(Reuters) – A U.S. intelligence view that Nigeria can no longer ensure security in the oil-producing Niger Delta is an understatement, according to experts who say lawlessness in the delta is rooted in old, intractable problems.
A senior U.S. government analyst said on Wednesday oil production in Nigeria, the fifth largest supplier of crude to the United States, would “hang precariously in the balance” for the foreseeable future because of government’s lack of control.
A quarter of Nigeria’s 2.4 million barrels per day output is currently shut down because of militant attacks on oil infrastructure, and three foreign oil workers including two U.S. citizens are being held hostage in the delta’s creeks.
“That the government has no control over the riverine areas of the delta is obvious and that’s been the case for years,” said a Western diplomat who closely watches the area.
He said militants, armed and funded from the proceeds of oil theft, had filled a power vacuum in the maze of mangrove-lined creeks that make up the delta, a region almost the size of England with an estimated 20 million inhabitants.
“The army has been brought in to control the peace … but the army is part of the problem. They are involved in bunkering,” said the diplomat, using a local term for oil theft.
Bunkering is a major factor in delta violence as gangs, some backed by politicians, fight turf wars for control of the trade.
Many of the delta’s militant groups, including the one that has attacked the oil industry and taken foreign oil workers hostage in recent months, say they are fighting for the people of the delta to gain greater control of oil resources.
But in their nebulous world, genuine grievances and the fight for bunkering profits are all part of the package and it is all too easy for authorities to dismiss militants as thieves.
EVERYONE ON THE TAKE
Oil sector insiders estimate that Nigeria loses about 5 percent of its output to bunkering worth hundreds of millions of dollars every year. Rights activists accuse politicians, army commanders, militants and oil companies of being on the take.
This means there is almost no incentive for anyone to address the deeper problems of poverty and lack of development that make the delta fertile ground for militancy.
“The root of the delta’s problems is the complete failure of the Nigerian state to address even the most basic needs of the people,” said a development worker who has been based in the region for 40 years.
Nigeria is one of the world’s most corrupt countries and politicians have stolen billions of petrodollars while the people living on top of the oilfields have seen few benefits.
Vast areas of the delta are not connected to the national power grid. There is no clean water in many places. There are almost no roads. Teachers and doctors are in desperately short supply. The environment has been wrecked by oil spills and the 24-hour burning of gas associated with the extraction of oil.
Analysts said successive Nigerian governments, during almost three decades of military dictatorship as well as during periods of civilian rule, had seen it as their interest to keep the delta poor, divided and insecure, the better to control the oil.
These underlying problems are aggravated at the moment by political power struggles ahead of elections in 2007 and diplomats and analysts said the crisis in the delta was likely to get worse before it got better.
Supporters of President Olusegun Obasanjo are pushing for a constitutional change that would allow him to stay in power for four more years. This has infuriated many rival interest groups and is one of the drivers of a recent upsurge of violence.