Going back to Africa

This is an exception to the posts here recently and harks back to my time in Africa, but The Atlantic had a long article about elephant poaching that is worth a perusal.  The article in parts evokes anger at massive illegal killing, but then at other parts the emotion turns to myopic hysteria.

What resonated for me: the scale of the poaching, some of which I heard about from a doctoral student at a lodge in Kenya.  The majesty of watching these animals up close.  The impact of China's partial colonization of East Africa, and the realization by many there that, in the end, they signed a Faustian bargain with China.

What turned me off: the not-even-veiled contempt for hunters and those who would argue for market-based plans to preserve the animals.  At one point he explicitly muses that hunters may be more vile than poachers.  Say what you will about hunters and their motivations, they are at least willing to respect the law and are killing only what governments let them, and the governments are entirely in control of this side of the equation.  The entire problem with poachers is that, by definition, they do not respect the law and kill en masse, and use fearsome tactics.

Which leads me to the biggest thing I found missing from the article: a focus on corruption.  He discusses corruption here and there, but I think the real problem here (like for many other issues in Africa) is rampant corruption.  It limits resources for legitimate protection of animals, it makes it easy to smuggle ivory, it lets imported Chinese workers do whatever they will, and ultimately it makes governments in Africa loathe to invest the resources to do something.

I do like the author's point that "one-time" sales are not read as "one-time" by buyers, and each one whets the appetite for more.  The biggest hope here, I think, is that that appetite is starved back to returns to its dormant state -- hopefully made easier by the fact that this is not an addictive substance.

Market penetration: The insidious drug invasion in Costa Rica

This article that I read today prompted me to write a bit about drugs here.

Fortunately for Costa Rica, gangs and drugs are not nearly as bad as in other countries in the region. However, the problem is getting worse.

I had a long conversation with a retired guy who worked for the Coast Guard. He said that for a long time drugs bypassed CR by sea. However, increasingly successful campaigns to stop those shipments made cartels shift their focus toward overland routes. In a genius, but sad, move, the drug cartels paid people partially in cash and partially in drugs. Basically, if you did something for the cartel and just took the cash, then you made OK money. The real payoff, though, was in the drugs you received. However, drugs are of no value unless you… sell them. So the drug cartels got their shipments through while spreading corruption, creating a user base/increasing demand, and limiting the headache of money laundering by paying with drugs.

Here is another article that is unrelated to Liberty Reserve, but likely related to drug violence that has crept into Costa Rica.

Perhaps the summary of it all

One thing you quickly learn in new cultures is that “knowing” is not the same as “comprehending.”

Below is a link to an excellent article that sums up a lot of things about South Africa that I know, but – like the author, it seems – do not comprehend.  I highly recommend it, and hats off to the author for his work in putting the article together.



Here is the article itself.

Here is an accompanying video.  Note the content warning.


I think it does a great job bringing into focus lots of threads in South Africa: poverty, xenophobia, corruption, muthi and mixed superstition/Christianity [side note: the article refers to the ZCC], complete breakdown of the family, Bible-laced political speech, and a culture that can be so seemingly callous – like nurses barricading hospitals while on strike – that I just can’t understand it despite seeing it repeatedly.

One time he refused to intervene when a mob set a man on fire after compelling his “confession” by making him swallow sewer water. “If I see burning now, if I see raping, I look the other way,” he said huffily back then.

The reality check

People ask me if I feel safe in Joburg, and my answer is yes. However, “safe” is a relative term. I think the odds of something happening to me are only slightly worse than other major cities. The first qualification is that this is heavily influenced by the areas in which I generally hang out; most crime is black-on-black in/near townships, and I don’t generally hang out in shebeens. The second qualification is that if something does happen, it will likely be much more violent than its American counterpart.

To bring this home, I found out yesterday that a friend of a friend was at home when two robbers entered the house. They got out, and while outside the home they heard the gunshots that killed the father.

"Vengeance is mine" seems to be a common theme in some places; another friend knew someone who was killed by taxi drivers.  His crime?  Driving his own minibus taxi on someone else's route.

"A man and a morass" - a must-read on Nigeria

A great Economist article on Nigeria, the recent elections, and the hope and hurdles facing Nigeria.  A taste:

Many frustrated businessmen—some unpaid for years—think the situation is hopeless. Yet Nigeria’s recent past suggests that small changes can bring vast benefits. The appointment of Attahiru Jega as head of the election commission last year produced the first credible poll in a generation. Telecoms privatisation has reduced phone prices by 99%.

