This year's February edition of National Geographic contains a report about the dire political and environmental conditions that are now plaguing Port Harcourt, Nigeria. The cause is oil.
There's plenty of it. Nigeria's oil reserves are among the largest in the world. But government corruption, the deterioration of the water and land because of oil spills that go unchecked, and frequent militant activity have turned coastal Nigeria into a warzone.
When oil was first discovered here in 1956 things looked promising. Nigeria joined OPEC in the 1970s and government coffers were stuffed with money. Now, this African nation has been put at the bottom of the list in the quality of life index of major oil countries by the United Nations.