Nigeria oil subsidy fraud
Nigeria is the largest oil producer in Africa, but lacks the infrastructure to refine its own product to meet the needs of its population of 173.6 million. Reuters

In an effort to crackdown against corruption, Nigeria’s President Goodluck Jonathan fired seven top executives of the state-run National Petroleum Corporation on Tuesday. Jonathan said that the sacking of managing director Austen Oniwon and others was in furtherance of efforts to achieve greater transparency and accountability in government.

Nigeria is one of the world's top oil producers, but the industry is controlled by the state and corruption at both the local and national levels have halted most economic and social development. An April parliamentary report found that the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation had lost $6.8 billion in two years due to fraud.

It's sickening because Nigeria should be one of the richest countries in the world, Charles Ebinger, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute and an expert on the energy industry, said of Nigeria's corruption problem in February. And the [Niger River] Delta, where all the oil is, is one of the poorest regions in the whole country.

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