Nigeria is reformable, but it needs the right sort of leader. Its presidency is more powerful than its American equivalent. Favours are bestowed and punishments meted out by “the man in the villa”, as some Nigerians call the occupant of the presidential palace. But he must assert himself over advisers, ministers and godfathers—the visiting regional bosses who lobby him. Many supported Mr Jonathan, who was formerly vice-president, during his 12-month interim presidency after his predecessor, Umaru Yar’Adua, died in office. Now they expect payback. IOUs will be cashed. This is the point where every civil-service reform in the past has failed.

"Geez, I'm only married to her!"

I mentioned once before that about every month there is some big corruption story in SA.  This month it comes courtesy of the wife of the Minister of State Security, whose wife was convicted of running a drug smuggling ring.  Oh, and Minister Cwele was previously the chair of the Standing Committee on Intelligence.

Of course, he claims he had no idea what his wife would be doing.  But if he couldn't figure out what his wife was doing during his time as head of intelligence, does anyone really want him heading up State Security?

One of the two people carrying drugs for her was caught and is in a Brazilian jail where she is allowed two phone calls per year.  I'm pretty sure Mrs. Cwele won't be too deprived in jail.

In other news, Malema is the firebrand as usual.  At a rally with President Zuma he had some choice words for white "criminals" and DA "monkeys" and called for nationalization.  While people expect this of Malema, the more telling point is that Zuma did not rebut this in his speech immediately after and that he leans on Malema to energize his voting base.

Anger management, anyone?

A train was lit on fire in South Africa yesterday.  This may not be unique to South Africa, but it is certainly common. With copper prices soaring, theft of copper overhead power lines from railroad tracks is fairly common. This means trains get stranded, and frequently passengers will express frustration by torching the train cars. Not exactly sure how they think this helps them get to their destination, but it does make news.  (This torching was not related to copper theft, but reminded me.)

Construction in Nigeria

I had a chat with a guy on a plane who was an Aussie working in construction in Nigeria. His project was for a Western group that was building this to Western building codes, which is a tall order. Some highlights from our conversation:
-Nigerians don't take care of any building. I had seen so many buildings that were obviously once nice but now decrepit that this was my assumption, and he confirmed it. Strange, because they will keep their cars sparkling, which is a Sisyphean task with Nigerian roads.
-Talking about bribes, he walked into the office of a Nigerian official one time and the official stuck out his hand. When this guy shook it, the Nigerian was annoyed -- he had expected an envelope with cash, not a handshake.
-He keeps 3 months of inventory (cement and other construction materials) on site because supply chains are so bad...
-...and part of the reason he has difficulty getting stuff is that everyone tries to pinch part of it on the way. Truck drivers will "break down" for a day or two and show up with what looks like a full load, but they really offloaded half of the high-quality goods and replaced them with cheap local stuff. His drivers would tell him they delivered X product when they had really given it to their brother, and somehow didn't think that he would cross-check the number of trucks he sent out with the number that arrived at the destination.
-He has to scrutinize closer near the end of a project because workers don't want the project to end; they know that as soon as it does, he leaves and so do all of the good jobs in the area.
-He has had >10 workers killed in 2 years leaving the compound because they just don't bother to look before they drive onto the road, and they get hit by trucks going by.

I always shake my head a little bit at some of these stories.  In general Nigerians are both smart and savvy; no one will get rich betting against them.  But there are also a lot of times where I see or hear things that seem so obvious, like not bothering to look for trucks before pulling out of a place where 9 of your colleagues have died, or not thinking that a foreman will check with the recipient of something to make sure his trucks delivered it.

Security in Nigeria

I posted before about SA vs. Nigeria on crime – SA is more random and violent, Nigerian crime (pertaining to foreigners) is more targeted.

I got intermittent security reports from our security contractor while I was there. There seemed to be about a kidnapping every 2 weeks in Edo State, where I was. True to form, almost all were targeted – entering a house and kidnapping a popular pastor’s wife, for example. (Pastors can make good money here.) We had Mobile Police (police toting AK-47s) initially but ditched them because they made us stick out like a sore thumb. Shortly after I left someone at our client company was kidnapped. He was released after paying approximately half of the ransom initially demanded.

