Perhaps the African nations should follow a model more akin to that of Chavez's Venezuela than the model foisted upon them by BP, Chevron, etc. Of course, it would help if they had governments that were at least a little less corrupt and less willing to fill up the pockets of a few despotic government officials and screw the country as whole...

African Coffee, African rare earth minerals, African diamonds, molybdenum, gold, hardwoods....?

With our without nationalized expropriation of private assets has lead to about 2.8% GDP growth as opposed to about 3.5% globally. Internally Venezuela is no better off than it was 15 years ago and Chavez spends his money on foreign adventures in Bolivia and Cuba in an attempt to become a regional caudillo.

No the simple fact is that extractive economies, reliant on wresting natural resource commodities out of the ground to sell for prices beyond their control ultimately lead nowhere. Iran imports 80% of their gasoline. Saudi Arabia has fewer than 2 million Saudis gainfully employeed in real productive jobs instead of on the dole or in make-work no-show government postings. The reality is that nations that rely on extractive commodities don't make or invent or produce, build, sew or harvest anything. It's simply a matter of controlling the resource through force.

Look at what diamonds did to Sierra Leone. The difference in African lifestyles between countries that have resources and those that don't is mostly just the level of violence.

I'm leery of nationalization, since thats what most of these governments in Africa have, or at least some sort of per barrel tax that ends up lining the pockets of government bureaucrats, which is no better place to be really, than the hands of oil companies. The only real way to keep stable prices is either some sort of official or unofficial cartelization, something that may have happened with OPEC on the government side, DeBeers on the private, but is doubtful going to occur with the far more diverse mining industry.

That said, using GDP growth as a marker of economic development, or the success of policies, is dubious, for the same reason highlighted in the article. Equatorial Guinea has a GDP bonanza, but it means little for the average person there, as have many of the oil rich nations since discovery. To get a fair assessment of a countries economic development you have to take into account real wages, rates of inflation, unemployment and hows it counted, social welfare if any, and what, if any, populations exist outside of the industrial worlds economic scope (indigenous people, nomads, pastoralists, etc). The last group is especially important to remember in light of extractive development, which often runs roughshod right over indigenous people, depriving them of their way of life.

But extractive economies aren't the only ones that suffer from this kind of GDP disconnect. Countries (or more often city-states) that ply their trade from the financial industry or being a trading hub. Hong Kong, often held up as an example of free market capitalism gone right, also shows how it goes wrong, as its status as the "Window into China" has been deteriorated by the actual entrance of companies directly into China. As financial institution have skipped over Hong Kong to invest directly into Chinese cities like Shanghai, Hong Kong finds itself in a bind of not having anything else to turn to. It is after all, an island that is mostly inhabited because of a quirk of history.

It's not just oil, by any means. British journalist Michela Wrong, a specialist in Africa, called it the "paradox of sub-Saharan Africa":

[C]ountries with the greatest natural assets are doomed to war and stagnation, while nations with almost nothing somehow prove better at building contented societies.

African history contains high repeat cycles of failure to break out of the worst of strongman politics,graft,corruption, virulent tribalism,militarism and nepotism. It surely remains true that Africa is still "the dark continent" at this point in early 21st century. From Mobutu to Mugabe--just two African leaders out of a long list of African despots or worst--one can catalog the post-African colonial epoch. The Belgian Congo was and is the textbook example of European colonization at it's worst in Africa. Mobutu fully built on that rotted and ruinous history his own version of corruption,kleptocracy and perverted Cold War gaming in Congo(Zaire). Mugabe is still at it in Zimbabwe in 2007. Africa faces the environmental mayhem and profit impulses of corporatists and extractive industries to run amok woefully unable to protect or be policy pro-active on African natural resources management or channel the wealth they attract into positive social/political patterns.

As the Middle East was to discover oil brings on the money but also the worst instincts of corporate greed and political perversion. It is hardly a wonder that what is unfolding across oil rich Africa manifests itself as A.Leonard touches on here. That is just oil. Include precious gems,gold,metals and minerals mining,timber and wildlife killoff,capture and poaching and one gets a much fuller reveal of the scale of African natural world plundering and exploitation.

Cold War militarism strains took hold in Africa solidly and today Africa is awash in small arms trading and death dealing. From Sudan to Nigeria,from Liberia to the far expanse of Congo the daily strife and killing trendlines seldom recede and if so often not for very long. Illicit arms trading,fueled by the worst of illegal and despoilment extractive activities has become a standard feature of African daily life. Militarism is the bane of African social/political advance with it's never ending claim on the economic resources of African nations. Add in the ethnic,religous and tribal pick-a-fights on top of the exploitation schemes that fester in Africa and the scope and scale of African dysfunction is then better seen.

21st century economic globalism,advancing climatic and weather changes and population increase will bring to Africa a range of acute issues that Africa is woefully underprepared to engage,debate and act on. When one considers what is taking place in other parts of the planet--deforestation in Amazonia and Indonesia,riverrun changes due to dam build activities on several major world river sytems just for starters one can expect the world to look very different--be very different-- by the end of 21st century. African oil is but one part of this emerging new world--and yes--a particularly dark hearted one it is at that.