The political economy of oil and ‘rebellion’ in Nigeria's Niger Delta

Abstract

The escalation in armed attacks on Nigeria's oil industry and the massive expansion in oil theft generated a veritable industry in the study of the political economy of war dominated by public-choice strands. Critical scholarship on the Niger Delta challenges this work for its neglect of history in explaining the shift from peaceful protest in the 1990s to armed struggle. Yet taking history seriously need not blind us to the ‘critical breaks’. Nigeria's transition to civilian rule in 1999 brought state and non-state actors into a complicit union as rebellion and oil bunkering consolidated a pre-existing parallel economy.

[L'économie politique du pétrole et la « rébellion » dans le Delta du Niger, fief du Nigéria]. L'escalade dans les attaques armées sur l'industrie pétrolière du Nigéria et l'expansion massive dans le vol de pétrole ont généré une véritable industrie dans l'étude de l'économie politique de la guerre, dominée par quelques choix publics. L'étude critique sur le Delta du Niger conteste ce travail pour sa négligence de l'histoire pour expliquer ce passage de la manifestation pacifique dans les années 1990 à la lutte armée. Pourtant prendre l'histoire au sérieux ne doit pas nous aveugler sur « les ruptures critiques ». La transition du Nigéria vers un régime civil en 1999, a amené les acteurs de l'Etat et ceux qui ne relèvent pas de l'État à se fondre dans une union de complicité dès lors que la rébellion et le vol de pétrole avaient consolidé une économie parallèle préexistante.

Mots-clés : le pétrole ; la sécurité ; le Delta du Niger ; l'économie politique ; le militantisme ; l'identité

Keywords:

• oil
• security
• Niger Delta
• political economy
• militancy
• identity

Notes

I am grateful to then doctoral student, now Dr Thomas Horn Hansen (King's College) and journalists for initially suggesting this line of enquiry to me during discussions of the UK Niger Delta Working Group, King's College on 14 June 2010, although the responsibility for the content of this article is entirely my own. The article draws on fieldwork interviews and observations collected in 2001, 2002, 2005 and 2011 and a wealth of secondary literature written between 2004 and 2011 in particular.

See David Keen's (2005) similar notion of a ‘strangely cooperative conflict’ with respect to Sierra Leone. Yet rather than focusing on the emergence of an equivalent ‘sobels’ factor, which Keen attributes to a kind of moral and material hollowing out of the state itself, I insist on the ways in which a morally much critiqued yet materially robust state created avenues for the integration of rebellion, as epitomised by the Ijaw militant circles that have come particularly since 2010 to establish themselves around the person of Nigeria's first Ijaw president, Goodluck Jonathan (Africa Confidential 2011).

Interviews collected during fieldwork in January 2011 in Port Harcourt and Yenagoa

The Economist, 28 April 2007, p. 56, Watts 2007, p. 641.

Although today interpreted by Ijaw nationalists as the beginnings of their struggle, the reasons for the Boro adventure were complex (Nwajiaku 2006).

See Kaiama Declaration Resolutions of 11 December 1998, All Ijaw Youths Conference, held in the Niger Delta, Nigeria. ‘Obnoxious legislations’ referred to are the Petroleum Act of 1969 and Land Use Act of 1978.

The INC had unsuccessfully tried to call off the meeting.

See Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), signed between the IYC and Pivot Engineering Ltd, indicating that the IYC were the ‘representatives’ of the community to the company, and that all contract awards were to pass through the IYC.

Concannon and Newsom, ‘Gangs of Port Harcourt’, Stakeholder Democracy Network Confidential Briefing, November 2004, p.1.

Human Rights Watch claims that Dokubo declared war for fear of exclusion from oil bunkering deals being negotiated with is rival Ateke Tom, (Human Rights Watch 2005, p. 20).

Some estimates point to losses of US$100 billion to the Nigerian treasury between 2003 and 2008 as a result of conflicts (Asuni 2009a, p. 1).

John Togo of the Niger Delta Liberation Front is one such example. Sahara Reporters interview, 29 December 2010, http://www.saharareporters.com/news-page/audio-general-john-togo-new-face-niger-delta-insurgency-speaks-saharareporters.

Report of Technical Committee on the Niger Delta, vol. 1, November 2008, p. 9.

Petition of Ijaw Peoples Association of the UK, Niger Delta: the need for immediate and urgent international intervention, 6 March 2006.

Bergen Risks, widely used by the oil industry and researchers focuses on non lethal but security risks for the oil sector whilst the Small arms survey mixes accidents with battle deaths.

This is as much admitted by external military experts, who returned from other conflict zones like Afghanistan where beheading is frequent, to the relative calm of an insurgent Niger Delta even prior to the ceasefire of 2009. Based on discussions between researchers and journalists at Researching Nigeria Workshop, King's College London, 14 June 2010.

Interview with ex-militant intermediaries, June 2011.

Today Tompolo is said to be a powerful (albeit shadow unofficial) member of Jonathan's ‘inner circle’ (Africa Confidential, 24 June 2011, p. 2) going over the head of key ministers to influence contract awards.

Dow Jones journalist, ‘Researching Nigeria’ workshop, King's College London, 14 June 2010.

See Stakeholder Democracy Network bulletins 2009 onwards; also S. Davies 2009