Nigeria - oil conflicts
The Niger Delta seen from space
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Friday, 22, Feb 2008 08:51
Current crisis
The Nigerian government is currently fighting rebel forces from the oil-rich Niger Delta region that claim to have been marginalised by an unfair democratic process. In February 2006, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (Mend) declared an all-out war against the government and the multinational oil companies it insists are responsible for polluting the local environment and stealing valuable resources.
Oil and blood
Nigeria is the primary exporter of oil in Africa, largely as a result of the reserves in the delta region. The national government has been keen to ensure maximum revenues are generated from oil exports and continues to crack down on militia groups bent on disrupting production. But over the past two years the country's oil exportation capacity has been cut by around a quarter as a result of rebel activity and associated security problems.
Skirmishes between rebel and government forces have claimed hundreds of lives in recent years and have precipitated the general militarisation of almost the entire delta region. Different ethnic groups often resort to fighting as each aims to increase its share of political power and control over oil revenues. Law enforcement has been in large part arbitrary for decades, with police failing to prosecute or even investigate much of the criminal and violent activity that occurs across southern Nigeria.
Ethnic divisions
In all, the 140 million people of Nigeria identify themselves as being from any one of more than 250 distinct ethnic groups. Since gaining independence from Britain in 1960, the country's ethnic divisions have regularly been played upon by politicians and have served to polarise people and fracture an already divided nation.
Mend is the most prominent of the rebel groups operating the delta region and its hostage-tacking and pipeline sabotage activities make regular headlines around the world. Its stated aim is to take full control of Nigeria's oil wealth. Its efforts to this end have made it significantly more difficult for crude oil to be exported from the delta and for any pipeline faults to be fixed.
Political legacy
Nigeria's post-independence history has largely been characterised by political corruption, lawlessness and the spectre of violence. Dictators were in power for close to 30 of the country's first 40 years as an independent nation. Generals Babangida and Abaca ruled Nigeria between 1985 and 1998 and each was accused of embezzling billions of dollars and of being responsible for serious and widespread abuses of human rights.
General elections in 1999, 2003 and 2007 have been heavily disputed by both internal forces and external observers. Violence, intimidation and vote-rigging have been part-and-parcel of Nigerian politics over the past decade and rival leaders continue to rely heavily on force to maintain or advance their respective positions. The most recent elections were accompanied by considerable bloodshed and were considered by many to have been the worst in the country's history.
Rebel claims
Rebel groups within the volatile Niger Delta region insist they have been unjustly marginalised by the country's dysfunctional and corrupt political system. They claim to represent different ethnic groups that want to see their people receive more of a share in the profits of oil exportation. Despite the billions of dollars Nigeria's oil wealth has brought into the country, around half of its people live on less than one dollar per day and many rely on natural resources for their subsistence. Environmental degradation blamed on the activities of the oil companies operating in the delta is cited as one of the main reasons for opposition to the government and their corporate partners.
International response
Western governments, including the UK and the US, urged the Nigerian government to commit to making the most recent elections tolerably fair and transparent. However, when the current president Umara Yar'Adua was brought to power in polls that were widely discredited by international monitoring groups, no meaningful action was taken. Human Rights Watch described the western response as being "muted and devoid of real consequence". The same organisation has accused the multinational oil companies operating in the country of being "complicit" in the violence used by the Nigerian government to maintain their supplies.
Future for the country
Nigeria is among the most important suppliers of oil to the largely fossil-fuel dependent economies of the Western world and with crude prices continuing to scale new highs, powerful interests will want to see Africa's most productive pipelines stay open. But with rebel groups continuing to take the fight to their own government and to foreign exporters, there are few signs that the simmering conflict will be cooled in the near future.
Since last April's election victory, Mr Yar'Adua has indicated his intention to make strengthening the rule of law in Nigeria a key goal of his time in office. He is faced with the considerable task of enacting reforms capable of rooting out widespread political corruption, reducing violence and making the next national elections in 2011 more representative of the will of the Nigerian people.
Dan Mather