by Hassan Ansah

Created on: July 03, 2008

Nigerian Delta Crises fumed by Global influences.

Tensions still seem to be running high in the southern Niger Delta region a year after Nigeria held its third national elections since the end of the military rule in 1999. A number of rebel groups have begun allying themselves to local politicians with national political aspirations. Many claim that these groups and others continue to manipulate legitimate grievances, such as poverty, environmental destruction and government corruption, in order to justify the increasingly destructive attacks against oil industry and government targets. With the growing global energy crises effecting everything from airline tickets to food cost, this problem surely needs deeper restructuring from economic powers such as the United States and Great Britain.

Would removing the incentives for violence require granting a greater degree of resource control to the local villages? It seems as if engaging the rebel groups in sustained, transparent dialogue remains a critical factor in finding a workable and balanced solution to the militant issue.

Demands from rebels have included the creation of additional states for Ijaws,(the dominant Tribe in the Delta region), amenities and jobs for rural communities, contracts and oil concessions for local political leaders, and even calls for secession. One spokesman for the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta ( MEND), one of the largest and best organized of the rebel organizations, states that his organizations goal is to attain resource regulation concessions or simply wreak chaos in the region.

Attacks since January of 2006 have at times forced oil production shutdowns of up to 700,000 barrels per day, threatening the Nigerian Government plans to nearly double oil production to four million barrels a day by 2012. Only a small fraction of those production losses have actually been offset by these recent offshore developments. Only two companies with actual foreign shareholders signaled in August 2007 that they would be withdrawing from the Niger Delta due to the increasing security concerns. This would have a tremendous effect on an already fragile global energy crises.

It seems that the most effectual strategy in the rebel's arsenal is the growing discontent among the areas' twenty million inhabitants. After more than seven years of civilian rule, officials at the local, state, and federal levels are perceived to have failed to give forth tangible economic and social reforms for

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