Oiling the Urban Economy: land, labour, capital and the state in Sekondi-Takoradi, Ghana by Franklin Obeng-Odoom (review)

As a political resource par excellence, oil has been established and contested as one of the principal commodities underpinning modern economic expansion and a fundamental force in social, economic and political life. Ghana’s emergence as the latest producer and exporter of crude oil in sub-Saharan Africa has sparked both global and local interest. The context of Ghana’s oil discovery is exceptional. Recognized as a beacon of democracy in Africa, Ghana is closely watched by the world to see whether the government will manage oil revenues judiciously in order to bring about the socio-economic transformation that will propel the country into becoming a middle-income one.

It is within this context that Obeng-Odoom’s book is a welcome addition to the literature on oil and development in Ghana. The book draws on empirical evidence collected, interrogated and analysed over a four-year period and offers a path-breaking study on ‘Africa’s oil resources cast in an urban setting’ (p. 12).

The book has three parts that deal with a critique of the conventional approaches to the economics of oil; the history of the oil city and a trajectory of livelihood transformations among different social groups; and policy considerations with regard to what the author describes as the ‘good city’. The first part consists of three chapters, with Chapter 1 setting the tone as well as serving as gossamer for the rest of the book. In the two following chapters, the author problematizes what has become commonly known as the resource curse doctrine. He challenges the simplistic assumption of a ‘curse’ or ‘blessing’ and provides evidence to show that, while oil is not entirely a blessing, its so-called ‘curse’ on the urban economy is not homogeneous but class-based. Drawing on the political economy literature, the second chapter attempts to link urbanism with natural resources and economic development. The author explains through a careful and systematic analysis that it is imperative to deal with ‘the crucially important notion of rent and economic surplus which are key to understanding the construction of expectations and unravelling the ramifications accompanying the rise of oil industry and broader issues of economic development’ (pp. 26–7). Chapter 3 presents an application of the proposed heterodox property rights framework to Ghana’s oil industry.

While the first three chapters are devoted to an exposition of theoretical concepts that enable readers to familiarize themselves with the complex arguments surrounding the oil industry from a number of disciplines and other research works, the second part is the crux of the book. The author begins the fourth chapter by providing the reader with the history of political and economic institutions and a historical trajectory of Sekondi-Takoradi within the last century. He does this in no haphazard manner but shows how an ‘oil dynamics is oozed through a complex web of social relations and institutional interactions in an urban economy which is not only colonial but also colonising’ (pp. 75–6). Chapter 5 looks at the transformation of Sekondi-Takoradi’s urban economy, which obviously is driven by the oil companies and the associated industries that have flocked to the area. He tracks the changes in livelihoods, employment, real estate development, transport and nightlife in the oil city. Obeng-Odoom raises the issue of gender imbalance that is often associated with the oil industry and reveals the uneven ways in which tenants and indigenes of the town have been affected. Chapter 6 continues with an account of how farmers and fishermen have been alienated and their livelihoods threatened by the activities of the oil industry.

In the last part of the book, which consists of chapters on compensation and betterment, taxation, and the socialization of oil rents, the author works his way through the question of what can be done, as he puts it, ‘toward the good city’. In his...