Oil Extraction, Dispossession, Resistance and Conflict in Nigeria’s Oil-Rich Niger Delta

Hardly a day passes without news about violent acts from the Niger Delta appearing on the headlines of local and international newspapers, or news broadcast media. Such reports vividly document incidents of violence—clashes between rival armed groups, and between militias and government troops, killings, sabotage of oil pipelines and installations, and a thriving transnational trade in stolen oil (or illegal oil bunkering), and small arms. Also of note are the kidnapping and ransoming of foreign and local oil workers and some prominent individuals, and well-publicized threats issued by militia groups against oil companies and the State. By 2008, such attacks against oil installations had forced the shutting in of estimated 25 to 40 percent of Nigerian’s oil production and exports leading to the substantial loss of revenues and profits to the State-Oil Transnational’s alliance. Thus, from a daily oil production of 2.5 million barrels of oil in 2005, by late 2008 the figure had dropped to about 1.9 to 2.1 million barrels as a result in the disruption to production and supply.