Nigeria: September 18, 2004

Archives

Fighting between competing gangs, and the police, in the coastal oil region has left over 500 dead in the past month. The fighting is getting worse, as the gangs take a lot of the money they earn (over a million dollars a day) and buy weapons, vehicles and speedboats. The mobile and armed gangs then fight each other for control of territory, and the oil pipelines that run through it. Punching holes in pipelines, the thieves steal over 4 million gallons of crude oil each day, and waste even more (which also pollutes the area around each leak).

The army, navy and police have become more aggressive attacking the bases of these tribe based gangs. These raids often results in a lot of dead bodies, as the government forces tend to go in with guns blazing, knowing that the gangs are heavily armed and will quickly return fire. But the gangs also have more fast cars and speedboats, and the key people often escape. 

 

X

ad

Help Keep Us From Drying Up

We need your help! Our subscription base has slowly been dwindling.

Each month we count on your contribute. You can support us in the following ways:

  1. Make sure you spread the word about us. Two ways to do that are to like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.
  2. Subscribe to our daily newsletter. We’ll send the news to your email box, and you don’t have to come to the site unless you want to read columns or see photos.
  3. You can contribute to the health of StrategyPage.
Subscribe   contribute   Close