Too many African politicians and sometimes local businesses, lawyers and civil society groups are quick to say, “It’s our oil. It’s our country.” They take an “us versus them” attitude, as if “they” are coming in to steal our resources. We need to move away from the “my country, my oil” mindset. It’s wrong, and it’s hurting our industry and average people. We must be honest with ourselves and recognize that resource nationalism—a country’s efforts to maintain tight-fisted control of its resources—is just as bad as racism or sexism.
I know they argue that it is OUR oil. It is true. But until we have the ability (technical and financial wherewithal) to extract our oil and gas like bp , Kosmos Energy , Woodside Energy Chevron ExxonMobil TotalEnergies , and others do, why are we adding roadblocks instead of incentivizing production? Sometimes, I think our governments simply ignore the fact that investors are spending a lot of money to make these projects work and that their successes will be, eventually, our own.
Xenophobic feelings about expatriates or foreigners coming into our countries to work infect the entire system. And that, in turn, affects the African people we want to protect and empower. Africans have been around the world, and we have marched and protested to be treated with decency and respect as human beings.
When we operate from a mindset of resource nationalism, we bring the very attitude we have fought against to our own business dealings. We are less likely to create an enabling environment for investment, less likely to be transparent, less likely to develop effective local content policies, and less likely to benefit from knowledge-sharing, capacity building, and valuable public-private partnerships. We have never seen a country grow stronger and more prosperous as a result of resource nationalism—and if we wade into that territory, we stand to lose.
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