1:59

globally. So as

2:01

a result, oil producing nations from kind of the

2:03

1970s onwards really hit a boom period and Nigeria

2:05

was one of those. And so as a result, Nigeria's

2:08

economy has to a large extent, but

2:10

especially I'd say through like the 70s to the early

2:13

2000s, has been heavily reliant on oil exports.

2:16

Nigeria doesn't actually even have

2:19

at present, it doesn't even have any functioning refineries.

2:22

So it's not even really producing or it's not

2:24

sorry, I should say it's not refining the oil that it's

2:26

producing. So it's not as much even for domestic

2:28

consumption, because Nigeria is actually importing

2:31

refined oil, but really like the economy,

2:33

you know, like a massive share of the budget,

2:35

most of the foreign exchange reserves of the country, all

2:38

that stuff in many ways, like the economic lifeblood

2:40

of the country is producing crude

2:42

oil to be exported onto the global market. So

2:46

the thing is though, Nigeria is a big country, right?

2:48

It's presently divided administratively into

2:51

six geopolitical zones. And,

2:54

you know, those being like the northwest, north central,

2:57

northeast, and then similar southwest, south, south

2:59

and southeast. So the

3:02

oil in Nigeria is actually really all concentrated

3:05

in one region, that's the Niger Delta region, what's

3:07

today often referred to as the South-South. And

3:09

the South-South is an interesting region because it

3:11

kind of lies between two

3:13

of the areas that are traditionally seen

3:15

as like kind of the two of

3:17

the politically hegemonic or major

3:20

blocks, right? Nigerian politics,

3:22

going back to their British colonialism,

3:25

has often been seen as kind of like a balancing

3:28

act between, you know, the people

3:30

of the west, which is the Yoruba ethnic group, the people

3:32

of the north, which is the House of Fulani, and

3:34

then the people in the east, which is the Igbo people.

3:37

But to a large extent, the oil in Nigeria

3:39

is located in the Niger Delta, which is an area inhabited by ethnic

3:42

minorities. So they're not

3:44

part of any of those kind of big three ethnic

3:46

groups. And so as a result, there's kind of this sense

3:49

within the Delta that they're excluded

3:51

politically from the

3:53

countries, from national politics and all of that. So

3:57

you have this kind of weird combination

3:59

wherein... the wealth of the nation

4:01

in many ways, the lifeblood of

4:04

the nation, the thing that keeps the government running

4:06

to the extent that the Nigerian government functions,

4:10

is all a commodity that's being extracted

4:12

from a territory that's inhabited

4:14

by these smaller ethnic groups that are minorities.

4:17

And so that's obviously going to create

4:19

some sense of injustice or a feeling

4:21

that things are off balance and stuff. And

4:24

so really since the era of independence, since

4:26

the 1960s, there have been kind

4:28

of repeated movements throughout from

4:31

local people in the Delta calling for either a

4:34

form of independence or more commonly

4:36

like a greater distribution of oil revenues

4:38

and oil wealth to the Niger Delta areas. Because

4:41

especially in the era of military rule from

4:43

the 60s to the 90s, Nigeria established

4:45

a very centralized state, wherein all

4:48

of the oil that's getting produced in the Niger Delta,

4:50

you know, that those revenues are going to the federal

4:52

government. And then

4:55

for the most part, this kind of started to change in the 1990s,

4:57

but for much of Nigeria's history, the

5:00

federal government was giving very little of those revenues

5:02

back to the states that are actually producing the oil. Right?

5:04

So that kind of creates the groundwork for the sense of grievances.

5:08

Things started to get much more aggravated,

5:10

I'd say, in the 1980s for a couple of reasons. You

5:12

had kind of more youth groups and stuff in

5:14

the region mobilizing, so you had a whole new element

5:17

of youth politics and stuff. But

5:19

then you also had this added dimension

5:22

of kind of the increased number of

5:24

oil spills and ecological damage

5:26

from oil production that was a

5:29

result of the kind of the

5:31

shoddy management or the neglect

5:34

from the international oil companies, particularly

5:36

Shell being kind of the big giant

5:38

in the region. So it's not like purely

5:40

a local store either. The grievances

5:43

were against the Nigerian government, but they were

5:45

also against the international oil companies, which are

5:47

seen as kind of being in cahoots with

5:49

the government. And so there is this sense that

5:51

the people of the Delta felt that they

5:53

were getting kind of the worst

5:56

part of the deal, right? They were getting all the

5:58

environmental damage. and kind of seeing none

6:00

of the benefits, the revenues and stuff

6:03

of oil production. So

6:05

in the 1990s, protests started to really

6:08

kind of spike up. And at that

6:10

point, Nigeria was still ruled by these kind of military

6:13

juntas and stuff. And so you

6:15

had a number of kind of prominent activists,

6:17

the most famous one, this poet,

6:19

Kensaro Weewa. And him,

6:22

he and eight others in 1995 were

6:24

executed by the military regime of

6:26

General Sania Bacha, which a lot of people

6:29

kind of see nowadays as something of a

6:31

turning point because they turned these kind of

6:33

environmental activists into martyrs and stuff. And

6:35

it also, I think, showed a lot of people in the delta,

6:38

that the Nigerian military

6:40

or the Nigerian state was

6:42

not really interested in compromise or negotiation,

6:45

that they were taking a heavy-handed

6:47

approach to this. And so the response, the kind

6:50

of reaction had to be of equal

6:52

measure. So starting in the 1990s,

6:54

you had more kind of violent actions

6:56

from loosely organized youth groups and stuff,

6:59

groups that are often referred to globally in Nigeria

7:02

as cults. We would probably

7:04

better describe them as like criminal gangs. A lot of them

7:06

actually reformed that at university,

7:09

kind of like university fraternities, but then they turned

7:11

into kind of organized crime outfits. That's

7:13

maybe like a topic for a whole other discussion

7:16

because they're a fascinating subsection

7:18

of kind of the criminal underworld

7:20

in Nigeria. So groups like cults,

7:22

groups like youth movements and stuff started

7:25

taking more kind of violent measures to

7:29

disrupt the production of oil in the region.

7:31

So that would include like sabotaging pipelines.

7:34

It would include occupying flow stations, so

7:36

forcibly taking over these areas and stuff to

7:39

kind of force the oil companies to come out

7:42

and negotiate and meet the demands of local communities.

7:45

So all this stuff was kind of escalating through the 90s

7:47

and early 2000s, but it

7:49

wasn't necessarily, it wasn't happening

7:51

under kind of a single umbrella. It was lots of disparate

7:54

groups kind of acting independently and

7:56

stuff out of kind of, you know, genuine

7:58

grievance, although to some extent. and maybe

8:00

we can talk about this later because it's quite complicated,

8:03

but there's always been an element, I

8:05

think, as well of kind of competition between

8:07

local elites and the degree of opportunism,

8:10

I would say, you

8:12

know, with kind of the different

8:15

certain political entrepreneurs or kind of

8:17

community leaders taking opportunities

8:20

to kind of use the grievances of the

8:23

people against the oil companies to kind of enrich

8:25

themselves or position themselves as kind of these

8:27

like militant brokers and stuff. So,

8:30

I mean, to get back just kind of very quickly to wrap

8:32

up the general overview of the general trajectory

8:34

of the conflict.

