FINANCIAL TIMES: Nigeria saw off Ebola but fraud, Boko Haram plague country

23/9/14 Nigeria has had many battles on its hands this year but only one resounding victory: against Ebola. By Monday, six weeks had passed without a new case and the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared the country officially Ebola-free. Amid near hysteria globally, and desperate scenes in the three West African states struggling against an exponential rise in infection, Nigeria’s success in limiting and then quashing an outbreak is one heartening piece of news. It is also news that raises an awkward question for Nigerians: why have they been able to mobilise against this fatal virus with such courage and efficiency, while on other pressing, national issues, disharmony and bad faith often reign? Flipped on its head, the question is more alluring. Nigeria has made huge leaps over the past decade and a half to become Africa’s biggest economy. It has done this amid chronic power deficits, rampant corruption and a brutal Islamist insurgency ravaging the north. What might Nigeria achieve, if federal, state and private institutions pulled together with the same collective will as they did against Ebola? For example, to rein in crude oil theft and multibillion dollar fuel subsidy rackets; repair structural flaws impeding the supply of cheap gas to power electricity and industry; and tackle the country’s chronic security problems? The entrepreneurial energy of Africa’s most populous nation was momentarily focused on Ebola. The results were correspondingly fast. By contrast six months have elapsed since Boko Haram extremists shocked the world by kidnapping more than 200 schoolgirls and threatening to sell them as sex slaves. Protests against the Goodluck Jonathan administration’s bungled handling of that tragic saga continue. The girls remain in captivity although government negotiators claim this week to be close to securing their release. One answer to these anomalies is in the nature of the threat. Nobody had anything to gain from Ebola, an invisible killer, posing a common risk for rich and poor. Behind many of the other problems preventing Nigeria from fully exploiting its potential is a cartel of vested interests, extracting financial or political gain. Track the outbreak’s spread since the WHO first issued a global alert in March 2014 Some of these have gradually been cracked. Not so long ago only one in 300 Nigerians had access to a phone: now there are 114 million mobile phones for a population of 170 million. On the power deficit, the single biggest brake on the country’s transformation, the battle continues. In the oil sector, which for all its corrupt and murky underpinnings remains central to Nigeria’s economic health, the fight has barely begun. Ebola struck the country at its commercial heart. The Boko Haram insurgency was for a long time contained in the remote northeast, occasionally straying to the centre with bomb attacks but never successfully targeting Lagos in the south. “The total unpredictability of Ebola helped galvanise action. Then again that’s to a large extent because it hit Lagos first, the heartland of the champagne elite,” says Tolu Ogunlesi, a rising star among political bloggers. “If Boko Haram hit Lagos things would change big time.” This also speaks to the uneven way that Nigeria is developing. The Liberian who imported Ebola collapsed at Lagos airport and was taken to a top, private clinic. If he had entered under the radar and gone to a remote public health outpost the story might have been different.