![Sample our Social Sciences journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/110822/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Social-Sciences.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
The article focuses on spatializing struggles in relation to Niger's new oil infrastructure and shows how it turned public and political. Two different but interconnected perspectives are employed: first, a historical perspective illuminates how economic theories of growth, visions of industrialization, desires for energy autonomy, political projects for constitutional change and infrastructural developments in neighbouring countries were, from the very beginning, entangled in Niger's oil assemblage. These entanglements made the petro-infrastructure political even before it had materialized. Second, by focusing ethnographically on the spatial dispersion of the petro-infrastructure over different administrative regions in Niger, the article examines territorializing processes in which temporally and spatially separated histories of marginalization were stitched together to reconfigure collective identities. These dynamics go beyond existing explanations of resource curse theories, showing how oil acts as a catalyst that accelerates pre-existing dynamics, slowly transforming the socio-political configuration in which it operates in the process.
Acknowledgements
An earlier version of this article was presented at the conference of the German Anthropological Association (GAA/DGV) in Marburg in October 2015. I would like to thank the participants of panel 18 ‘Der Ressourcenboom und seine Folgen: Rekonfigurierungen von Landschaften, Territorien und symbolischen Bezugsystemen’ for the fruitful discussion. I would also like to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on my article. Finally, I am especially grateful to my inspiring research assistant, Ali Adam Maman Sani, for invaluable help over the years as well as to all those interviewed for this research. All errors are, of course, my own.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1 When I presented myself to the governor of Diffa in May 2011 with a mission order from a private research institute and not an official research permit as I was required to do, I was expelled from the region (for more on the expulsion, see Schritt (Citation2015a)). Although I was allowed to return once I had acquired an official research permit, I decided not to due to rising security concerns, first with the spread of Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQMI) into the Sahel-Saharan region, and later with the spread of Boko Haram to Diffa. Due to my early expulsion, I had to rely on the few interviews that I had conducted in Diffa, interviews with Diffa ressortissants in Niamey, newspaper articles, policy documents, a review of the literature and research done in the region by two colleagues from the Laboratoire d'Etudes et de Recherche sur les Dynamiques Sociales et le Développement Local (LASDEL) in Niamey, Hadiza Moussa and Mahamidou Aboubacar Attahirou (see subchapter on Diffa).
2 The petro-chemical quality of oil in Niger is classified as ‘light’ and ‘sweet’, indicating a low viscosity and low sulphur content. Light crude oil receives a higher price than heavy crude oil on commodity markets because it produces a higher percentage of gasoline and diesel fuel when converted into products by an oil refinery. The Nigerien oil lies between the two sweet light crude oils ‘Brent’ and ‘Western Texas Intermediate (WTI)’ that are used as benchmarks in international oil pricing.
3 Nevertheless, the fact that about 80% of the national fuel consumption is concentrated within and around the capital Niamey in the West of the country was not considered in the study. Thus, the costs of transportation, infrastructural development and maintenance were not considered.
4 The CNPC corrected these estimations soon afterwards up to 744 million barrels of oil and 565 billion cubic feet of gas. The latest estimations are as high as two billion barrels of oil. Nevertheless, the latest estimations of the Nigerien oil reserves are still low compared to the oil reserves of major African oil-producing countries (Algeria, Libya, Nigeria and Angola).
5 CNPC and the Nigerien government under Tandja agreed on to divide the profits, with 40% going to Niger and 60% to CNPC. The profits of CNPC are taxed at 12.5% (ad valorem royalty). The contract defines the operation of the refinery through a joint venture company, the Société de Raffinage de Zinder (SORAZ), in which CNPC holds a 60% share and the Nigerien government 40%.
6 Fuel prices in West Africa in September 2012 in FCFA: Benin 640, Burkina Faso 727, Ivory Coast 774, Mali 750, Senegal 847, Togo 597 and Niger 579.
7 The fuel price fix was indeed a reduction as the litre was about 670 FCFA at the petrol stations. Outside the capital Niamey, however, the lion’s share of consumed fuel is smuggled from Nigeria and sold in the streets by small vendors. At that time, it sold for around 350 FCFA/litre (0.53 Euro), and sells today (in January 2018) for around 500 FCFA/litre (0.76 Euro).
8 Loi 64-023 du 17 juillet 1964.
9 Niger is composed of several ethnic groups. According to the 1988 census, the population was 21.2% Zarma-Songhai (dominating western Niger), 53% Hausa (dominating southern Niger), 10.4% Tuareg (dominating northern Niger), 9.9% Fulani (which are spread throughout the country), 4.4% Kanuri (dominating south-eastern Niger), 0.4% Tubu (dominating the area along the Niger-Chad border), 0.3% Arab (mostly in northern and eastern Niger), 0.3% Gourmantché (living in western Niger) and 0.2% other groups (INS-Niger 2011).
10 Ordonnance 2010-54, du 17 septembre 2010, portant code des collectivités territoriales.
11 Décret n°2007-184/PRN/MI/ du 25 mai 2007 regulates the redistribution of the resource revenues according to the following criteria: demographic weight (30%), environmental impact (20%), mobilization effort of local resources (15%), level of equipment (15%), acreage (10%), and volume in terms of investment interventions by partners reported at the community budget (10%). The first retrocession of about 2.9 billion FCFA (4.4 million Euro) was made in 2014 and redistributed to 12 municipalities (communes) in Diffa region.
12 All statements have been translated from French to English by the author.
13 SWT is an abbreviation of Subhanahu Wa Ta’ala. A glorification of Allah which roughly translates into ‘the most glorified, the most high’.
14 It is reported that the religious authorities and the parent teacher association received each one million CFA francs (2132 $US). The USN received 300,000 CFA francs (640 $US). The distribution of envelopes of money became public due to an internal conflict within the student union USN about how to distribute the money.
15 On 8 May 2015, the council of ministers approved a change to the oil laws to compensate the Zinder region with 15% of the fiscal revenues from the oil refinery.
16 The eight-page pamphlet in French was leaked to the media, with an abridged version published on 6 June 2011 in the private newspaper Le Temps under the initials M.I.
17 Manga normally denotes a southern area of Diffa which borders Nigeria and is dominated by Kanuri. However, the authors of the pamphlet, themselves all of Tubu origin, seem to also relate Manga to the oil extracting region around N’gourti.
18 The blog has now ceased to exist (http://m-n-j.blogspot.de/2008/04/communiqu-des-forces-armes.html).
19 Some rumours even had it that the 15% would be split according to the population size, which would have further benefited the Zinder region.
20 Each taxi is marked with a number on the back to make it easy to identify.