8:37

Excuse me. You

8:39

have, you know, throughout the 2000s

8:41

the violence really escalates. I think kind of the peak

8:44

period would be like end of 2005 into 2006-2007

8:48

when you have the militants, even though they're

8:50

still kind of operating as you

8:53

know, different outfits. They've

8:56

kind of come together under this umbrella

8:58

organization, the Movement for the Emancipation of

9:00

the Niger Delta, known by its acronym

9:02

MEND, which kind of at the very least

9:04

was like a way of kind of, it

9:06

was like a public-facing umbrella

9:09

group kind of almost like you had in Syria, the different

9:11

kind of operations rooms or whatever, kind of a way

9:13

to express the grievances

9:16

and their objectives collectively and stuff. But

9:18

at the core what it was was a group of kind of

9:20

disparate militant elements, you

9:23

know, kind of targeting

9:25

the Nigerian state both in terms of like attacking

9:28

Nigerian soldiers and police and in some instances

9:30

attacking government officials and stuff, but

9:33

also very much targeting the oil

9:35

infrastructure of the state, that being their

9:37

primary focus. So in that

9:39

period of like the mid 2000s, the

9:42

Niger Delta insurgency was kind of at its highest,

9:44

at its peak. And it really

9:46

seemed for a time, you know, some Nigerian

9:49

and international commentators were kind of treating

9:51

this as like an existential threat for Nigeria,

9:53

right? Because the Nigerian state

9:55

since essentially 1970 has just

9:57

been reliant on crude oil exports. And

10:00

in the mid 2000s, these militants were sending

10:03

Nigeria's crude numbers tanking because,

10:06

you know, they were blowing up pipelines, they were attacking offshore

10:08

facilities, they had sophisticated weapons,

10:11

they were operating in these kind of high powered speedboats

10:13

and stuff. They were kidnapping a lot

10:15

of oil workers, including a lot of foreign workers.

10:18

So that was causing a lot of issues for

10:20

the oil companies as well. They were having trouble

10:22

even like maintaining their stations and stuff just

10:24

because of the security risks of sending

10:26

staff out there and such. And

10:29

so, you know, essentially the

10:32

Nigerian state after kind of several years

10:34

of trying to combat this threat militarily

10:37

but failing in that effort,

10:40

the Nigerian state in 2009 essentially

10:43

offered the militants a broad based amnesty

10:46

called the Presidential Amnesty Program.

10:49

And kind of in tandem with

10:51

that, with the amnesty, which promised, you know,

10:54

that if the militants laid down their weapons, they'd

10:56

receive stuff like job training, they'd receive

10:59

opportunities to kind of work in the oil industry

11:01

and stuff. And kind of a big component of that,

11:03

not technically part of the amnesty, but that was

11:06

happening concurrently, was

11:08

this effort to essentially

11:10

to start giving out security contracts to the

11:12

militants. So essentially the militants went

11:15

from blowing up the pipelines to being paid

11:17

to protect those same pipelines. And so

11:19

since 2009, that's kind of the

11:21

period we've been in, where, you

11:23

know, nominally, there's no insurgency in

11:25

the Niger Delta. And Nigerians will

11:28

speak broadly of kind of ex militants.

11:30

So these big figures down there, you know, they'll say like,

11:32

oh, they're ex militants, as in, you know, to

11:34

suggest that they're not currently involved in militancy.

11:37

They've taken an amnesty, they work with the government and

11:39

all that stuff. But

11:42

as anyone from the Delta can tell you, and you know, what you found, what

11:45

you find, or what I found when I went to the region

11:48

is that there's still a lot of criminal violence happening. There's

11:51

kind of a lot of jockeying for influence between

11:54

these different outfits, these different

11:56

militant groups and criminal groups and stuff that

11:58

are involved in that. and

12:01

they're involved in different trades, including

12:04

the oil bunkering. So that's like siphoning

12:06

oil directly from the pipelines, refining

12:09

artisanal oil and stuff, or sorry, artisanally

12:12

refining oil from the pipelines to turn

12:14

it into diesel or other products that they can sell in

12:16

the black market. And then stuff like kidnapping

12:18

for ransom, high seas piracy. So

12:21

today the Niger Delta is still very much kind

12:23

of a hotbed of criminal violence

12:25

and insecurity, but it's got these added dimensions

12:28

of, there's a lot of kind of alternating

12:31

cooperation and

12:33

clashing between different militants in the States.

12:36

So it's quite a complex environment.

12:39

Yeah, I hope that provides a kind of general overview.

12:42

Definitely. I'm imagining the

12:44

oil contracts given to the various

12:46

militant groups were not given out equally,

12:49

which is probably a part of the tension. Yeah,

12:51

definitely. Definitely. And so,

12:54

and you've kind of seen that like, some

12:56

of these big, the hierarchies

12:58

of these different militant groups are actually

13:00

a whole kind of interesting subject

13:03

to study on their own, because kind of like

13:05

with some of these other criminal militants in Nigeria,

13:08

like I've done a lot of research on these bandit

13:10

warlords in the Northwest who operate

13:12

somewhat similarly, but you'll often

13:14

have these kind of lower level commanders that have

13:16

a lot of autonomy and stuff, but they're kind

13:19

of, they pay homage

13:21

in the Nigerian parlance to these more like senior

13:24

figures that are kind of the big names

13:27

and the figureheads to some extent, the

13:30

kingpins of the Niger Delta

13:32

insurgency. And so you definitely

13:34

have a lot of competition both at the lower levels

13:37

between some of these groups about like,

13:39

who gets to be within X or

13:43

some specific general's kind of umbrella,

13:46

but then you also have that fighting between

13:48

the generals and stuff. And sometimes

13:50

it takes the form of kind of political

13:53

lobbying. We've actually seen a bunch of that recently

13:56

since the new president came in, with

13:59

one... militants in particular is kind of

14:01

close to the president has been you know the reports

14:03

are he's been lobbying for his own his

14:05

own people to get some surveillance contracts because

14:07

arrival got the lion's share of them last

14:10

year but then it can also play out

14:12

violently on the ground as you suggest.

14:15

I remember first reading about the Niger

14:18

Delta Avengers and the imagery

14:20

was insane these big henchthorff

14:23

like muscly guys

14:24

with like they're wearing like bandoliers

14:27

of bullets they're riding up and down

14:29

the the rivers and the coast with

14:32

serious like PKM machine

14:34

guns on a boat like it was the maddest

14:37

thing that at the time when I was looking

14:39

into it was like one of the main militias what's

14:42

the status of them now and are they even

14:44

like a main player? Yeah so the Niger

14:46

Delta Avengers were kind of talked about

14:49

in the same way or to some extent

14:51

as kind of like you know the mend

14:53

which was this this earlier manifestation in 2005-2006

14:55

where you know the the Avengers are kind of seen

15:00

as like almost like the Avengers in you

15:02

know the Marvel Universe or whatever where it's like

15:05

a I mean if I'm remembering the

15:07

movies correctly and to be honest I've never been a huge

15:09

fan but I never seen him I don't know

15:11

yeah right that's fair enough but I

15:14

think like it kind of starts with like an ad-hoc coalition

15:16

right it's like different superheroes joining together

15:18

and then they become a team to fight the bad

15:20

guys or whatever I think it was kind of similar

15:22

with the Niger Delta Avengers where it was never like

15:25

kind of a rigid kind of coherent

15:28

insurgent movement where you had you know the top

15:30

commander and then his lieutenants and a very clear chain

15:32

of command it was more kind of again like

15:34

an umbrella group and you know it's

15:37

these these movements whether it's men or it was

15:39

the Niger Delta Avengers which was announced during

15:41

the Buhari administration they're

15:44

kind of these these groups are typically announced

15:47

kind of to signal when there's

15:49

kind of a general consensus of you

15:52

know dissatisfaction among a

15:55

lot of the key militant actors with the status

15:57

quo one way or another they

15:59

kind of they'll announce

16:01

these new movements to show a unified front.

