I'm mainly basing my knowledge of the drug epidemic in Nigeria off various
UN reports and
news articles.
The economy, while dependent on oil for revenue, isn't organized nor effective like Saudi Arabia in regards to having an
organized welfare state to keep down protests and discontent. That's why there is constant headlines in Nigeria about either
youth gangs wrecking Lagos or gun busts by SARS (who are widely loathed by the average Nigerian). They have no employment prospects, nor a
welfare state to keep them placated, so they turn to crime as a way to make ends meet.
Im basing my knowledge of Nigeria on not just news reports, but also the fact that I've lived and worked there, and remain in contact with friends who live and work there, including multiple people in the federal medical sector. Which allows me to call bullshit on some claims, like when you said heroin was a significant drug problem in Nigeria.
Cannabis as the dominant illicit drug? Yes. Cheap, locally produced. Heroin? Nope, imported, expensive. Tramadol imports from Asia? Plausible.
The top line data in the news article you point out conflate cannabis use, the non-medical use of prescription opioids, and the use of cough syrup containing codeine and dextrometrophan. When you drill down into the numbers in the report, it begins to look less wild. I'm still skeptical of some of the numbers being given(1 in 7 adult Nigerians are drug users, 1 in 25 opioid users, and there are no societal effects? Pull the other one), but they are less eye-poppingly implausible.
-The economy is not dependent on oil for revenue. Oil is 9% of GDP, compared to, say, agriculture at 20%.
The government budget is dependent on oil; thats not the same thing.
-Nigeria has always had a crime problem; far back as the 1980s highway bandits like Anini and Shina Rambo were infamous for plaguing the highways and waylaying interstate traffic. Area Boys, or youth gangs as you call them, have been a feature of parts of Nigerian inner cities, particularly around the motor parks, since the 1990s.
They principally play enforcer for local power structures.
Police corruption has also been an age-old issue.
Its just much easier to document them these days when everybody has a smartphone and internet connection.
While you are right in how West Africa is different in terms of xenophobia, that can easily change with an influx of young, unskilled Nigerians who, more often than not, turn to crime to survive. An increased crime rate and police militarization in these neighboring countries will more often than not ignite xenophobia. Imagine rural America-levels of brutality in say, Ghana, Cameroon, and Benin. There's also Niger, which in our world, is already suffering from a Malthusian Collapse (no joke, 1/8th of all Nigerien children die of hunger and gavelkind is speeding up desertification). They would probably reject every Nigerian who isn't a bureaucrat/college-educated worker. It would likely have an America-Mexico situation whereby IDP camps dor the Lake Chad area, increasing desertification and exacerbating the crisis.
Sidenote, but South Africa is depressing in how they treat people who are seeking a better life. Some of these people have only the clothes on their skin, but to South Africans already struggling with unemployment, they have the irredeemable sin of being from another country. It's honestly depressing to think fs out South Africa. It would be a major source of violence in this world, maybe even an anarchic period.
By the way, do you have sources citing the lack of xenophobia in West Africa, oil revenue, and the codeine epidemic?
You have the wrong picture.
Lemme give you some numbers for Nigeria's bordering countries. Niger is 23 million. Cameroon is 25 million. Benin is 12 million.
Meantime Lagos State population alone is estimated at between 15-20 million.
The country of Nigeria is currently around 210-219 million; the entirety of West Africa is 410 million.
If there is a breakdown in order in Nigeria, it will roll its neighbors over like a steamroller.
Ghana is not a border country of Nigeria btw; Togo and Benin are intervening territories.
Wont save it though.
Niger has a population growth rate of ~3.8%, some of the highest in the world, with the average woman birthing around 6.3 kids
Their child mortality rates aint doing that much.
South Africa is 🤷
A century of apartheid is going to leave a mark, and immigrant black Africans are an easier (and safer) target to take out their frustrations on.
Especially with when the government used deportations as a sign that they were Doing Something(tm)
Figures are unreliable.
Some Nigerien immigrants are often phenotypically and linguistically distinct, so you can pick them out.
But most people look like other local Africans on the street, and the Nigerian government has never been overly particular about ID documents.
Yesbut.
On the other hand, the Suez Canal is basically a gigantic ditch. It's relatively hard to sabotage (except, perhaps obviously now, by sinking ships in it), and it doesn't have quite the same level of engineering complexity and maintenance requirements as many other major canals that have lock assemblies and so on. A lot of different things could happen to, or in, Egypt without the Russians losing the use of the Suez Canal.
The last two protracted shutdowns of the Suez Canal, in 1956-1957 after the British and French tried to seize it, and between 1967-1975 when the Israelis occupied the east bank, had the Egyptians basically dump sea mines and sink ships in the channel to block it.
I have no doubts they'd do it again.
Then add the fact that you could have anything from heavy mortars to rockets to artillery on either bank; the Egyptian armed forces are appallingly well armed, with some domestic arms manufacture, and a breakdown in law and order would dump those arms into the hands of armed factions in the general populace.
A situation where Egypt lost control of the Suez would leave it impassable one way or the other.
You would require a significant commitment of troops to hold and patrol that area without the acquiesence of the local population.
Multiple division-level strength at a minimum.
And Russia already has significant troop commitments in the Gulf proper.
