Attackers armed with AK-47 rifles and dynamite blew up a police building on Bonny Island, an oil and gas export hub in Nigeria’s southern Niger Delta, security experts working for private companies said on Saturday
The reports did not suggest that any oil and gas facilities had been damaged. Royal Dutch Shell has an oil export terminal at Bonny and the Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas company has its installations there.
Police spokesmen could not immediately be reached for comment.
The security experts working for an oil major and a construction company said the raid took place in the middle of the night near the main jetty on Bonny and several vehicles were torched. The attackers fled in speedboats before dawn.
“Armed men attacked and razed down the marine police building at the Bonny main jetty. Several vehicles were also torched,” one of the security experts said.
He said the attackers were thought to be members of a local group that had recently written to state and federal authorities complaining that oil company funds meant for development of the region had been diverted by politicians.
The authorities had tried to negotiate with community chiefs to avert a crisis, but the attempt had failed and local youths had threatened attacks.
Such conflicts are frequent in the Niger Delta, home to Africa’s biggest oil industry which produces 2.1 million barrels per day.
Under corporate social responsibility programs, oil firms provide funding for what they say are development programs, but human rights activists say the money often gets used to pay off extortion racketeers, or is pocketed by politicians.
Competition for oil money has fuelled many local wars between communities in the delta and numerous revenge attacks on police and troops, seen as agents of a hostile state.
In some cases attacks are carried out by politically motivated rebels pressing for greater control of oil revenues by impoverished local communities.
But more often, raids are the work of criminal gangs involved in extortion rackets, turf wars with rival gangs or revenge attacks sponsored by politicians.