16:04

So part of it is kind of like a form of intimidation

16:07

or signaling to the government essentially

16:10

that, hey, the

16:12

government has almost used this approach of

16:14

divide and rule, especially since 2009

16:17

with the amnesty and the contracts and stuff. And

16:19

that's not been too difficult because, again, there's always

16:21

been this competition between the different

16:24

kind of social groups and the social elites

16:27

in the delta, and that includes what

16:29

they call the generals or the warlords down there of

16:32

the different groups. So it's kind

16:34

of, from time to time, the

16:36

different groups will kind of band together to kind of

16:39

send a signal to the state, which is like, hey, just

16:42

because you think you're divided and that we're all happy

16:44

just getting our little nibbling

16:46

on the crumbs or whatever, doesn't

16:48

mean that you can rest easy because actually if we

16:51

team up and kind

16:53

of almost like form a proper insurgency,

16:55

right, then we're going to be able, you know, we're going to do all

16:57

these horrible things and threaten the

16:59

Nigerian economy and then to some extent the

17:01

existence of the Nigerian state. So

17:04

it's kind of like a way – I see groups like the

17:06

Niger Delta Avengers. There was another

17:08

one that was announced shortly before the

17:10

elections this year in 2023 called

17:13

the Force of Igbezu. They often –

17:15

Igbezu is this kind of like traditional spirit

17:18

kind of deity within the Ija

17:20

people and the delta. So

17:23

sometimes they'll often use these concepts

17:27

and these kind of like the traditional religion, if you

17:29

will, to kind of – you

17:32

know, to mark their insurgency

17:34

in a sense. And so like there was

17:36

another force that was announced earlier this year where, again,

17:39

it's not necessarily – it

17:41

doesn't mean that the – all the different militant groups are

17:43

now like banding together under one single commander.

17:46

It's more, I think, a way of kind of signaling to the

17:48

government that, hey, we can cooperate

17:51

amongst ourselves when we need to and that's a problem

17:53

for you guys. So, you know, you better come to

17:55

the table and we need to renegotiate some

17:57

terms. What's the main tension there?

18:00

right now in the Niger Delta? Yeah, so I

18:02

think when, I mean,

18:04

there are a couple of ways to look at it, right? Like, you know, there's

18:06

tension between the militant groups. There's kind of larger

18:09

questions about, you know,

18:11

the Nigerian government, the new administration

18:13

and stuff, and what policy they're gonna take

18:15

to the Delta. I think I'll

18:18

kind of table that for now. I think one

18:20

of the really interesting issues that I

18:22

was kind of went to the Delta to investigate

18:25

last year, and I think it's still very much a relevant

18:28

issue is kind of this trade-off

18:31

between oil bunkering

18:33

and other forms of militancy or criminality.

18:36

So to get back to what

18:38

I was saying earlier, oil bunkering is a term that,

18:41

you know, that just refers to kind of stealing the oil

18:43

right out of the pipelines, right? And that's been something that's

18:45

been happening for decades in the Niger Delta.

18:49

But in recent years, what's changed is that,

18:51

to some extent, both the local militants,

18:54

but also a lot of kind of local community members,

18:56

have gotten a lot better at not

18:58

just stealing the oil, the crude oil out of the

19:00

pipeline, and selling it on the international

19:03

black market, but also refining

19:05

that oil themselves in these kind of

19:08

improvised, cherry-rigged

19:10

kind of refineries that they build deep in the

19:13

creeks, or the jungles, or whatever. And some

19:15

of them, I mean, some of them are pretty big and impressive,

19:17

right? And so this gets into a whole thing about how,

19:19

you know, there's no way you can hide some

19:22

of these refineries from the authorities. So there's an element

19:24

of corruption here where certain bunkers

19:26

are paying off certain politicians or security officials

19:29

and stuff to be able to do their operation.

19:31

But essentially, they've got these big refineries

19:34

that they have in the jungle, and essentially they're taking

19:36

the stolen crude oil and they're turning it into diesel,

19:38

they're turning it into kerosene, they're turning

19:40

it into gasoline, and then they're selling

19:42

it either within Nigeria or

19:45

on the regional markets to fill

19:47

a genuine demand from

19:49

the consumers. Who are they selling it

19:51

to? Well, that's the thing. I mean, they sell it.

19:54

It's sold locally, so it gets it very

19:57

quickly actually gets mixed into the

19:59

kind of... illicit supply chain, so to

20:01

speak. You know,

20:03

so that's both within Nigeria, within the delta.

20:06

But then also, like, partially because

20:08

up until this new president came into office,

20:11

Nigeria had very heavily subsidized oil,

20:14

and the new presidents tried to remove that subsidy.

20:16

So there's been a bit of back and forth. We'll get

20:18

into that now. But because

20:21

Nigeria has subsidized oil so heavily, what

20:23

that means is that neighboring countries like

20:25

in the East, Cameroon, and the West, it's Benin,

20:27

to the north, it's Niger, even though

20:29

those countries don't have fuel subsidies, what

20:32

people will do is people from those countries

20:34

will cross into Nigeria, buy Nigerian

20:37

oil on the cheap, and then smuggle

20:39

it out of Nigeria into their own countries. And

20:41

then in effect, that extends the subsidy

20:43

because then they're able to sell that oil at a lower rate,

20:46

you know, within their own countries.

