Doing Dangerously Well Read Free

over the loss of homes, businesses or farms.
    There were others, however, hidden like the sand in the darkest corners and crevices of Nigerian society, who felt not only grief but passion.
    Loss can always be transformed into profit for those able to envision reconstruction. Indeed, the greater the calamity, the more seductive the prospects. Old arrangements are washed away and new opportunities surface. To direct the flow of such blessings, it takes not only a thirst for acquisitions but a certain gift for deal-making. And in areas of contract and negotiation, Chief Ogbe Kolo, minister for natural resources, was not just a master craftsman; he was the pre-eminent artist of Africa’s greatest nation.

TWO
The Qualitative Guy

    U naware of Kainji’s struggle to hold back the waters of the Niger, a group of concerned activists from around the country congregated in Abuja, the titular capital of Nigeria. This important but isolated hub had been placed in the alleged wilderness of the country’s geographical centre, an act that had made billionaires of many government ministers.
    The group met in a crowded municipal conference room, trying to make headway with the issue of water provision in their hometowns. The heat lay heavy in the room, with one aging fan struggling to provide air for over two hundred bodies.
    Femi Jegede sat in the middle of the room, listening as one person after another tried to explain to a particularly never-plussed official the absurdity of taking water and then selling it back to the communities that originally owned it. One woman, who had spoken with the sequential logic of an elementary schoolteacher, finally sat down in defeat.
    Then Femi’s comrade Ubaldous, a robust and brilliant lawyer, took the floor for the fourth time. His voice sounded weary from debating. “Why should taxpayers subsidize big business in order to privatize our own water? We will be making these companies richer and ourselves poorer. We will not only pay higher taxes to support this initiative, but the cost of water will triple, so who will be able to afford your precious water?”
    The official, wearing shoes with the backs trodden down so that the soles of his feet could be better aired, fidgeted in his chair poised on top of a small dais. He restated his position: “Em, it costs money to make good water.”
    “But we cannot afford the water you’re selling us!”
    “Em, the government is concerned that all Nigerians can drink good water.”
    “Good water!” Ubaldous exploded. “How do you know it will be good water? Every disease you can think of sits in American water yet which idiot is going to try and sue a multinational?”
    The official giggled. “They drink water from the tap, my friend.” He shook his head, as if speaking to an imbecile.
    “And where do they get E. coli from?”
    The official tilted his head in bewilderment. “What kind of cola?”
    Ubaldous kissed his teeth for a good ten seconds. He attempted to compose himself, then inched his argument along at a more restrained pace. “The government will drain away all we have to sell to the highest bidder—and it is guaranteed,” he pointed at the official, “guaranteed that Nigeria will not be among that select group, my friend.” His hands trembled as he held on to the chair in front of him, a tactic he often used to evoke sympathy in a jury.
    “How can you move water from one country to another?”The official chuckled again, nodding with mirth into his crotch.
    Ubaldous’s eyebrows shot into their highest position, unable to believe the man’s idiocy. He stumbled onto the person seated next to him to attract the official’s attention once more. His voice grew hoarse and cracked, sounding as if he had crossed a desert free of all liquid. “Water is traded already. Have you not read of environmental degradation?”
    “No, no. That is global warming.”
    The group issued a long groan. After an hour of circular debate, they had made no