This is a guest post by Dr. Deirdre LaPin, co-author of Securing Development and Peace in the Niger Delta (Woodrow Wilson Center, 2011) and a longstanding resident and development expert on Nigeria. Read more »

President Goodluck Jonathan has refused to say whether he will run for the presidency in 2015, although many Nigerians expect he will. The current efforts among the opposition parties to come together behind a single presidential candidate is based on the assumption that Jonathan will run. Read more »

With Mali’s implosion, Islamic extremism in the Sahel, and the “Boko Haram” insurgency in Nigeria’s north drawing international attention, the Niger Delta has dropped off the radar of many West Africa watchers. Yet, only five years ago an insurrection there resulted in a major reduction in Nigeria’s oil production and impacted on state revenue. In 2009, then-president Umaru Yar’Adua introduced an “amnesty” that has been continued by President Goodluck Jonathan and ended (or at least reined-in) that cycle of violence. The United States Institute for Peace has just published an assessment of the amnesty by Aaron Sayne. The report is based on a wide range of interviews, but he cautions that it not a rigorous assessment of the amnesty’s success because the necessary data is absent. Nevertheless, the tone of his report is positive. Read more »

A South African judge has sentenced Henry Okah, a Nigerian citizen, to twenty-four years in jail for twin car bombings in 2010. The bombings took place in Nigeria’s capital of Abuja on the fiftieth anniversary of the country’s independence. According to the Nigerian press, at least twelve people were killed and thirty-eight were wounded in the attack. Read more »

This is a guest post by Jim Sanders, a career, now retired, West Africa watcher for various federal agencies. The views expressed below are his personal views and do not reflect those of his former employers.

Times are changing and Nigeria’s ministers of finance and petroleum are worried. An energy boom in the U.S., competition from rival African oil producers, and Asian refiners’ increasing ability to handle “sour” crude, are conspiring to reduce demand for Nigeria’s traditionally desirable light sweet crude. Read more »

Kidnapping is not a part of the repertoire of the radical, diffuse Islamist group called Boko Haram. Some of its alleged spokesmen have denounced the practice. However, kidnapping is common in the Sahel and ransoms are an important source of revenue for the rival criminal networks also involved with smuggling, some of which have links to al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). AQIM has regularly claimed responsibility for the kidnapping of foreigners. Kidnapping is also a well-established tactic of the criminal groups in the western part of the oil-rich Niger Delta. As in the Sahel, Delta kidnappings are mercenary, with little political content. Most of the Delta kidnappings are of Nigerians, not foreigners–though it tends to be the periodic high-profile foreign kidnappings that make international headlines. In the Sahel, the huge ransoms paid by governments or corporations ensure that most of the victims are foreigners. Read more »

Environmental degradation associated with the petroleum industry in the Niger Delta impacts directly on the livelihoods of indigenous farmers and fishermen. Environmental issues were an important basis for popular support, or at least acquiescence, for the low level insurgency carried out against the federal and state governments by the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) between 2004 and 2007, with sporadic activities continuing into the present. Read more »

The Nigeria media is supplying new details on the December 10 kidnapping of the mother of Nigeria’s Coordinating Minister for the Economy and Minister of Finance, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala. The media reports that the Minister’s family paid a ransom of between N10 to N11 million (U.S. $64 to $70 thousand), and that the kidnappers were an organized gang that numbered ten. Read more »

Kamene Okonjo was released early on Friday, December 14. Eighty-two years of age, she is the mother of Nigerian Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala.

Few details are available concerning the exact chain of events.  Following her December 9 kidnapping, her captors demanded a substantial ransom. The Nigerian authorities do not discuss whether or not ransoms are paid in kidnapping cases.  However, Delta Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan said there had been no negotiations, no ransom was paid, and that he thought the kidnappers released her because they were being pressured by the security services who conducted the pervasive search for Mrs. Okonjo. The Nigerian press quotes the army as saying it arrested sixty-three people in conjunction with the kidnapping. Read more »

The elderly mother of Nigerian Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala is still in the hands of those who kidnapped her on December 9, 2012. According to the Nigerian media, the kidnappers are demanding a ransom of N200 million (U.S. $1.27 million.) This was reduced from their original demand of N1 billion (U.S. $ 6.34 million) when the family made it clear that it could not pay. The episode still looks criminal rather than political, despite the kidnappers’ rhetoric about Delta grievances and initial demands that negotiations be with the Minister herself rather than with her brother. Two police and two domestic staff have been arrested. While the authorities are tight-lipped, presumably they will be charged with dereliction of duty during the kidnapping. The state commissioner of police says that his command has “deployed personnel to the nooks and crannies of the state in search for the kidnappers.” Read more »