20:49

So you have this complex interplay where, you

20:51

know, between the fuel subsidy and just the rampant

20:53

oil bunkering and stuff, there's actually

20:56

like, it's very hard to tell how much of the oil

20:58

within, at least when you're talking about

21:00

like kerosene and diesel and stuff, you

21:03

know, that how much of that is actually like listed, you

21:06

know, as opposed to being produced

21:08

locally or illegally. Because

21:11

as I said, the Nigerian government doesn't have any functioning

21:13

refineries at the moment. And

21:15

so as a result, you know, they're importing,

21:18

you know, refined gasoline and stuff, they

21:20

import some kerosene, or

21:23

actually, I think it's more diesel that they import not as much

21:25

kerosene. But anyways, the imported

21:27

listed stuff gets very quickly mixed with the

21:29

illegal stuff. And then even

21:32

like the the excess, the

21:34

excess waste from the bunkering. When

21:36

I was down in the Delta, they were saying that like some of the tar

21:39

that they make from the bunkering can actually be used

21:41

for you know, local, it's

21:43

used by like local mechanics and stuff, because

21:46

they can use it as lubricants in their engines, you

21:48

know, when they're fixing cars or whatever. That's

21:50

not to say there's not a lot of waste, actually, one of the big problems

21:52

with bunkering is that it's, you know,

21:55

really creates a mess environmentally, because they do waste

21:58

a lot of this kind of the the

22:01

you know excess the

22:03

product that they that comes out

22:05

of it. So yeah I'll just say

22:07

it gets mixed into the local market pretty pretty

22:09

quickly. There is an element there's a transnational

22:12

element as well where you do have these big tankers

22:14

that will come in and take you know

22:17

they'll just take the crude oil that's been siphoned

22:20

off you know by the militants or you know whoever

22:23

and they'll just they'll go out and

22:25

import that and that's

22:27

a really big business and that's one that has to have

22:30

you know pretty significant collusion from at least

22:32

middle excuse me at least mid-level

22:35

officials if not more senior ones because

22:37

essentially I mean and I interviewed people involved in

22:39

that trade and they talked about yeah you

22:41

know we have guys in customs guys and immigration

22:44

you know guys in the governor's office all that

22:46

stuff they're all in on the cut so essentially

22:49

you know the the big tanker will come in it'll

22:51

dock at like the you know will dock at the main

22:53

port but then in take instead of taking

22:56

the fuel directly from you know say

22:58

the the shell pipeline or whatever it'll

23:00

just take it from our guys and

23:02

then we'll give them papers you know our

23:05

guy in customs will give them papers saying that yeah

23:07

this you know this this this

23:09

oil is is is licit right

23:11

it's it's legit or whatever and it takes

23:14

like real investigations or efforts from the authorities

23:16

to kind of stop all these tankers and look

23:18

at the look at the manifest and stuff and

23:20

put two and two together and realize that actually you

23:23

know you're taking oil that we don't

23:25

have logged on on our end as

23:27

having been exported so it's it's

23:30

it's pretty high reaching or far reaching

23:32

I should say in terms of where it goes

23:35

but yeah I mean to get back to my original point so

23:38

this whole you know this bunkering enterprise

23:40

and an artisanal refining it's

23:43

it's a real I mean it's a real economic boon

23:45

to some of the people involved in it

23:48

and that includes a lot of militants you know

23:50

pretty much all the militants and that includes some

23:52

of the pirate gangs the cultists etc they're

23:54

all deep into bunkering they're making money off of

23:56

this and stuff but also a lot of kind of

23:59

you know community members members, right, who have

24:01

turned to this because it's

24:03

an easy way to make money. They see this,

24:06

you know, they see the oil in the pipelines

24:08

as their own oil, right? That's the one thing that they said

24:10

again and again when I was interviewing these bunkers, they

24:12

say, you know, this oil comes from our land, this

24:14

is our land for the indigenous people

24:17

of the Delta. So like, we're not stealing it, we're

24:19

just taking from what's

24:22

our own. I think one quote

24:25

that I have in an article that I wrote on this from one

24:27

bunker was like, you know, we call it drinking

24:29

from our own well, right? So they're

24:32

taking the oil and then, you know,

24:34

in the absence of kind of better jobs and economic

24:36

opportunities in the region and stuff, you

24:39

have a lot of people, I mean, I've interviewed, you

24:41

know, single mothers, unemployed university

24:43

graduates, like kind of a wide

24:45

range of people who actually become involved in this bunkering

24:48

enterprise. But I think

24:50

in terms of that, your first question about like the

24:52

tension, what's relevant is that the militants

24:55

are getting pretty rich from bunkering. They're

24:58

doing that in collusion with different state actors and

25:00

stuff. But so what that, you

25:02

know, kind of a

25:05

an interesting kind of corollary of that, if

25:07

you will, is that the militants

25:09

actually in some cases, they're

25:12

not engaged in as much of the violent activity

25:14

as they used to be engaged in. They're not blowing

25:16

up pipelines anymore because they're stealing the oil

25:19

from it and making money off of it. In

25:21

the case of like pirates, and I interviewed

25:23

a couple of them when I was in the Delta, they're

25:25

not engaged in as much of the high seas

25:27

piracy, you know, targeting international cargo

25:30

vessels and kidnapping people for ransom, because

25:32

that's a very high risk, high reward type

25:35

of game, where, you know, there's a real chance

25:37

you can get caught by the Nigerian Navy or other

25:39

stuff. And so, you know, it's

25:41

and, you know, the payouts might

25:43

not even be that great for some of the hostages. Whereas

25:46

if you're involved in bunkering, and you're just like paying

25:48

off the local authorities, you can estimate,

25:51

you know, with with pretty good confidence, I'm going to make

25:53

this much money, you know, over the course of a

25:55

month, and these are going to be my expenses or whatever.

25:58

So, you know, one of the interesting things in

26:00

the Delta, one analogy to think

26:02

of it as kind of like a, you know, a balloon,

26:04

right, where you squeeze in one area, but that air,

26:07

it'll just go into the other side

26:09

of the balloon, right, and then that side will inflate

26:11

more. And I think that to some extent,

26:13

that's been what's happening in recent years, where

26:16

the government kind of touts both

26:19

the amnesty program that it's

26:21

doing, and then also it's kind of security efforts.

26:23

There's a very heavy army and Navy

26:25

and Air Force presence down in the Delta, obviously

26:27

lots of police and other security agencies,

26:30

and they'll say that, you know, these are responsible for reducing

26:33

the levels of violence, and particularly

26:35

on these issues of like piracy. The Navy has

26:38

engaged in a number of new initiatives and gotten new funding

26:40

to do counter-piracy work, so they're very kind

26:42

of, you know, queer or eager to tout

26:45

that. And I think that, you

26:47

know, that push factor, if you

26:49

say, is there, like some of the stuff

26:51

with piracy, and the piracy I interviewed did admit

26:53

that like, yeah, the Navy, the Nigerian Navy's gotten better,

26:56

you know, they're a pain in the ass. We have to deal

26:58

with them, all that stuff. But

27:00

the problem is that like, you're not actually

27:02

stopping the militants from, or the criminals

27:04

from doing criminal stuff, right? They're

27:07

just shifting their focus from a very

27:09

violent form of criminal activity that's

27:12

kind of high-risk, high-reward, to a slightly

27:14

less violent form that's lower

27:17

risk, still pretty high-reward, but that

27:19

is still, you know, completely damaging the Nigerian

27:21

state, right? Because Nigeria to this day, they're

27:24

struggling to meet their OPEC quotas. They're

27:26

not producing, you know, nearly as much oil

27:28

as they aspire to be. This

27:32

is having lots of ramifications for the budget,

27:34

for inflation, for all this stuff. So

27:37

it's kind of like, it's, you know, there's

27:40

almost this uneasy compromise there. And

27:42

one thing talking to the militants, and the cultists

27:45

and pirates, all that stuff, you know, that was very

27:47

clear in the Delta is that, you know,

27:49

they're aware of the leverage they have, right? And

27:52

so what their view is kind of like,

27:54

if the government comes in and tries to, you

27:56

know, mess with this bunkering operation,

27:59

like, look. We've got a good thing going. We're

28:01

not harming anyone by doing this bunkering, which is,

28:04

of course, kind of a lie because beyond the ecological

28:06

damage, there's often actually violent turf

28:08

wars between bunkers over who controls which

28:10

site and stuff. So I don't want I don't mean

28:12

to suggest that bunkering is a victimless crime

28:14

by any means, but the militants kind

28:16

of, you know, they can they can negotiate,

28:19

if you will, with the government by being like, look,

28:22

if you if you want to shut down our bunkering sites,

28:24

we'll just go back to piracy or we'll go

28:26

up to blowing up the pipelines. Right. And

28:28

so you kind of have to let us have this thing

28:31

because this is something that like we're getting rich

28:33

from it. Some of you guys are getting rich from it,

28:35

right, because we're all paying off, you know, military

28:38

officers and politicians. I mean, the politicians,

28:40

this is something that also came through are some of the

28:43

people deepest in bunkering down there, right? They

28:45

finance a lot of the biggest sites. They use

28:47

the funds from bunkering to

28:49

finance their election campaigns and stuff. So

28:52

this is pretty well documented going back to

28:54

like the, you know, the very start of the Fourth Republic,

28:56

Nigeria's kind of resumption of democracy

28:58

in 1999. So

29:01

the there's, you know, there are all these different actors

29:04

involved. And I think that's what makes bunkering

29:06

in particular a very thorny issue, because

29:08

it's like a very delicate equilibrium. And

29:11

if you take a policy that's, you know, too

29:13

much goes too much in one

29:15

direction, it's like that balloon

29:17

analogy, right? You risk just kind of squeezing

29:19

all the pressure into some other some

29:22

other area, some other set of activities that could

29:24

actually be very destabilizing.

29:28

So

29:41

you've got this bunkering

29:43

where they're essentially kind of, well, I guess

29:45

you could say illegally, but it's

29:48

it's it's They're

30:00

taking the oil from

30:02

the land without any kind of official permits

30:05

or whatever and then they're selling that on the black market

30:07

But whereabouts are the like big-time

30:10

oil companies now because I do remember

30:13

Reading years back that the

30:15

Niger Delta Avengers for example had cost

30:18

shell oil like millions and millions

30:20

in oil theft and Stealing from

30:22

the wells and the pipes and stuff. What's

30:25

the situation with that now of the oil companies?