Things are heating up in part because of the elections, so in addition to normal crime politically fractious groups are now more active because they will get press and have influence.

What should Dangote do?

Here's a question for you: Aliko Dangote, a Nigerian on the Forbes Wealthiest 500 list and the wealthiest African*, can do just about anything with his money.  But what would help Nigeria most?

Let's assume he can either
a) continue business as usual, invest/grow his company, etc.
b) divest about half of his stake in his companies (worth about $1.25B) and distribute it evenly among all Nigerians.  Pretend there is no corruption/skimming in the distribution.  Each Nigerian would get about $8.33, and Dangote would still be worth >$1B.

If Dangote decided his aim was to help Nigerians as much as possible by doing one of the two above actions, which do you think would help average Nigerians more?

Some reading that is tangentially related to the question:
-Economist article on how international aid is not shifting to match where poverty is
-WSJ article on the philosophy of the world's richest man
-ABC news that has some good quotes pertaining to Africa
-An Economist article on progress toward the Millennium Development Goals

Of course, there is a middle ground that is growing: social entrepreneurship.  I'll give a plug for Tegu, one such company.

*Why the asterisk?  Dangote is the wealthiest African who can show all his money.  It is accepted wisdom that former rulers embezzled billions.  By one count, $400B in oil money has been embezzled since Nigerian independence in 1960.  Today on the radio there was a news item about a former state governor who embezzled $292 million during his time in office.  It is widely assumed that Ibrahim Babangida, a former president (usually called "IBB") who is running to be president again in 2011, stole much of the $12B that disappeared during his time in office.  It would be unbelievable fraud anywhere, but is particularly egregious against the backdrop of average Nigerian life.

Zimbabwe, Nigeria, and crime

After chatting with some Zimbabwean colleagues, I may take a road trip through there. Americans always hear about Zimbabwe during discussions of inflation or race-based land grabs. However, these two said that “Bob” as they call him did make a couple of crucial right moves initially. He invested a lot in education, and Zimbabwe consequently has one of the highest literacy rates on the continent. When I asked about the wisdom of a white American driving around Zimbabwe, they said that the thing to remember in Zim is that murders are targeted and by the government. There is crime, of course, but the general crime rate is significantly lower than in Johannesburg.

I think this is similar to Nigeria. I’ve decided that while Nigeria certainly has its dangers, they are more targeted and less random. The Niger Delta is certainly dangerous for an expat oil worker with a regular schedule, but even there the violence has died down significantly in the past two years. We no longer drive around with a guard with an AK-47 in Benin City, and I would feel safer walking around the Benin City or Abuja streets (in a smart manner) than in a lot of Joburg. (Side note: this was not always the case. See the first section of the Wikipedia write up on the Lagos international airport for a sense. Note also that the article is uncited, so I don’t know the veracity, but it makes for a great story.)

Part of the reason I feel safe in Benin City is that as a white guy I’m very rare. That might sound odd, because I certainly stick out and would be juicy to anyone looking for a white guy to kidnap, but since there aren’t a lot of us in Benin City I am also banking on the fact that the experienced criminals on the hunt are in Lagos or Abuja where the pickings (and the wealth) is better or in the Niger where the community as a whole is somewhat hostile. Most people I see are probably too surprised to jump into action and rob me, so they stare or say “hey whitey.” OK, so I don’t want to test that hypothesis, but I would like to think that is usually the case.

Think about three types of criminals:
1. The disgruntled group making a political statement
2. The individual who sees it as an easy way to make money
3. The professionals

1. This is the Niger delta kidnapper. I wouldn’t want to be in his hands, because you are a pawn to make a statement. He probably can’t be fully satisfied by cash, and the people who can give him what he wants (the government) is slow, highly political, and not something I would want to count on.

2. This guy is also dangerous. He needs some cash, but he may well get nervous and shoot you. This is most of the Joburg criminals I think.

3. These guys might be the hardest to avoid, but you probably have the best chance of coming out unscathed but with empty pockets. They’re after money and know that they don’t get money without a live person. (They are not yet brutal like in Latin America.) This is what you worry about in Lagos or Abuja.

The partner on my project, who has worked here for six years or so, had two more things to add. First, Nigerian criminals know that touching a white guy raises the stakes (and the investigative forces brought to bear) a lot, so it’s a deterrent. Second, as only a consultant would say, the Nigerian professionals “understand the concept of client lifetime value” and would prefer to let you go and rob you another day than kill the cash cow.

