Try $5.62 a Gallon

The President of Senegal has an interesting take on the high price of oil. He notes that while American and European consumers complain about high prices, they are at least in a position to afford it. Small African nations for example, have been hit much harder and his explains the devastating effects expensive oil is having.

In sub-Saharan Africa, in particular, the oil crisis is not a vexing “cost crunch”; it is an unfolding catastrophe that could set back efforts to reduce poverty and promote economic development for years.

In the United States, working men and women fretted when gas prices topped $3 a gallon this year. Here in the capital of Senegal, gasoline costs $5.62 a gallon. Unlike the United States, we are not a rich nation. Imagine having to pay such an exorbitant price to fill up your tank—but in a country where per capita income is $849 a year. Senegal’s electrical utility has been forced to turn off the lights throughout the nation for long periods every day, a crippling problem that could be eased if energy cost less.

The math is not hard to do. Everywhere in West Africa, governments are being forced to reallocate lifeline budget subsidies to counterbalance unprecedented oil and electricity prices. Senegal’s direct oil subsidies to domestic consumers have increased fivefold since 2002. Niger’s fuel costs have quadrupled. Even in Africa’s oil-producing nations, windfall profits from oil have failed to reduce poverty. Per capita income in Nigeria is still $1,400 a year.

If the price of crude oil reaches $100 a barrel within the next year—as some analysts predict—a pan-African disaster will be upon us. Richer, oil-producing countries in Africa risk being inundated with mass migrations of people seeking survival.

By draining government treasuries, the soaring price of oil in West African nations has made it all but impossible to proceed with antipoverty efforts, and it is hindering work to increase access to public health services and to reduce the spread of AIDS. It is true that man does not live by bread alone. But being freed from the daily necessities of survival is a prerequisite to educating the workforce and building an economy.

The oil shock wave is undermining American aims on the continent, too. As oil prices go into orbit, America’s efforts to promote liberal democratic economies and combat terrorism in Africa are sabotaged. I write this as the head of state of a tolerant, pro-Western—and predominantly Muslim—nation.

Indeed, the death of Nigeria may not be civil war or terrorism as so many predict. It may success, or rather hanging in there. We all know what happend to the Ivory Coast. In Africa, success is fatal.

Many thanks to Eddie for the head’s up.