Alleviating corruption and poverty with technology

It takes 16 hours to drive from Lagos to Abuja, but one hour to fly. According to Google Maps, the trip should take under 12 hours. However, police will stop you every 30 minutes or so to ask for bribes. If you don’t pay up, you risk jail or your tires being slashed. My younger brother calls it “oil money” — ancillary payments such as these grease the wheels of Nigerian society.

The lack of accountability and corruption are entrenched in Nigerian society. Nigeria’s growing population of 185 million has encountered rising unemployment and violence. Youth under the age of 25 — more than 60% of the population — have been hit hardest. These are my cousins — talented and capable, with much to contribute. Society is leaving them behind.

Systemic corruption has stunted our social and economic development. My home, the Niger Delta, is ground zero. The region has been battling the world’s worst oil pollution disaster for the last 50 years. More than half a billion gallons of oil have spilled into our rivers, lakes, and farms.

Bodo City was the first community to settle a case against the companies responsible for the pollution. The community received $84M in reparations to build schools, health clinics, and roads; however, much of this oil money disappeared.

While filming with Al Jazeera in Bodo City, I met Father Abel Agbulu, a Catholic priest who returned to his homeland from Baltimore to lead and empower the youth. More than 3,000 young men had been agitating the community — rioting and burning down houses of elites who they believed caused corruption.

Dutch negotiators attempted to mediate at no avail. Father Abel successfully convinced these youths to lay down their weapons. Today, these young men continue to look up to Father Abel, but they’re asking, “What now?”

Bodo City is a microcosm of a society that has abundant, yet underdeveloped and undervalued human capital, locked out of the global economy. The world looks at Africa, but does not see this hidden gold — only the violence, the unrest, and poverty.

Sustainability International is changing this narrative. We believe that transparency and economic inclusion will renew the Niger Delta. We joined the Blockchain for Social Impact Coalition to develop blockchain solutions that tackle some of the world’s toughest economic and human development challenges. We’re currently developing an open-source accountability platform that will ensure the right tools reach the right people.

Nigeria’s centralized institutional nodes of accountability are inefficient, and we believe that distributed accountability could serve the interests of all community stakeholders: citizens, the government, and businesses. The platform can deter corruption and build trust by securely tracking payments, resources, and data through smart contracts.

Registering data on a global immutable ledger ensures its permanency and visibility. We’ll conduct multiple controlled oil spill cleanups in the Niger Delta to refine the platform’s human-centered design. Ultimately, we’ll enable transparency among all stakeholders, while giving power to the people, so that they can rebuild their communities.

Chi is a social entrepreneur leveraging breakthrough technologies to address economic and human development challenges in Africa.