According to a July 7 posting on BBC Africa, an international cartel of oil smugglers steals billions of dollars in “blood oil” from Nigeria, trading it for guns, according to the president of the country. Speaking at the G8 summit in Japan, President Umaru Yar’Adua drew comparisons between oil “bunkering” and the trade in “blood diamonds”.
He said an international effort must be made to stop the trade, which fuelled unrest in the Niger Delta. The conflict means Nigeria is no longer Africa’s largest oil exporter. Militant attacks in the Delta have reduced production by around a quarter, allowing Angola to overtake Nigeria. But no-one really knows exactly how much oil is pumped out of the ground, according to a Senate inquiry set up in March.
The smuggling cartel includes officials at the Nigerian state oil company, government, the military and international oil companies, according to Delta activists. Trying to stop the trade must be an international effort, the president says, because the people driving the market are companies looking for cheap crude to feed international markets.
But activists in the Delta say there is no way oil smuggling could be done without the compliance of corrupt elements of the Nigerian state. “I have never seen this bunkering business as an illegal thing,” says Anyakwee Nsirimovu, a Port Harcourt-based human rights lawyer. In order for tankers to dock and receive oil from boats coming from the creeks, there must be a high level of involvement from government and the military, he says. “They are making billions of dollars and they don’t want this thing to end.”
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