The ethnic turmoil that has erupted in this riverfront town over control of oil is an ominous sign that Africa's most populous nation is moving into a crisis that could threaten access to the world's sixth largest supply of crude.
Frustrated by years of corruption and neglect by the government, members of the Ijaw ethnic group have taken hostages and seized dozens of oil platforms owned by companies such as Chevron and Texaco, threatening the country's $7 billion a year industry. But a rival group, the Itsekiri, is challenging the Ijaw's bid to control the rich oil resources of the Niger Delta and the government has imposed a dusk-to-dawn curfew to try to stem the fighting that has left at least seven people dead.The unrest in this Western region comes in the wake of the fire in which at least 700 people were burned to death in the nearby village of Jesse as people tried to tap a few gallons of hard-to-find gasoline from a government fuel line.
"Our oil feeds this country, this corrupt government, the United States and Europe," says Daniel Ekepebide, president of the Federated Niger Delta Ijaw Communities, the group that seized the oil platforms. "And yet we don't have electricity. There's no fuel at the stations. We don't move until something changes."
Analysts have long concluded that Nigeria - pumping some 2 million barrels of oil per day - should be an affluent country. The American Petroleum Institute estimates 8 percent of U.S. oil exports come from Nigeria. But for decades, Nigeria's rulers have enriched themselves from the country's vast oil and natural gas resources, while many poor Nigerians are forced to scavenge or steal oil, as the Jesse blast demonstrated.
In Warri, Ijaw activists are preventing production at dozens of western-owned oil platforms that they seized in the past two weeks, shutting down one-third of Nigeria's crude oil output. Brief seizures of oil platforms are common in Nigeria's riverine communities but the conflict appears to be escalating into Nigeria's worst oil crisis since writer Ken Saro-Wiwa led his Ogoni people, in eastern Nigeria, to protest government oil policy in the early 1990s.
In this latest unrest, youths of the Ijaw and Itsekiri ethnic groups in the Niger Delta are fighting for control of the region's oil and of its local government. The 27,000-square-mile delta is home to more than 7 million people, but the Ijaw, Itsekiri and a sub-group of the Yoruba, the nation's largest ethnic group, vie for dominance.
The region is composed of muddy swamps and tropical forests that are laced by thousands of serpentine creeks and bayous as muddy as the Mississippi. Almost forgotten villages of thatched huts lie in the backwaters, where the only electricity is on the oil platforms, and the only mode of transportation is the dugout canoe.
Both Ijaws and Itsekiris have long claimed ownership of these oil-rich regions. Each demand they hold the local seat of power, so that they can ensure their dirt-poor communities get jobs, clean water and electricity.
Last year, when the local administration was moved from the Ijaw town of Ogbe-Ijoh to an Itsekiri city, Ogidigben, fighting raged for weeks. Hundreds were killed. The government promised an inquiry but the issue simmered until the Ijaw seized oil platforms earlier this month. Authorities have declared a dusk to dawn curfew in Warri as Itsekiri and Ijaw youths battled in the streets. And on Thursday, an estimated 100 workers for Shell, Texaco and other oil companies were taken from buses on their way to work, questioned and released by Itsekiri activists.
The military regime of Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar has won praise for its restraint in handling the showdown and has not sent in troops to establish order.
The stakes in the battle for control of Nigerian oil are huge, and among the most internationally sig-nificant issues in sub-Saharan Africa.