Changing Lifestyles : The Case of Nigeria’s Vanishing Middle Class : There’s plenty of money in the oil-rich African nation. But average citizens no longer see much of it.

Like so many millions here, Lizy Ute used to have new kitchen appliances. Her kids wore new clothes, and the family drove the latest-model car. But those days are long gone for her and the rest of Nigeria’s middle class, once the largest in Africa.

“I used to consider myself middle class, but now there is only high and low,” said Ute, pausing from hard-nosed negotiations with a shoe salesman at a Lagos market the other day.

After securing the $2 discount she demanded, Ute put an arm on the shoulders of her 12-year-old and added: “Just to get this gentleman dressed from head to toe costs 3,000 naira (about $140). It used to be less than 500 naira ($25).”

Nigeria’s middle class, born in the oil boom of the 1970s, has all but disappeared amid 65% annual inflation and nearly a decade of rampant government corruption. While a dwindling few continue to binge conspicuously on the finest of everything, most of Nigeria’s 90 million people struggle in poverty.

But the widening gulf between rich and poor, and the political upheaval of recent months, have had a curious side effect in Nigeria. For the first time, there is growing revulsion for the corruption that has long been a central and accepted feature of this society.

The middle class may have lost its cherished lifestyle, but in the process it has embraced at least one middle-class value--deep anger at the government cheats who have looted the country’s treasury and the unscrupulous business people who have damaged the nation’s image.

That disquiet, fed by Nigerians’ finely honed penchant for self-criticism, has become evident on the letters pages of dozens of newspapers and magazines, in the offices of lawyers and accountants, and even, increasingly, in the dimly lit offices of corrupt government officials themselves.

“We are fraudulent, corrupt, dishonest, selfish and hate the truth, to mention a few of our innumerable vices,” wrote Babs Ologundudu in a recent letter to the Punch, a Lagos daily newspaper. “Right from home, the Nigerian is self-centered and selfish to the core.”

Just a decade ago, most middle-class Nigerians were so worried about clinging to their lifestyles, then among the best in Africa, that they ignored allegations of high-level corruption. And the ability to get rich quickly, by whatever means, was a symbol more of status than of disdain.

“But we are more angry about it now,” said Olisa Agbakoba, a lawyer and chairman of the Civil Liberties Organization in Lagos. “And we’re focusing better.”

Indeed, the new obsession with corruption has been felt at the highest levels of government. Within days of taking power in a bloodless coup d’etat on Nov. 17, Gen. Sani Abacha announced a “war on corruption and indiscipline” and promised to begin with government itself.

“Corruption is giving us a bad image abroad, which is unfair,” explained Abacha’s minister of information, Jerry Gana. “Basically, Nigerians are good. But this small group wanting to make money in a hurry is giving us a bad name.”

Unfortunately, many believe Abacha is part of the problem rather than part of the solution. After all, Abacha helped lead coups in 1983 and 1985, the latter of which brought Gen. Ibrahim Babangida to power. And Gana acknowledges that the government does not intend to “waste our time with interminable probes into the past.”

Bribes have become a permanent feature of life in Nigeria, and “dashing” or “settling” everyone from the lowest clerk to the biggest boss has become a permanent supplement to poor wages.

Government departments are often forced to bribe each other to transact government business. Police officers--who earn less than $200 monthly when they’re paid, and who haven’t been for the past three months--routinely must be “settled” by people reporting crimes and, later, by the suspects arrested for those crimes.

Clerks expect money to arrange appointments with their superiors or to locate a file. Their bosses collect a percentage on contracts with business people. Students bribe their way into college and then pay handsome “tips” to pass their exams. Telephone repair workers expect a tip to fix a customer’s phone, and gasoline station attendants demand to be “settled” before they will open the pump.

Travelers at the Lagos airport are asked at least a dozen times, on arrival or departure, for bribes by customs officials and police. The airport, ironically, is named for Gen. Murtala Mohammed, the last head of state to openly condemn corruption. He was assassinated in 1976 after a two-year rule.

