More on why oil prices are high — Nigerian civil war

Most of Nigeria’s oil-rich Niger River delta is under the control of rebels.

Foreigners are kidnapped in broad daylight. Even in the regional capital, the national government appears powerless and inert.

Shell has cut back its operations by 50 percent; other major oil companies have also cut back. And, even U.S. intervention, with old Coast Guard cutters, has made little difference.

Here’s the background to the Mend rebellion:

Mend's campaign [is] built on a foundation of anger, bitterness and, above all, a burning sense of injustice at decades of exploitation by western oil interests and Nigeria's self-enriching politicians and military leaders.

In 1995, the Nigerian army dragged the writer and environmentalist Ken Saro-Wiwa to the gallows in the dank execution chamber of Port Harcourt prison, then threw his body into a pit of lime to deny him a proper grave. The military declared that the deaths of Saro-Wiwa and eight other Ogoni leaders had saved Nigeria from civil war and break up. Saro-Wiwa’s sometimes violent campaign for a fair deal for the marginalised Ogoni people had threatened the financial interests of the Shell oil company and Nigeria's military rulers. It also raised the old spectre of secession, a taboo since Biafra's failed bid for independence claimed more than a million lives in the late 1960s.

National lines are about as artificial in sub-Saharan Africa as they were in the creation of Iraq.

The problem, beyond recognizing a lack of loyalty to the central government, is recognizing that such governments in oil-rich nations have grafted money on a huge scale and not sent anything significant to provinces and cities in the oil areas.

So, in one sense, who can blame rebels for trying to deal with Big Oil companies directly, even if the use of force is the only way? The flip side is that, if Big Oil would accept this fact, the level of violence —at least against foreigners — would dramatically decline, in all likelihood.

Well, here’s part of why — such deals didn’t always bring stability:

Hostage taking and sabotage have been a by-product of oil in the delta for years. Often the abductions were carried out by young men demanding jobs. The oil companies paid them off and found themselves caught in a cycle of kidnappings and blackmail.

But, the Mend insurrection is better organized and has a more coherent strategy. It also has a more organized military operation than do small-scale rebels, giving it power to pull off more effective attacks on oil installations Here’s how that plays out, beyond weaponry:

The voice of Mend — and possibly its leader — is a mysterious being who goes by the name of Jomo Gbomo. He is contactable only by email, and acknowledges that Gbomo is not his real name. It is not even certain that Gbomo is one person, but the Mend fighters under General I Am acknowledge him as their leader.

“Our aim is to force the oil companies out of the Niger delta [or] otherwise compel the Nigerian government to cede its control over the resources of the Niger delta to its indigenes,” said Gbomo in reply to emailed questions from the Guardian. “We intend to achieve this solely through armed struggle and perhaps, at some stage, negotiations based upon the rights of the people of the Niger delta as agreed in the pre-independence constitution.”

Gbomo accuses the oil companies and successive Nigerian governments, civilian and military, of a cynical conspiracy against the people of the delta. “Successive governments have deliberately resisted developing the delta. For natural growth, certain basic infrastructures must be put in place as has been done in other parts of Nigeria. We have no roads, electricity or drinking water. The refusal of the central government to provide these basics contributed immensely to stunting the growth of the delta,” he wrote.

“The oil companies, on the other hand, have refused to act responsibly. Pipes are never replaced, leading to massive spillages for which they refuse to compensate villagers. Farmland and rivers are totally destroyed ... ”

The Mend have gotten some results, but want more:

At present, the government transfers 13 percent of the oil revenues back to the delta states that generate them. Until recently, it was just 3 percent. Mend wants 50 percent of the money to come back to the state government, to match what used to happen when cocoa was the main export.

And here’s what they want from oil companies:

Even if the government were to bow to its demand for half of the oil revenues to be returned to the delta states, that would not guarantee the money would be spent to develop the creeks. So the group wants the oil companies to lead the way by getting into the construction business.

If oil continues to grow more expensive, and even places like Saudi Arabia start putting out sour crude, Shell will discover it knows very well how to build roads, electric generation stations, and even individual houses and apartments.