One other note on Kenya on the topic of crime: apparently it is the weapons smuggling hub for E Africa. This sort of makes sense because there is a lot of legitimate business in which to hide it, and its proximity to Somalia and the Middle East make it a good crossroads.

The Zims also provided another perspective on xenophobia in South Africa. South Africa has problems with local blacks committing violent crimes against immigrants from other countries. One guy said that when he serves South African clients, there is usually some tension when interacting with black South Africans.

(Almost) everything I've learned about Nigeria in one story

This was forwarded to me today (by a Nigerian) and the governance part/cultural commentary is funny because it is so true.  The only difference is that in real life there would be more tribal politics. 


Once upon a time, when Baba (Obasanjo) was in office as the president, he got an invitation from the Queen to come for a visit to England. After all the banquets and carriage rides and what not, Baba finally got the quiet moment he had craved all day in order to have a one on one chat with her majesty. After the usual small talk, Baba quickly popped the question. He asked her what the secret to her success was. You know Nigerians, we think everything is a secret…the President’s health status is a secret, his whereabouts is a secret, reports of the various panels of enquiry set up by govt to investigate the causes of different crises around the country are kept secret, we even have secret registries in every government agency in d country. Maybe we are a secretive people, we love secrets.

Anyway, back to our story. So Baba asked for the SECRET to the Queens’s success and she told him that she relies on her people a lot and therefore she makes certain that only the intelligent get to positions of authority.

She decided to show him exactly what she meant and so she phoned Tony Blair. "Now listen carefully, Mr. Obasanjo. I'm going to ask Mr. Blair a question to determine his intelligence.”

Queen: "Hello Mr. Blair, I have a question for you: your mother has a child, and your father has a child. This child is not your brother and is not your sister. Who is he?"

Tony Blair replied instantly, "It's ME Your Majesty!"

Queen: "Correct! Thank you and goodbye"

"You see Mr. Obasanjo?" said the Queen.

"Yes”, he replied “and thanks a lot, I'll definitely be using that!"

Once back in Nigeria, he decided that he had doubts about Mantu’s level of intelligence and he decided to test him. He arranged a meeting with him and asked him:

"Mantu, I have a question for you; your mother and father have a child. The child is not your brother and is not your sister, who is he?."

Mantu thinks...... and thinks………and thinks, and finally says, "Em, Mr. President, you must give me more time to think about it."

And Mr. Obasanjo gave him 2 weeks to come up with an answer. That afternoon, Mantu called a meeting of all his aides, advisers and assistants to discuss the question, but NOBODY knew the answer. So he decided to take it to the floor of the Senate. After a heated debate the Senate President thought it wise to clear out the gallery and go into a closed session as he believed the revelations that might result could be damaging to the family and reputation of the distinguished Senator Mantu.

After about two hours of deliberations, the house decided to set up an ad hoc committee to look into the matter and report back to it in ten days. The committee was given the following terms of reference:

1. To come up with a complete family tree of the entire Mantu clan
2. To pay a courtesy call to the traditional ruler of Mantu’s village and the State Governor
3. To interview all living relatives of Senator Mantu
4. To determine if Sen. Mantu’s dad had any extramarital affairs
5. To determine the DNA composition of Sen. Mantu (in Germany of course or Saudi)

On completion of its assignment, the committee was to submit its report to the Senate which would then pass it on to the Senate committee on special duties. This committee would then review the report of the ad hoc committee and come up with a draft “white paper” (whatever that means). This draft “white paper” would then be brought back to the Senate and on approval would be passed on to the President through Senator Mantu.

The Ad-hoc committee then submitted its budget which, of course, was kept SECRET, but included funds for;

a) The immediate purchase of Land Cruiser jeeps for each of the 12 members of the committee. The jeeps would be used to travel to Mantu’s village because, as you know, Nigerian roads are bad and Mantu’s village is remote.
b) Air tickets (first class of course) and hotel accommodation in Jos for committee members and their numerous aides. They’d stay at the Hill-station hotel and drive to Mantu’s village in the morning.
c) Air tickets (again first class) to Germany and back, and hotel accommodation (five star) for everybody.
d) Estacodes and hazard allowances
e) Logistics
f) Miscellaneous

Even though the budget was kept secret, you can easily come up with the figure by taking the actual estimate of the above list and multiply by ten. You’ll only run into problems when you get to the final two items (logistics & miscellaneous) , as these are usually added to cover for all the people that need to be “settled” in order to ensure that everything goes smoothly. Therefore the figures have the tendency of varying widely and so it can’t really be predicted.

