rule because the colonized seems to be independent but its economic system and political policy are controlled from outside.