Resource-rich but mismanaged, the Niger Delta encapsulates Nigeria’s national political and economic problems. The occasional well-meaning initiative is quickly sunk by corrupt local barons. The crisis has been costing 500,000 barrels of oil per day – that is about $20bn a year at average oil prices in 2008.


On taking office in May 2007, President Umaru Yar’Adua said his government would give the Delta special attention. Vice-President Goodluck Jonathan, who hails from the oil-bearing Bayelsa State, initially persuaded the militant gangs in the region to call a ceasefire, and to suspend their attacks on oil installations and kidnappings of oil workers. Two of the region’s new governors, Timipre Sylva of Bayelsa and Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers, made extravagant promises about new jobs.


The initiatives turned out to make little difference as sporadic militant attacks resumed in 2008. Then, grand plans for a landmark conference were grounded when people objected to its chairman, Ibrahim Gambari – who had been Nigeria’s ambassador to the UN when Ogoni activist Ken Saro-Wiwa was hanged by General Sani Abacha’s junta in 1995. Delta citizens also harbour scepticism about the government’s commitment to the rule of law when they see no action taken against former governors James Ibori (Delta State) and Peter Odili (Rivers State), previously under investigation for corruption and money laundering, but who now claim immunity.


Promises of military assistance in the Niger Delta from French President Nicolas Sarkozy and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown in support of Yar’Adua’s campaign against stolen or ‘blood’ oil provoked the militants to call off any further pretence of a ceasefire. Within 18 months of Yar’Adua taking power, events in the Delta had come full circl. 

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