Nigeria’s image in Africa : Big country, thin skin

IT WAS meant to be a friendly occasion earlier this month at State House in Nigeria’s capital, Abuja, where the president, Goodluck Jonathan, would thank foreign diplomats for their work. But he could not help himself, instead unleashing an angry broadside. Foreign representatives, he said, should correct what he deemed to be misconceptions abroad about his country. “The knowledge you have acquired here should be used positively to help us as you go back home,” he told the departing Italian ambassador. Few diplomats dispute that Nigeria is generally seen in a poor light by outsiders. It is a leader in advance-fee fraud over the internet, known globally as “419” after the relevant (and rarely enforced) section of Nigeria’s criminal code. Corruption is so endemic that many visitors pay their first bribe before they have even left the airport. Boko Haram, an Islamist extremist group, has kidnapped and killed numerous foreigners and has bombed the UN office in Abuja. Most of its victims are ordinary Nigerians, but other groups have kidnapped foreign oil men. One former British government minister estimated that 70% of all Nigerian visa applications are fraudulent. Nigerian peacekeepers on UN missions are often known for the efficiency with which they loot the places they are supposed to protect. Reactions in the rest of Africa to Mr Jonathan’s exhortation to foreign diplomats were predictably hostile. One caller on a Kenyan radio talk show called Nigerians “wordy, needy and domineering”. That seems unfair. As Africa’s most populous country, and arguably its most dynamic, Nigeria is bound to upset others. Its businessmen compete fiercely across the continent. Its “Nollywood” film industry swamps neighbours with cheap but popular fare. Aliko Dangote, a Nigerian often called Africa’s richest man, dominates the cement business. South Africa, long the continent’s economic and political powerhouse, is in danger of losing that title to Nigeria, thanks in part to the west African country’s ebullient energy. Many Nigerians swat away criticism as misrepresentation. Their government vigorously objected to a negative portrayal in the 2009 sci-fi film “District 9”, which showed a Nigerian resident in Johannesburg selling weapons to invading aliens and offering them prostitutes. Ministers in Abuja were so upset that they hired a public-relations firm to “undo the damage”. The best way to do that is surely for Mr Jonathan and his government to tackle their country’s manifold real-life problems. Last year the central bank’s well-regarded governor, Lamido Sanusi, told the president that $20 billion was missing from the accounts of the oil ministry—this in a country where most of its 170m citizens live on less than $2 a day. Mr Jonathan called the claim “spurious” and tried to sack the governor, who refused to go. continued