Nigeria deploys more troops to restive oil region

The Nigerian government has begun deploying additional troops to the oil-rich Niger Delta region to protect oil installations from attacks by ethnic groups and armed youths. The reports said the deployment of soldiers from the navy and the army followed a recent meeting between stakeholders in the country’s oil sector and President Olusegun Obasanjo on the need to beef up security in the area.
The measure is also aimed at restoring the confidence of oil companies, who abandoned some of the facilities in the wake of recent crisis in the area. Nigeria depends on crude oil export for more than 90 % of its foreign exchange earnings, but incessant ethnic crisis and the activities of armed youths protesting the level of poverty ravaging in the oil-producing area have hampered oil production in recent times.

In March, three multi-national oil-producing companies operating in the area -- Shell, ChevronTexaco and TotalFinaElf -- suspended their operations due to fighting between two major ethnic groups in Warri, heartland of the Niger Delta region. While the crisis lasted, Nigeria lost as much as 800,000 bpd, out of its OPEC production quota of a little more than 2 mm bpd.
Though the crisis was triggered by disagreement between the Ijaw and Itsekiri over political representation, it quickly assumed the old pattern of violence in the area, with armed Ijaw youths attacking oil installations and threatening oil workers over alleged neglect of oil-producing communities by the government and oil companies.

In addition to deploying soldiers to quell the March fighting, the government also engaged the combatants in dialogue. Delta governor James Ibori recently embarked on a tour of riverine areas in the state as part of the efforts to check incessant vandalisation of oil installations. Meanwhile, senior oil workers in the country’s oil industry have wages or face industrial strike.
The ultimatum was issued in the mid-western city of Benin at the weekend, following the third biennial workshop of the umbrella Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (Pengassan).

In reference to the implementation of the collective agreement between the association and the oil companies, the union said: "While others (companies) are yet to commence negotiation, others have unnecessarily dragged the negotiations.”
"The participants therefore call on such organisations to immediately commence action within the next 30 days, failing which they must be prepared to face the wrath of Pengassan," it said.