I was working in the Horn of Africa in the late 1980s ... in the Ogaden of Ethiopia, a very remote area and came across vehicles like this that had been doing seismic analysis of the area. The contrast between the technology of the energy sector and the pastoral economy of the area was stark ... there was no money to keep humans alive in a drought, but all sorts of money to find more oil to support the rich population of the world.

At the time I was told that the equipment that I was looking at had been brought to Ethiopia by the Americans, but that now that Ethiopia was allied with the Soviet Union, the equipment was being operated by a Russian oil company. Geopolitics is complicated.

In the late 1980s, I was the team leader for an initiative of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) in Nigeria. The plan was for IFAD to give support to the artisanal fishery in the Niger delta region of Nigeria ... four states: Akwa Ibom State, Oyo State, Cross River State and Rivers State. Historically, artisanal fisheries had been mainstay of the people of the region, but the discovery of oil and the emergence of the oil industry had changed everything ... and the damage to the fishery caused by massive oil pollution was scandalous. Sadly ... nobody was prepared to do anything about it. Money talks ...