One of the better businesses in and around Nigeria’s delta
region is running one of the scores of oil lighters that ferry the
country’s oil to tankers offshore. The only trouble is that the
lighters all carry stolen oil and the tankers operate through the
cover of multiple owners and changing flags of convenience.
The oil companies do not publicize this trafficking because the
Nigerian government would object, but about one fourth of Nigeria’s
oil is exported in this manner. According to Dele Cole, former
adviser to the ex-president, Olusegun Obasanjo, and now one of
Nigeria’s leading businessman/politicians, the illegal oil export
figure on any given day can reach beyond 500,000 barrels.
The tankers lie offshore avoiding the regular shipping lanes and
awaiting the arrival of the lighters carrying the purloined oil.
Payment is made “on the barrel head” either in cash or in kind. A
substantial gun running trade is often tied in. The oil then heads
toward refineries around the world, often changing paper ownership
several times before landing. The crude is refined and then sold
through brokers worldwide.
A NOT DISSIMILAR system of “private unrecorded” crude sales also
emanates from Iran through an even more sophisticated network run
by elements of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC). The
principal difference is that the Iranian operation is carefully
monitored by the IRGC’s covert trade and finance section. The money
is used to fund Iran’s foreign “special operations.”
In other words, a considerable amount of crude oil is regularly
traded through what can best be described as a global black market.
Nigeria may not be the only source, but it certainly has become the
largest dependable illicit source of supply. Both the producing oil
companies and the Nigerian government take the loss of what has
been calculated to reach over $10 billion a year — before the
spike in this year’s oil prices. And this does not include the
income lost from simple sabotage.
The problem in the oil producing states of the Niger Delta began
with local complaints over the inadequate distribution of wealth
gained from the crude obtained from their region. Various criminal
gangs pretending to an interest in local sovereignty evolved
through the 1990s. But the well-organized massive theft of oil in
recent years has been attributed to collusion among federal and
state officials, ranking military officers, and several of the
politically militant groups working with organized crime gangs.
According to local press sources, the Nigerian Navy also has
cooperated in aiding the oil ferrying system operating from Delta
ports. The large sea-going tankers stationed offshore apparently
are periodically tithed by naval commanders of that sector.
The security situation on the Niger Delta cannot be separated
from the legitimate desires of the populace for benefits suitable
to the important place this rich three-state region plays in the
Nigerian economy. In particular, local politicians point to the
continued lack of basic services in an area that has transformed
the entire economic and political status of the nation. This
atmosphere of exploitation has created a fertile environment for
every kind of pseudo-patriotic criminal gang posing as “freedom
fighters.”
Federal authorities have been as incapable this year of halting
the wave of kidnapping for profit as they have been in controlling
the illegal trade in crude oil. State governments have been
inconsistent at best in their policing efforts, which in one
instance included paying the largest criminal gang in their region
to attack and intimidate the smaller gangs.
SEVERAL HIGHER TECH SOLUTIONS have included chemically marking
crude as it is extracted in order to trace ownership. At the very
least such a system, it is said, would force substantial
discounting of the price for which it is sold. Obviously there
isn’t too much faith in the ability of the government officials
involved to hold the oil traffickers to account.
Finally, there is a growing cry for the hiring of private
security firms to take over policing of oil transport and shipment.
It’s a nice way of saying that Nigeria, as other mineral-rich
African countries have done, is preparing to bring in mercenaries
to provide security where their own forces can not.
This is one of those seemingly convenient devices that have as
much, or more, downside risk as it does upside potential. In any
case, bringing in any form of “foreign legion” to solve their
economic security problems is a prescription for setting the
detonator on a political wedge of C-4.
Until the Nigerian federal and state governments are themselves
capable of policing the Niger Delta, petroleum operations there
will continue to be an African version of the Wild West.
