Five people were shot dead in a botched robbery attempt in the Nigerian oil city of Port Harcourt on Friday, security sources said, as Africa’s top oil producing region slipped further toward anarchy.
Police killed two of the attackers and successfully foiled the robbery attempt, but the thieves killed a civilian and two naval personnel as they were escaping by speedboat through a creek in the city in the south of Nigeria.
“A gang of armed robbers came from the creeks to attack First Atlantic bank, but the attack was foiled by my men. We killed two of the robbers, but they went away with the bodies,” said Felix Ogbaudu, commissioner of police in Rivers State.
The attack occurred in the Rumuokuta area of the city, located in the heart of the oil-producing Niger Delta, which has witnessed a dramatic upsurge in violence since last year. A French oil contractor with Total was kidnapped in Port Harcourt on Thursday, bringing to 31 the number of foreigners being held by armed groups in the maze of mangrove-lined creeks of the delta.
Many of the kidnappings have been motivated by ransom, although militants seeking regional control over Nigeria’s oil wealth have also taken hostages and attacked oil facilities, reducing output by a fifth since last February.
Militants want to halt oil production from the world’s eighth largest exporter to put pressure on the central government and get a better deal for Nigeria’s far south where, like in the rest of Nigeria, most people live in poverty.
Many residents of the delta, deprived of basic services such as schools, roads, power and healthcare, feel cheated out of the oil wealth being pumped from their land.
But the line between militancy and crime is blurred, and the picture is further complicated by endemic corruption in government and the security services.