Lets compare Libya and Nigeria

Lets compare what the governments have done for their people, and how  people live in Nigeria and Libya. Then we could ask ourself  who among them needs more help, and what international community has done for the people.

Lets start with Libya. Here are few facts that I found on my short search on the Internet:

Libyans had the highest actual income per capita in Africa, and the lowest infant mortality rate. They had free university education for low-wage earners, free healthcare for low-wage earners, including a medicine allowance and for those that qualified; a $76,000 wedding gift, home loans were available at 10% of a families yearly salary, gasoline at 44 cents a gallon, subsidized New-car purchases, 300,000 homes built for the poor, and a guarantee of land ownership for all Libyans. Before the chaos erupted, Libya had a lower incarceration rate than the Czech republic. It ranked 61st. Libya had the lowest infant mortality rate of all of Africa. Libya had the highest life expectancy of all of Africa. Less than 5% of the population was undernourished. In response to the rising food prices around the world, the government of Libya abolished ALL taxes on food.   Libya had the highest gross domestic product (GDP) at purchasing power parity (PPP) per capita of all of Africa.   Libya had the highest Human Development Index of any country on the continent. In Libya, a lower percentage of people lived below the poverty line than in the Netherlands.

And little is known about Libya water resources : While many countries in the Middle East and North Africa bicker over water rights, Libya has tapped into an aquifer of 'fossil water' to change its topography – turning sand into soil. The 26-year, $20 billion project is nearly finished. …The Great Man-Made River irrigates Libya’s large desert farms. The 2,333-mile network of pipes ferry water from four major underground aquifers in southern Libya to the northern population centers. Wells punctuate the water’s path, allowing farmers to utilize the water network in their fields. http://twelfthbough.blogspot.com/2011/03/virtually-unknown-in-west-libyas-water.html

How did Libya get so rich? The answer is oil. The country has a lot of oil, and does not allow foreign corporations to steal the resources while the population starves, unlike countries like Nigeria, a country that is basically run by Shell:

How abaut Nigeria ? Nigeria also have big natural reserves. Nigeria's oil reserves are the ninth largest in the world. Nigeria also has vast largely unexplored natural gas reserves, the world's fifth largest. So it has huge income from the oil export, but the sad fact is that the people in Nigeria benefit nothing from their natural resources

 Reportedly, 80 percent of Nigeria’s energy revenues flow to the government, 16 percent cover operational costs, and the remaining 4 percent go to investors. However, the World Bank has estimated that as a result of corruption 80 percent of energy revenues benefit only 1 percent of the population. 70% of Nigerian population live below poverty line

So people get nothing from their country’s gas and oil resources, but on the other hand oil corporations ( Shell before all) has done enormous damage to people’s helth and environment.

 More than 6,000 oil spills have occurred in the Delta — the equivalent of an Exxon Valdez spill each year.

Beside that, big problem are gas flaring  http://justiceinnigerianow.org/jinn/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/JINN-2010-Gas-Flaring-an-overview.pdf

Gas flaring is one of the world's leading sources of carbon emissions — releases 400m/A of carbon dioxide into the air, along with a cocktail of 250 known toxins like benzene, contaminating the soil, air and water.

In the Delta, toxins are accompanied by 45.8011 kilowatts of heat as well as noise and acid ram, a by-product of sulphur and nitrous oxide.

Flaring in the Delta region causes respiratory illnesses, blindness, cancer and birth defects amongst local people. The toxic compounds in the gas have entered streams and fields, endangering the fishing and farming people rely on for their subsistence and livelihood. Nigeria, once a large net exporter of food, now imports some of its food products

Back in 1969 President Yakubu Gowan ordered that within 5 years of set-up, a company must cease flaring. This order was ignored. Oil companies have continued to flare gas to those days, merely paying nominal fines for breaking this law.

  And then, at some point people in Nigeria started to raise their voice against that policy.

Ken Saro-Wiwa, television producer, environmental activist, and winner of the Right Livelihood Award and the Goldman Environmental Prize  led a nonviolent campaign against extreme and unremediated environmental degradation of the land and waters of by  the operations of the multinational petroleum industry.

At the peak of his non-violent campaign, Saro-Wiwa was arrested, hastily tried by a special military tribunal, and hanged with eight other MOSOP leaders

So, we can conclude that Nigerians have a government which protects multinational companys which are destroying their country and their lives (Life expectancy in Nigeria is 48 years, and  in the Delta region is 44 years. In Libya life expectancy  is 77 years !!)

At the end let ask ourselves few questions:  Who among them need more help? Could we agree that Nigerian people are more threatened and that they need more help?

 So, how came those "liberators" who right now are trying to liberate people of Libya didnt liberate people of Nigeria from their government and those multinational oil corporations?

Are those „liberators“ earnest? Do they have their own interest to destroy Libya? ( and nothing is a better guarantee to destroy Libya than a bloody civil war)

 What do you think - did those protesters start mutiny without outside incentive ?

Does war initiation and resorce deprivation against third-worlds countries sound

like establishing democracy and freedom to you?

Look at that short 2 min video which explains how the things work on our planet and what is up right now in Libya :

I think that Libya could be compared with  ex-Yugoslavia. Libya with their tribes and Yugoslavia with their republics, both are dictatures, buth with less coruption and more care for people then the average democratic soceity.

 Once happy ** countryes, over the night was thrown in to the 15th century.

 Thats why people from ex YU areas have so much compassion and simpathy for Libyan people.

**I now that you can't say happy for country with political prison camps(Goli Otok) . It would be better to say - countries with great potential to be happy, and Libya it certanly is (or  unfortunetly was ? )

 Goli otok wasn't the only problem in ex-Yugoslavia, and Libya has many of their own problems as well. But what I want to point out is that war potentialy could solve some of them, but it will create 1000 more along the way !!.

So, if you think that what is happening right now in Libya is wrong, please do something. Talk with your friends, join some group on internet against bombing Libya or visit next meeting for stopping war in Libya.

 Thanks