Nigeria’s plan to pass 10 per cent of oil revenues directly on to Niger Delta citizens is a chance to escape the chaos that threatens to engulf it before it is too late. Emmanuel Egbogah, the president’s adviser on oil, calls the plan “revolutionary”. It is the right characterisation, and it is the right policy to pursue. Although it carries risks of its own, nothing less than a radical policy can turn round Nigeria’s heartbreaking experience with oil.

Though oil is always politically and economically toxic, Nigeria’s case is particularly egregious: its yearly output per person is about the same in real terms as before the 1973 oil shock – hundreds of billions of oil dollars contributed nothing to sustainable economic growth. Since inequality has also risen, a majority of Nigeria’s people are worse off in material terms than at the end of the Biafran war.