In his eight years in power, Babangida amassed untold millions, most of which he stashed in European banks, civil rights groups say. Before he stepped down in August, under pressure from Abacha, Babangida rewarded each of 3,000 loyal officers with a $21,000 automobile--equivalent to five years’ pay for a former member of the middle class.

The country is by no means poor. Although the world price of oil has been falling steadily, Nigeria still pumps 2 million barrels a day, which amounts to about $10 billion in annual revenue.

But that money has a way of mysteriously disappearing.

Isoladele Olashore, who was finance minister until last August, later told journalists that his department was subjected to “a never-ending pressure” from a variety of other government departments to overspend their budgets.

An ad hoc “Budget Monitoring Committee” reported in September that nearly $1 billion had been siphoned off by the central bank and the national oil company for unspecified “priority projects.” And Nigerians were stunned to learn last year that the country received $2 billion in extra oil revenue during the Persian Gulf War--money that no one seems able to trace.

Where has all the money gone?

The Civil Liberties Organization has identified 3,400 Nigerian officeholders with a total of $30 billion overseas--equivalent to $8.8 million apiece, and altogether roughly equal to the country’s external debt, which hasn’t been serviced in two years. The rights group says it hopes to investigate those Nigerians for fraud if a democratic government comes to power.

“Everyone can see it,” said Gani Fawehinmi, a 55-year-old lawyer and often-jailed government opponent. “You see it in their (government officials’) houses, in their clothes, in their trips to Europe.”

While factories are closing, banks have quadrupled, to 140. A license to buy dollars at the official rate of exchange--which is less than half the black market rate--is as good as a currency printing press. Traders and other middlemen are making a killing as a result, and white-collar crime, with foreigners often the victims, is soaring.

“Money makes everything happen here,” said D. D. Odike, a senior editor for the News Agency of Nigeria.

“There’s a lot of buying and selling in Nigeria today,” said Beko Ransome-Kuti, head of the Campaign for Democracy, a leading government opposition group. “But I don’t see a lot being produced. Everybody is just trying to make as much as they can.”

Not far from the market where Lizy Ute was shopping recently, 1,000 well-heeled guests had turned out for a wedding on the terrace of the Lagoon, a fashionable restaurant. Three Rolls- Royces were parked out front, along with two dozen Mercedes-Benzes and BMWs. A table seemingly the length of a football field was brimming with roasted meats and peeled shrimp, and the sound of French champagne bottles being uncorked could be heard above the live band.

“There is an awful lot of money here,” one guest remarked.

Not far away, a two-day Chic Afrique exposition was packed with well-to-do Nigerian women shopping for pricey cosmetics. Outside, chauffeurs waited with their motors and air conditioners running.

“While there is still a lot of wealth in Nigeria, it’s held in the hands of so few people,” said a Western diplomat with long experience in the country. “Ultimately, it’s only a matter of time before you have a real mess. And I mean violence.”

On the streets of Lagos, where traffic lights rarely work and traffic police battle day and night to unclog the highways, young boys run from car to car with an odd assortment of goods, many of which have been pilfered from ships in port. One motorist paused from his cellular phone conversation the other day to roll down his window and browse, creating a small riot of sellers hawking greeting cards, 21-piece ratchet-wrench sets, sterling silver dinner knives and peeled oranges.

Nigeria’s recent political troubles have exacerbated the sense of chaos.

Nigerians voted in their first free elections on June 12, but Babangida annulled those elections. Two months later, Babangida was forced to step down, turning over power to a puppet civilian government. That civilian government, beset by street protests over a gasoline price hike, lasted just 2 1/2 months before it was unseated by Babangida’s former No. 2, Gen. Abacha. Like most of his predecessors, Abacha promised a new round of constitutional talks and democratic elections.

“What we need in this country,” said Ransome-Kuti, “is just a straightforward ruler with a lot of common sense who can keep his fingers out of the till. It’s not that difficult to rule. But once you have your hand in the till, everything becomes complicated.”