Synopsis "Black Gold - Black Scorpion"
"we will aim at everything - even if it is not moving": Stern Magazine, the Black Scorpion___"Nigeria's recent presidential election was praised by the international community for its orderliness and the numbers who turned out to vote, despite threats from Boko Haram insurgents to disrupt the polls.Now that the government has been in power for more than 100 days, Black Gold Black Scorpion couldn't be timelier. George S Boughton, who lives in Weybridge (UK), was an oil engineer in Nigeria during the 1967 to 1970 Biafran war and what emerges from this intense, emotional memoir is a withering indictment of governing elites and the destructive consequences of their out-of-control behaviour.Around a million people starved to death or were killed in the fighting; yet the news vacuum meant that Boughton and other expat workers were often in the dark about the true extent of what was going on.Black Gold Black Scorpion is a fascinating, first-hand account of how a nation at war with itself became a magnet for cold war politics as it sank into moral darkness": Surrey Life magazine Nov 2015 (p. 81), Juliette Foster___Black Gold - Black Scorpion recounts the lives of a young oil engineer, his wife and newborn child, during the Biafran War, when they inadvertently lived through one of the worst episodes of African history. Working in an industry that has gone on to pollute massively with oil, theirs is a different story of Africa, oil and aid.The author describes the political elites and those, like Ojukwu and Adekunle, who fought them - having himself been captured and detained, one to one, by the mythically ruthless Black Scorpion; this, the strangest of events, enabling him to observe at close range the disintegration of a powerful personality.More especially, the author's and his family's interaction with the people of the area, the people of Igboland, serves to underline how most of Africa continues to be let down by the pillars of the modern world - political elites, capitalists, the media and warring world powers.___ABOUT THE AUTHOR___Born to English parents in Eritrea, George S Boughton, Chartered Engineer, BSc.MechE(Hons), MIMechE (UK), has had an internation education: Les Petit Oiseau (Rome), Roaring Brook Elementary School (New York), Wellington School (Somerset UK), and Northampton College of Advanced Technology (City University, London).Boughton went on to lead an expatriate life, firstly in oilfield engineering with Shell in Nigeria and the UK and then with Creole Production Services International in Kuwait. He was a partner of Form Arabia Furnishing in Kuwait, a consultant in change management with the Nichols Group in Hong Kong and then in information management services with Azeus Systems in Hong Kong and South Africa.Now based in the UK, this international lifestyle coupled with his deep knowledge of oil exploration and production as well as dire experiences working in remote areas through the Biafran War have served him well in writing Black Gold - Black Scorpion.___