30:28

Are they involved with this like illicit stuff or

30:30

they involved with the government of they left? What's

30:32

the deal? Yeah, I know great question and

30:34

thanks for bringing that back in because you know You can't

30:36

you can't discuss the Niger Delta as if it's just a

30:39

Nigerian dynamic, right? The oil companies here

30:41

are very very heavily involved in everything

30:43

that's happening so essentially

30:45

so on the on the question of bunkering and I

30:47

should add first that There's

30:50

there's a lot of kind of anecdotal evidence

30:52

of officials that certain officials or

30:54

employees of the company being involved in bunkering That's

30:57

not to say that the companies as a whole are because

30:59

it's hurting them But you have that issue as well

31:01

where you know these militants and these bunkers they

31:03

get rich enough They can pay off officials within

31:06

the oil company and especially the lower level guys

31:08

So that actually helps them kind of you

31:11

know engage in this practice So I

31:13

I just want to make that clear that kind of like, you

31:15

know No, no one is innocent when

31:17

it comes to this oil bunkering issue in the Delta kind

31:19

of everyone's got a hand in it But in terms of

31:21

the company's You know broader

31:23

approaches so yeah essentially like during

31:26

the height of the insurgency in the 2000s and

31:28

then again to some extent during the kind of the

31:30

the spike again in like 2016 2015 2016 More

31:36

like 2017. Yeah as well during

31:38

the Niger Delta Avengers stuff You

31:41

had a yeah you had I mean serious

31:43

periods of periods of serious

31:45

losses for the oil companies and stuff and

31:47

so that kind of that uncertainty that threat

31:50

of the insecurity Combined

31:52

with the kind of reputational

31:55

issues that a lot of these companies were having onshore

31:58

In terms of the you know the grievances

32:00

from the communities about the oil spills, a

32:04

lot of the local politics and stuff about

32:07

where pipelines will pass through, which

32:10

local communities get reimbursed

32:13

for either damages from oil spills

32:15

or which local companies get contracts to

32:18

provide pipeline security, all that stuff. It's

32:20

been a real headache for the oil companies. And so

32:23

a lot of them have started moving offshore.

32:25

The international oil companies at least have started

32:28

divesting from their onshore sites and

32:30

selling them to Nigerian energy

32:32

firms, to Nigerian companies in

32:35

favor of going offshore into kind of the

32:37

deep-receipt drilling and stuff. And

32:39

offshore drilling, it's more technology

32:42

and capital intensive. So it's typically

32:44

like it's not the low-hanging fruit. Oil

32:46

companies would prefer to go in and do

32:48

the onshore stuff because that's generally

32:50

easier to extract. So you get a quicker

32:53

return on your investments. So that's why a lot

32:55

of the companies, traditionally in Nigeria, were

32:57

going onshore first. But

32:59

it's gotten to the point where the

33:02

kind of non-technical costs of

33:04

maintaining a presence onshore. So that's again, the security

33:07

costs, the reputational costs, the political costs,

33:09

all that stuff have gotten to the point

33:11

where they outweigh a lot of the returns. And

33:14

so a lot of the interest, and

33:16

there are other dynamics here, I think, to do more with kind

33:18

of the global kind of shift

33:21

in how, or just

33:24

kind of global shifts in like fossil fuel extraction and

33:26

the oil industry that I'm probably, I need

33:28

to refresh myself on that before talking more

33:30

in depth. But I think within the

33:33

Nigerian case, it's very much like a political and security

33:35

issue where because

33:37

of those liabilities, they've decided to kind of do the

33:39

more expensive stuff offshore, but at least there they

33:41

have a bit more protection. And so

33:44

this kind of creates a, or

33:46

I should say it doesn't solve the issue

33:48

though for a lot of the communities in the Delta.

33:51

Because if anything, and kind of what's been surprising

33:53

is that talking to a lot of these community

33:55

members in the Niger Delta who have grievances

33:58

against like Shell or BP, you know. So going

34:00

back decades in many cases to

34:03

the very founding of Nigeria, or

34:06

to Nigeria's independence,

34:08

these deep-seated grievances. Now that

34:10

these international oil companies are leaving and

34:12

they're seeing who's coming in instead, which

34:15

are these Nigerian companies, they're

34:17

like, oh, no, actually we miss the IOCs to

34:19

some extent. That's the international oil companies.

34:22

Because a number of these Nigerian firms are just,

34:26

they're kind of more transparently

34:28

corrupt. They're even more

34:30

negligent in how they manage the pipelines and stuff. You

34:36

have a lot of rumors,

34:38

but it's treated as public knowledge in the delta

34:40

that some companies, even the

34:42

CEO of the company is involved in oil bonkering.

34:45

So he's literally stealing from his own

34:48

shareholders. And

34:50

so you have just a kind of

34:52

an even worse kind

34:55

of a business climate in the area. And

34:58

so I did hear actually a lot of grievances from

35:00

community members in the places I visited

35:03

in two states down there that

35:06

just because the international oil companies have left, actually

35:09

the people that are coming in to fill the

35:11

vacuum are not actually

35:13

any better and in some cases are worse.

35:16

Yeah. And from the research I've

35:18

done

35:19

on this situation in the past,

35:22

I do remember, correct me if I'm wrong, like

35:25

now, but I do remember back then, Shell

35:27

were not necessarily in

35:29

trouble, but were

35:32

suspected of having middlemen

35:34

doing work here and there to make sure they still got

35:37

theirs. Yeah, I mean, it's

35:39

a very seedy business all around. Shell

35:43

has gotten into trouble. There

35:45

are a number of cases pending against them

35:47

and the London court has ruled against them

35:51

in one notable case last year. So

35:53

there's a lot of, that's actually

35:56

one other thing that kind of started to shift in the 2000s where you

35:58

had. You

36:00

have local communities in the Delta who

36:02

kind of realized that they were never going to get justice

36:05

or kind of, you know reparations for

36:08

the environmental damage and then

36:10

you know The kind of different corrupt

36:12

and negligent practices that the IOCs

36:14

have employed in the Delta The

36:16

communities realize they were never going to get that justice within

36:19

the Nigerian justice system Because

36:21

the Nigerian state was too invested

36:24

in the continued You know

36:26

kind of exploitation of Nigerian oil

36:29

by the IOCs and so there's never going

36:31

to be you know They're never going to get a fair trial and stuff.

36:33

So they started going into kind of international courts

36:35

of arbitrage and stuff You

36:37

know places they'd go through like the OSCE

36:40

system in the Hague through courts in London

36:43

That's not an area. I'm not like an international law

36:45

specialist So I can't

36:47

say too much there actually about

36:50

the the ramifications other than that I

36:52

think compared to a decade ago the IOCs

36:54

are also, you know, and certainly

36:56

compared to like 20 years ago They're also more concerned

36:59

about legal liability because some some precedents

37:01

have now been set that they can actually be

37:03

held They can be held liable

37:06

for their actions in Nigeria, you

37:08

know in a in an international court or

37:10

you know In a court in a third party country

37:14

So I think that that you know that on the whole

37:16

these have all all these factors have kind of contributed To

37:19

a poorer investment climate

37:22

So yeah It's you know It's largely the

37:24

Nigerian companies that are coming in

37:26

and buying off these blocks that are being auctioned

37:29

off by the IOCs that like You know

37:31

pretty decent, you know, pretty pretty cut rate Because

37:34

of the all those kind of investment challenges

37:38

You know one dynamic I think that could potentially

37:41

change things quite a bit moving forward is they've

37:43

now Done some successful oil

37:45

exploration in northern Nigeria And

37:47

there's a Chinese company a peristatal that's

37:50

actually very involved in all of that And

37:52

so, you know nothing there's been no serious

37:54

kind of drilling or extraction so far

37:57

But the Nigerian government is kind of talking

37:59

about that that as, oh, this is the next step

38:01

in diversifying our rents and

38:04

our revenues and stuff. And

38:09

I think that could potentially have a very big impact

38:12

moving forward. That combined

38:14

with the IOCs divesting from the onshore

38:17

sites could potentially change dynamics in

38:19

the Niger Delta quite a bit. It's a weird

38:21

situation. You've got this

38:24

black market very much

38:26

involved with one of the most profitable

38:31

companies on earth. It's always been

38:33

a really fascinating place to me, especially

38:35

when you see the makeshift illegal

38:40

refineries. What was

38:42

it like going there? I know it's even to get

38:44

to is pretty hard, right? Yeah. I

38:47

mean, the Niger Delta is, I mean, there

38:49

are flights within Nigeria, right? There are big cities.