Anyway, the money was released and the committee started its assignment in earnest. They finished within the time frame that was stipulated in their terms of reference and they prepared a voluminous report which was to be presented at the senate at plenary. But on the d-day when the chairman of the committee was about to make the presentation, a distinguished senator from the Southern part of the country raised a “point of order”. He argued that the committee was illegal because its composition was lopsided in favor of a certain region in the country. He pointed out that of the 12 members; seven were from the North and only five from the South. Not to be outdone, another senator, this time from the North, raised a “point of order” on the “point of order” that was raised by the senator from the South. He argued that since the committee’s assignment was primarily to investigate the lineage of Senator Mantu (who was from the North), they needed
senators who knew the terrain, who understood the culture of the people and their language.

More points of order followed and after a while the Senate President decided to put a stop to it by subjecting it to a voice vote.

And thus he announced, “All those in favor of the committee being considered legal and thus go ahead to present its report say “AYE””. And the house responded accordingly.

And then he asked again, “All those not in favor of the committee being considered legal and thus should not go ahead to present its report say “NAY””. And the house responded accordingly.

Unfortunately for Mantu, the “NAYs had it” and thus the report was never presented. Now Mantu had a really big problem, because the President was waiting for an answer and he had run out of time. So in one last effort, he decided to phone his very good friend Jerry Rawlings who had always sounded intelligent to Mantu and thus might have the answer to this really difficult question.
"Jerry, your mother and father have a child. The child is not your brother and is not your sister, who is he?."

Jerry answered immediately. "Hey, Mantu, It's me of course, you dumb Nigerian!"
Mantu couldn’t believe his luck and so he rushed to Aso Rock Villa, his motorcade of five cars moving at top speed with sirens blaring. Ordinary Nigerians going about their normal businesses scampered out of the way. When they finally arrived their destination, Mantu literarily ran all the way to the President's office.

"Mr. President, Mr. President”, he called out, breathing heavily. “I know who he is.”
Obasanjo: “Good, so tell me”
Mantu: “It’s Jerry Rawlings Sir! In fact, when he revealed the SECRET to me, I started to see the resemblance between us"

Obasanjo: "Jerry Rawlings ko, Jerry Gana ni. You are such a stupid senator. Olodo rakpata! I'll make sure you don’t return to office after this term. Stupid man, the correct answer is TONY BLAIR!"

And that’s how Mantu never returned to the Senate even though he supported the President’s third term agenda.
This is how Africa is governed.

Learning from some 10 year expats

Some of you asked me about my expectations for my time in SA. Perhaps surprisingly, I did not expect to learn about BBBEE over a traditional Korean meal in an old Afrikaner house, but that’s what happened on Sunday.

I visited a church on in Midrand (halfway between Pretoria and Joburg) on Sunday and a few people invited me to have lunch with them. The hostesses were a Korean girl and her mom, and we drove out to their “plot,” as they call acreage. It was an interesting mix of cultures. The house was obviously an old farmhouse meant to be run by domestic staff, and it felt even larger and emptier with only two Korean women inside. This very Afrikaner house was decorated in a very traditional Korean style, and we had Korean food while sitting on the floor at low Korean tables.

A decent shot of both the landscape and the electric fencing.

The whole place is fenced with what looks like high exotic game fencing in west Texas. However, I suspected and confirmed that it was actually electric fencing. Despite the 7 ft electric fencing and the steel bars on the windows, they had been robbed twice during the 10 years they had lived there.

The girl just got her masters in BBBEE studies. She approached it more from the anthropology side – studying how it had been implemented and its effects – but I was still surprised that you can actually get a master’s in this. The more I hear about it, the more I realize that it’s like accounting – complicated, and something that requires professionals to basically audit/consult so you can figure out how you’re doing and what you need to do to get points.

Vuvuzelas aren't that bad -- provided you're the one behind the horn blowing it.

Robbery report (or, "Don't read this, mom")

Over the last couple of days, the FIFA HQ got robbed, the Police Minister’s unfinished official home was robbed, and a former police captain was arrested for involvement in three shootings. The FIFA and minister heists are thought to be inside jobs; the FIFA HQ is literally right around the corner from my office.