Cash-driven piracy and militant attacks against oil installations are likely to increase this year in Nigeria’s oil delta after the April elections, private maritime risk analysts warned Monday.
Although fewer cases of piracy were recorded in 2010 in Nigerian waters than the previous year, the statistics masked a “more disturbing trend” of offshore kidnappings-for-ransom, said RiskIntelligence, a Denmark-based maritime security consultancy group.
“In terms of maritime security, insurgency-related attacks and financially motivated piracy in and around the Niger Delta will escalate in 2011,” it said.
Although piracy cases dropped to 58 last year from 91 in 2009 and 114 the previous year, 18 out of the 58 attacks in 2010 were for ransom as opposed to eight in 2009 and as well as the year before.
More than 50 people — including foreign and local oil workers, children and journalists — were abducted in four months in the Niger Delta towards the end of last year.
A much-vaunted amnesty, which saw some 20,000 fighters lay down arms in 2009, had seen a drop in insurgency.
Analysts however said it failed to meet the expectations of restive youths roaming the swamplands of one of the world’s top oil producers.
Politicians in the oil-rich region are traditionally known to rope in armed gangs as proxies in political disputes.
RiskIntelligence said some “ex-militants” will likely be involved in electoral violence.
Nigeria goes to the polls in April to pick a national president, state governors and state lawmakers. Previous Nigerian ballots have been marred by violence and fraud.
“Electoral work is likely to be a temporary lucrative distraction for ‘ex-militants’ and insurgents in the lead up to the elections,” said the report.
“Criminal and insurgent activities are likely to rise sharply following the elections as armed groups search for new revenue streams,” it added.
President Goodluck Jonathan, announcing he was to name a terrorism advisor after a week of bomb blasts that claimed dozens of lives, on Monday directed the prompt arrest and prosecution of “political thugs” ahead of the polls.
The Niger Delta, heart of one of the world’s largest oil industries, has been hit by violence and kidnappings in recent years by criminal gangs and militants claiming to be fighting for a fairer distribution of oil revenue.
The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), initially believed to have been led by Henry Okah who is being held in a jail in South Africa following October 1 bombings in Nigeria’s capital Abuja, has been the most prominent and better organised of the rebel groups.
Insurgency by ex-militants unhappy with the amnesty programme will rebound, but will “unlikely be as organised as that of MEND …but may prove no less disruptive and, worse, more difficult to predict than the ‘old’ insurgency,” forecasts RiskIntelligence.