38:52

It's not certainly getting to

38:54

the capitals

38:54

and stuff. It's not hard. These

38:58

days they do advise foreigners to avoid

39:00

traveling by road and certainly by creek on

39:04

the waterways just because the rates of kidnapping

39:06

and stuff are so high. So when

39:08

I was doing that, it was definitely

39:11

there are precautions we needed to take. I had to change

39:13

my itinerary once or twice in

39:17

one instance, because one of the guys I was interviewing

39:20

kind of overheard myself talking with

39:22

a colleague about our travel plans for the next

39:24

day. And the guy I was interviewing, despite

39:27

him being very friendly and us sharing a beer during our

39:29

interview, was a cold-blooded

39:31

killer and kidnapper. And very much despite

39:34

his pleasant smile that day, would not have hesitated

39:36

to lay an ambush the next

39:39

day if he knew which road I was traveling

39:41

on. So there was a lot

39:43

of that. I mean, a lot of the logistics. I

39:45

won't get into too much detail, but just

39:47

moving around different areas within

39:50

a given city or within a state.

39:53

Because especially within the Delta as well, against

39:55

so many of these militants are rivals with each other. And

39:58

so it's important that... on

42:00

the rivers these days because we know

42:03

that at this point of the creek, you know, one

42:05

gang territory ends and then the other area,

42:08

you know, there's a zone of five

42:10

kilometers or whatever, a stretch of two kilometers and

42:12

that's like where the pirates operate. And

42:14

so you just don't want to go there because you don't know what

42:17

could happen. So it's definitely

42:19

a volatile environment and, you

42:21

know, whether it's the oil bunkering or the kidnapping

42:23

for ransom and stuff, I mean,

42:26

it all has international ramifications

42:28

and stuff, but, you know, especially

42:30

now that the oil companies and the NGOs

42:33

and stuff, they don't typically keep their expatriate

42:36

workers out in the city, out

42:38

in the communities. You know, those guys live in

42:40

well-guarded compounds in the capital and stuff.

42:43

So it really is. It's the locals bearing

42:45

the brunt, both of the ecological devastation,

42:48

but also the insecurity. And

42:50

I think that's a kind of unfortunate

42:53

and tragic aspect of

42:56

insecurity around Nigeria today.

42:59

This might sound naive, but

43:01

why would they kidnap

43:03

you? Is it because, like, for example,

43:06

I don't know, let me tell myself, if I was there and

43:08

they kidnapped me, no one is paying a

43:10

fucking ransom. You know what I mean? Like no

43:13

one is going to pay a ransom for me. No one,

43:15

you know, no one has that money that I know the government

43:17

is not going to fucking do it. No one in England

43:19

is going to be like, oh yeah, he's caught by this

43:22

militia in the Niger Delta. What

43:24

is it? Is it either attached to something else

43:27

or is it just like a foreigner just

43:29

get any foreigner? I'm finding

43:31

it's like confusing because if they'll interview you,

43:34

but then also kidnap you and trust me, I know

43:36

I've done things like this where it's like, yeah, in any

43:38

other setting you would kill me. But

43:41

you know, it's confusing. What is it they think they're going to

43:43

get? Because surely they're already making a lot of money

43:45

from the oil and you're not exactly an oil

43:47

exec, you know?

43:48

Yeah. Well,

43:49

for starters, don't sell yourself short-shake. You

43:52

know, a lot of us are your admirers. I

43:55

pitched in a couple dollars. My

43:58

Nigerian colleagues even, you know.

43:59

Because

46:01

as we all know in a lot of instances, the

46:03

militants can be wrong, right? I

46:06

mean like some governments – I mean even within – talking

46:09

about Western governments and stuff,

46:11

right? There are some governments that have a very

46:13

strict line like we do not negotiate with terrorists,

46:16

and they really mean that. And there are other governments

46:18

that say we do not negotiate with terrorists, and

46:20

then they frequently negotiate with terrorists to

46:22

pay ransoms to get their citizens out. But

46:24

I think it depends partially

46:26

on the sophistication of the militants

46:28

or criminal group in question about

46:31

whether they really distinguish between the

46:34

different types of foreigners and

46:37

distinguish between those who work for oil companies versus

46:39

those who work for, say, NGOs, which don't

46:42

have the same types of money and I think typically don't

46:44

pay anything like what the oil companies

46:46

pay. So yeah, I

46:48

mean I think it's all very complex, and I

46:51

think there certainly are militants

46:54

and criminal groups in the delta who

46:57

would kind of make that calculation

46:59

that actually adds not in our interest to

47:01

kidnap one type of individual,

47:05

whereas it is in our interest to kidnap

47:07

another type.

47:09

But as a general rule, you just kind of –

47:11

you don't want to roll the dice, right? Yeah, no,

47:13

I wouldn't want to take the risk. Yeah, just like

47:15

I'll be okay. Next thing, I'm dead. Yeah,

47:18

no, definitely not. You certainly don't want to take

47:20

the militants' word for it, right? If

47:22

they say, oh, yeah, that's

47:24

the real risk, and sometimes you have to do

47:26

that, but if you can avoid it. It's

47:28

such a fascinating region. Where is it headed,

47:30

do you think? Where is all

47:33

of this inter – I

47:36

don't want to say gang, but like militia violence

47:38

is happening, but everybody is kind of getting paid.

47:42

The piracy is even stopping, but like you just said,

47:44

it's actually really dangerous and in some

47:46

ways more volatile now. Yeah,

47:48

where do you think this is all headed? Yeah, I mean it's

47:52

tough, and I think that maybe it's –

47:55

the best people to answer that would

47:57

be like the kind of historians

47:59

and the sculptors. from the community who have the benefit

48:01

of having seen how this conflict evolved over three

48:04

decades, right? Whereas I'm relatively

48:06

new to it and I can read the books about what it was like a

48:08

few decades ago, but I think, you

48:10

know, it's for context, but

48:12

to actually predict where it's going, I think it's very tough.

48:15

I mean, in terms of like the more kind of

48:17

near immediate future, like there

48:19

are these rumors going around that the new

48:21

president is seriously considering

48:24

maybe ending like the amnesty

48:26

program and going into more of a,

48:29

you know, this kind of surveillance contract approach,

48:31

right? We're essentially like expanding, like

48:34

expanding the pie, if you will, or like, you know,

48:36

baking a bigger cake for more people to cut into,

48:38

which is kind of not dissimilar to

48:40

how he actually governed when he was previously the governor

48:43

of Lagos, which is the largest state in Nigeria.

48:45

So one possibility is that like the

48:48

Nigerian state kind of does away with some of

48:50

the pretense, like the formal pretense of having

48:52

an amnesty and all that stuff. And it really

48:54

just does become like more of a business

48:57

transaction. And

48:59

that, you know, it's kind

49:01

of hard to say with certainty, like

49:03

how that's going to play out. I think that there's a very high

49:06

risk of a lot of increased violence, at least

49:08

in the near term, where like, if you really do

49:10

have a period where it's like, okay, you

49:12

know, the Nigerian state is now just going to like triple.

