Patience Jonathan |
The Aridolf hotel in Yenagoa is an unlikely monument to kitsch
on a reclaimed swamp in Nigeria’s oil-producing Niger delta. In the
lobby, Louis XIV furniture is accompanied by bowls of plastic fruit,
faux Dutch landscapes and a grotesquely gaudy chandelier. The hotel is
redolent of the riches on display in a region that for half a century
has generated the bulk of Nigeria’s wealth.
Today, Yenagoa is a sprawling construction site. But the Aridolf, which is owned by Patience Jonathan, wife of the outgoing president, is symptomatic of how superficial progress has been in addressing the festering sense of marginalisation in the region, which remains desperately impoverished despite benefiting from a tide of petrodollars in recent years.
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