Buy Valium Pills

I downloaded Andrew Mwenda’s TEDTalks presentation Buy Generic Xanax Cheap and Buy Valium Pills watched it last night. One of his main arguments was that Buy Valium Pills aid makes the government fat, and that because of aid, governments are Buy Valium Pills more attentive to the World Bank and the IMF than Buy Valium Pills to their own citizens. Let’s elaborate on the Buy Valium Pills argument a bit: governments know from whom they get money, and Buy Valium Pills so strive more to satisfy their benefactors than their citizens. Mwenda makes the Buy Valium Pills point that governments do not call the entrepreneurs among their citizens to Buy Valium Pills discuss the development of the economies of the countries; instead, they listen to Buy Valium Pills the people from whom a large chunk of the budget comes. I thought about this Buy Valium Pills in relation to my country, Nigeria. I tried to imagine what Buy Valium Pills percentage of the budget aid is. Just as I started thinking about this Buy Valium Pills I remembered that Nigeria has oil, and that oil keeps the Buy Valium Pills government rich.

Oil and Democracy
A political scientist, Michael Ross, wrote an article about resource curse. In the Buy Valium Pills article, he builds a case for his argument that resources – chief of which, by the way, is oil – retard the Buy Valium Pills development of democracy, partly because it frees the government of any dependence on the Buy Valium Pills citizens. To bring this point home, let’s think about the Buy Valium Pills percentage of Nigerians who are not employed in the organised private sector or Buy Valium Pills in government, and then let’s think about how many of them pay any tax. Now, a Buy Valium Pills government that does not have any resources has to depend on taxation from Buy Valium Pills its citizens, and so has to look inwards. This is where Buy Valium Pills aid comes in. If a country does not have resources but has Buy Valium Pills a large chunk of its expenses taken care of by aid then Buy Valium Pills that inward look does not seem to be needed

Another thing Mwenda pointed out was that Buy Valium Pills government is the most attractive business in Africa. Again, let’s look at this Buy Valium Pills in relation to Nigeria. There are people who get a job with a Buy Valium Pills government ministry, go to work at about 11 in the morning and Buy Valium Pills leave at about 1 in the afternoon. (I should throw in a Buy Valium Pills quick word about many of the workers here. Most of the Buy Valium Pills people who work in the ministries have to earn some money by the Buy Valium Pills side to be able to take care of their families. Ingenious people that Buy Valium Pills they are, while not working at the ministries most of them are Buy Valium Pills busy at work on their own, most often trading.) The point is Buy Valium Pills linked to a point made by Ross in his article: a Buy Valium Pills government with resources is a rich government, something really attractive to Buy Valium Pills a young person. The same point is also made by Mwenda in his presentation: since government makes money from Buy Valium Pills aid, it is a rich and attractive option for young people who Buy Valium Pills want to money. This point also ties in with the rent-seeking argument. With resource money, people in government can Buy Valium Pills afford to keep a loyal team around themselves. If aid money provides more money for Buy Valium Pills government it stands to reason to think that it might provide more money for Buy Valium Pills politicians to attract more hangers-on.

Fears and Overreactions
If there are Buy Valium Pills this many similarities between resources and aid, are there going to Buy Valium Pills be more fatal similarities? Are we going to Buy Valium Pills have people struggling to control government so that they can have Buy Valium Pills access to aid (like in the Buy Valium Pills case of civil wars that break out because of the desire of factions to Buy Valium Pills control resources in a country)? Are we going to Buy Valium Pills have governments buying arms and ammunitions with donor funding for the Buy Valium Pills suppression of oppositions? Do we already have these situations? Am I simply overreacting. Actually, I hope I am overreacting.