49:15

And again, it's not just the state, right? It's

49:17

all complicated because the oil companies,

49:19

you know, are supposed to, they don't necessarily

49:21

pay directly for the surveillance contracts. Now

49:24

it's mostly the NNPC, the Nigerian oil

49:27

corporation that does that, but the oil companies have

49:29

a say in how all this kind of structured. So

49:31

it's, it's, it's kind of a very multi multivariate

49:35

situation. But there's a possibility that it's

49:37

like, okay, the budget for paying off

49:39

militants to guard pipelines is now increasing,

49:41

you know, two folder, three fold. And,

49:44

you know, depending on how that's divvied up

49:46

and stuff, you could have a lot of militants like

49:49

blowing up pipelines to say, okay, well,

49:51

you know, here, we're signaling

49:53

that, you know, you have to take us seriously

49:56

as part of these negotiations, right? Because that's just

49:58

like, that's just kind of refineries

52:00

that are theoretically cheaper to build than

52:03

like the big typical you know refineries

52:05

that you think of that you know you

52:08

have and say like you know in Texas or whatever to actually

52:10

like kind of refine

52:13

you know thousands of barrels of oil a day these

52:15

are hundreds of thousands these are smaller

52:18

refineries that have a smaller output

52:20

but the idea is that if you you

52:22

know if you build enough of those in the nitro delta

52:24

then a lot of the people who are engaged in

52:27

artisanal refining and oil bunkering and all

52:29

that stuff today could then have like

52:31

a more like legitimate Lissett way

52:34

of earning an income they could they could switch to

52:37

like essentially doing what they're doing now but in a way

52:39

that's like regulated by the state and supported by

52:41

the state and so that that reduces

52:43

removes the violent incentives of

52:46

all this stuff right it's not too dissimilar

52:48

to like you know how a lot

52:50

of advocates have said you know in the past I said like

52:52

well legalizing marijuana and other drugs will

52:55

you know turn Mexican marijuana

52:57

and poppy farmers into more legitimate agrarians

53:00

and then that'll help reduce violence in Mexico unfortunately

53:03

to date in Mexico it hasn't really worked that well

53:06

because there are all these other confounding variables

53:08

and you know complex factors and

53:11

in Nigeria like this issue with the modular refineries

53:13

for example there are just a ton of logistical

53:15

challenges there you know Nigeria

53:17

again like it's kind of one of the mind-boggling

53:20

things about the country but despite producing

53:22

so much oil despite having such a large you

53:24

know very talented population and a very

53:27

dynamic economy Nigeria has like one

53:29

of the worst power grids on the planet like

53:31

not a day goes by when I'm in Lagos or Abuja

53:33

where there's not a power outage and so just

53:35

like basic stuff like that like you

53:38

know in some ways you kind of need to fix some of the

53:40

basic problems with the Nigerian

53:42

infrastructure and the Nigerian economy in

53:46

order to be able to then like address some of these issues

53:48

in the Delta and a more sustainable way and

53:51

so until that happens I think we're kind

53:53

of stuck in this this limbo where it's

53:55

kind of this this you know violent

53:58

bargaining or this kind of violent

53:59

equilibrium if you will between the state

54:02

and the non-state actors. Yeah and I

54:04

think as well what you were saying there about

54:06

Legitima isn't it? It's only fair you

54:09

know oil was there and

54:11

then Shell and all these big companies moved in

54:14

and then the militias were like hang on no

54:16

that's our land like we're gonna have it. To

54:18

me I'm kind of like yeah so what? It's like

54:20

yeah of course they they wanted to do that and

54:23

I don't know I can understand that if

54:25

somebody came in my back garden was like yeah sorry

54:28

we're gonna dig everything out of your garden and we're having it. I'd

54:30

be like no you're fucking not. So I

54:32

can kind of like it doesn't feel like ridiculous

54:35

at all that they should then be able

54:37

to get that but I think then

54:39

comes

54:41

who is not involved in the oil situation

54:43

gets what right? Like not

54:45

everybody in that region is a militant

54:48

not everybody is in these makeshift

54:51

oil wells what are the normal

54:54

average person gonna get

54:56

in the in the Niger Delta? Yeah and that's

54:58

I mean honestly like you're kind of really getting

55:01

to the I think the key like the heart

55:03

of one of the key problems in Nigeria not

55:05

just in the Niger Delta but with all these other conflicts

55:07

that you have in the country because honestly

55:10

like the since the country transitioned to democracy

55:12

in 99 you know it's

55:14

just been like one one fire after

55:16

another like each part of the country is experiencing

55:18

a different localized insurgency

55:21

or communal conflict some form of security

55:24

crisis and one of the problems is that

55:26

you know if you come in and you essentially

55:29

like you have these you know what are called these

55:31

like non-kinetic solutions to trying to

55:34

mitigate the violence there and that often involves

55:36

some sort of like disarmament and you

55:38

know demobilization and

55:41

reintegration for the insurgents which

55:43

typically like it has to be supported by the state which

55:45

means that like the state is providing

55:48

you know or maybe the state via NGOs

55:50

and the UN or whatever is like providing

55:52

some sort of a livelihood support jobs training

55:55

stuff like that a stipend to these former

55:57

insurgents and so you know but

55:59

the problem The problem is that people see that,

56:01

right? People in the local community see that and

56:04

they say, well, that's not fair. You're rewarding, you

56:06

know, insurgency. Yeah, you're rewarding

56:08

the bad guys. And then outside

56:11

that local community, right? So when it's happening in the Niger

56:13

Delta, people in Northern Nigeria will

56:15

say, oh, you're rewarding the Southerners

56:17

for being terrorists. And now that it's happening

56:19

now, there's a similar program with Boko Haram, you

56:22

know, fighters of Boko Haram who surrender

56:24

to the government and agree to undergo de-radicalization.

56:27

So now that's happening in the north and people in the south

56:29

are saying, oh, the Nigerian government is,

56:31

you know, encouraging or incentivizing terrorists

56:33

or whatever. And because Nigeria,

56:36

and, you know, this would be a topic

56:38

for, you know, many other recordings and stuff, but

56:42

there's a very complex and fragile social fabric

56:44

there, right? There's a long history of kind of mistrust

56:47

or tension, kind of has ebbed and flowed

56:49

over time, but between the different regions, between

56:51

the different ethnic groups, between, you know, different religions

56:54

and stuff in the country. And so

56:57

when you have this kind of approach to,

57:00

you know, again, that non-kinetic approach, which I think

57:02

in many instances is in fact the most effective.

57:05

But the problem is that, like, it would be great

57:08

if you could just do that in isolation and

57:11

just, you know, take care of the former militants

57:13

and, you know, give them what they need to get back on their feet

57:15

and to ensure that they're not going to become militants again

57:17

and like do it in secret from

57:20

the rest of the communities so they don't see what's happening

57:22

and then everyone's just living together hunky dory. And

57:25

then, you know, to say nothing of the rest of the country,

57:27

but that's not what happens, right? People

57:30

see how militants are treated in one region when they

57:32

surrender and they agree to a certain amnesty. And

57:35

then that, you know, kind of

57:37

influences public opinion and maybe even

57:39

to some extent, I mean, this is kind of an area

57:41

of my ongoing research. Maybe that also incentivizes

57:44

the militants in other regions to think, oh, well,

57:47

if we pick up guns, you know, then the

57:50

then we'll get something out of the state or whatever.

57:52

Right, we might end up with legitimate oil jobs. Yeah,

57:55

exactly. So it's a very complex

57:58

kind of it's a very complex. situation.

