Nigeria is winning its fight against militants and criminals in its oil-producing Niger Delta but social and economic conditions must also be improved to solve the problem, a regional governor said on Wednesday.
Rivers State governor Rotimi Amaechi has taken a tough approach to dealing with the violence since he took office last year and is keen to attract more foreign investment.
“Things have got much better — kidnappings are down,” Amaechi told Reuters in an interview.
“But people have to realise this is partly a problem of poverty and you have to address development and employment. At the same time, it is important to have stronger law enforcement than we have been having up until recently.”
Air, sea and ground forces have been on the offensive against criminal gangs in the Niger Delta, clamping down on oil theft, abduction and extortion in the world’s eighth biggest oil exporter.
Some estimates put the amount of crude stolen at 100,000 barrels a day, roughly $9 million a day at current prices.
“These boys are doing this because they don’t see any alternatives,” Amaechi said. “We have put more money into microcredit and helping small and medium enterprises as well as education. Then you have to also be tough so they see the consequences of their actions.”
He said he had little contact with the big Western oil companies operating in the Delta and said that while their behaviour had improved recently, they had been part of the problem.
“NO LONGER FREEDOM FIGHTERS”
“Definitely they were,” he said. “If you go to parts of the Delta it is completely destroyed. It is impossible to do fishing because there is no fish. They have not done enough to create work.”
But he said the local population had begun to turn against the militants and gangs.
“Initially, they were supportive because they thought of them as freedom fighters,” he said. “But now they have also turned their guns on local people and created more crime in the local area and people have turned against them.
As part of a programme of expanded spending, Rivers State was keen to issue an international bond next year to tap international capital markets. He expected a credit rating by the end of March.
But this would only happen if global credit conditions improved, being impossible at present with worldwide turmoil and panic gripping markets and Western governments forced to bail out their own banking sectors, he said.
“Obviously, things would have to get better.”