58:00

And again, I mean, like, there's no,

58:03

you know, there's no silver bullet. And I think that when

58:05

you're dealing with these, you

58:07

know, the kind of the too bad

58:09

options, right, it's like the lesser of two evils

58:12

approaches. I think that very

58:14

often, like the non kinetic approach for

58:16

all that's many flaws, I think does

58:18

hold a bit more promise in some instances, just

58:20

because, you know,

58:23

killing your way out of these insurgencies is

58:25

incredibly tough. And I

58:27

don't say that, like, as kind of some, you

58:29

know, principle pacifist or whatever, like, I

58:31

think that very often you need to tailor military

58:34

operations with the non kinetic approaches. But

58:36

like, I just struggle to think of, you know,

58:38

many insurgencies

58:40

recently in Nigeria or elsewhere, where,

58:43

you know, kind of there's been real sustainable

58:46

success, because it's like, oh, we just came in and killed

58:48

all the bad guys. Yeah, never works. It

58:50

just makes more military. Exactly. That's

58:52

not. And so it's, it's kind of just a question

58:55

of, you know, again, I mean, to

58:57

overuse that balloon analogy, it's like, yeah,

58:59

I mean, maybe maybe they buy stability

59:01

in the Niger Delta for a bit. But like that,

59:04

you know, that kind of that negative

59:07

energy, for lack of a better word, right, that

59:09

like that kind of, you

59:11

know, the the the capacity for violence

59:13

or whatever is just kind of redirected somewhere

59:16

else. And so,

59:18

yeah, I mean, it's it's tough,

59:20

because you can't you can't address like, just

59:23

you can't address the local issues without dealing

59:26

with this kind of broader national

59:28

issues of infrastructure and political economy

59:30

and all that stuff, and even to an extent nation

59:33

building. But also like to focus

59:35

just on these big lofty ideas of like, oh,

59:37

we're going to make Nigeria into this great prosperous

59:39

nation, if you're not paying attention to the particulars

59:42

on the ground and stuff, and you're designing

59:44

all of your your policies and Abuja, you

59:46

know, the capital or whatever, worse yet,

59:49

if you have the donors and Brussels and London and

59:51

Washington designing the policies for you, which,

59:53

you know, a lot of African governments, I think, frankly

59:55

fall into that issue, then, you know,

59:58

it's not going to be attuned to the local realities.

59:59

and that's going to cause its own

1:00:02

set of problems. So

1:00:04

I know I'm all over the place, but I'm just super interested

1:00:06

in this whole region. I just remembered you were

1:00:08

talking earlier a little bit about the cultists.

1:00:12

Can you talk a little bit more about that? Yeah.

1:00:15

Yeah, I mean, it's never been like a kind

1:00:18

of a principal focus of my work.

1:00:21

I'd love to kind of have the time to dig into

1:00:23

this and look at the history and trajectory and stuff.

1:00:26

But yeah, I mean, generally speaking, so

1:00:29

these were groups that kind of formed as

1:00:31

like, yeah, university

1:00:33

confraternities in, you know, particularly

1:00:35

in the 1970s and 1980s, right? So

1:00:37

like Nigeria at the time of independence, they

1:00:39

only had one college that was actually

1:00:42

like, you know, credited as

1:00:44

a full university able to, you

1:00:46

know, provide advanced degrees and stuff. So

1:00:49

the 1960s and 70s saw the expansion of higher

1:00:51

education in Nigeria where the newly independent

1:00:54

Nigerian state was actually establishing all

1:00:56

these universities because of course, under British colonialism,

1:00:58

you know, the British hadn't really wanted too many

1:01:00

Nigerians to be educated. So

1:01:03

there weren't that many universities

1:01:05

in the country. So as universities

1:01:07

kind of spread in the 70s and 80s and stuff, they,

1:01:10

you know, at the same time that there was

1:01:12

kind of like a lot of pan-Africanist sentiments

1:01:14

and stuff going around the continents

1:01:17

and then also within Nigeria, a good bit of political

1:01:19

turbulence, these kind of fraternities

1:01:22

were founded by, you know, typically young

1:01:24

men, often with kind of like

1:01:28

invoking kind of aspects of traditional religion

1:01:30

and stuff. And then also

1:01:33

in kind of this ethos of like pan-Africanism

1:01:35

and to some extent political activism. And

1:01:38

so you had a lot of the big kind of infamous

1:01:40

cults today were actually kind of formed

1:01:42

as that, right? So they're not

1:01:45

just like fraternities in the sense that

1:01:48

like a lot of American university fraternities

1:01:51

are essentially just like glorified drinking clubs, right?

1:01:54

They had like a bit more of like a political agenda

1:01:56

or at least a political leaning, though I think it varied

1:01:58

from some fraternities. to another. But

1:02:01

then kind of as a result

1:02:03

of the political tumult in the 70s and 80s into

1:02:05

the 90s, and then I also

1:02:07

think as a result of kind of the state

1:02:09

of Nigerian, the public education

1:02:12

declining with kind of structural

1:02:14

adjustment and you know, less funds going into the universities

1:02:16

and stuff, a lot of these

1:02:19

a lot of these cults kind of became involved

1:02:21

in like local criminal activities. And

1:02:24

then certainly when you had the the

1:02:27

transition to democracy in 1999, you had politicians, and

1:02:31

this is this was mostly in southern Nigeria,

1:02:33

more southern northern Nigeria, and even

1:02:35

within the south, like certain states and certain universities

1:02:38

have reputations for being real hotbeds of cultism.

1:02:42

But essentially, then you also had these like politicians

1:02:44

kind of using these like young

1:02:46

men who are typically, you know,

1:02:48

underemployed, a lot of them would be coming

1:02:51

from kind of like the rural areas

1:02:53

outside of the capital into the larger cities

1:02:55

to study for universities. So they wouldn't necessarily

1:02:58

have kind

1:03:00

of like existing social networks in the city. So

1:03:02

they would be very kind of, you know, they joined

1:03:04

these groups like these fraternities, because that's where they'd find

1:03:07

their like kind of kinship and their social safety

1:03:09

net to some extent. But you know, when you had

1:03:11

these fraternities kind of involved in local criminal

1:03:13

activities, and then you had these

1:03:16

politicians, what are often referred to as like godfathers

1:03:19

in Nigerian parlance, who are kind

1:03:21

of these these men who, you know, if they're not running

1:03:23

for office themselves, they're bankrolling

1:03:25

their own guy to like run for office so that

1:03:27

he can then, you know, be kind

1:03:30

of like be a client to the godfather. And you

1:03:32

know, the godfather can be pulling the strings behind the scenes

1:03:34

quite like Western democracy, actually. Yeah,

1:03:37

I mean, that's, that's, that's

1:03:39

a whole new put it lobbying. Right. So

1:03:42

there's a, you know, so you have, so

1:03:45

you have these kind of like some of these cults getting drawn

1:03:47

into more of like, the political side of

1:03:49

things. So in a number of like elections

1:03:52

in Nigeria, and in some

1:03:54

states, including in the Delta, and I

1:03:56

heard this from the cultists themselves, you

1:03:59

know, that like, oh, So election season, we're always

1:04:01

excited about election season. It's really lucrative

1:04:03

because we're going to get, essentially,

1:04:06

we're going to get gigs from one politician

1:04:09

or another, right? Depending on which cult you're in, it's

1:04:11

like you have that existing

1:04:13

relationship with one political party or one politician.

1:04:16

And essentially, we get paid by the politician

1:04:19

to violently disrupt rallies, to

1:04:21

maybe throw some bricks or

1:04:24

some fire bombs into the, through

1:04:26

the windows of the rival political office or

1:04:28

maybe to even engage in assassinations of

1:04:31

political candidates and stuff. So

1:04:34

yeah, and the other thing about these cults is that they've

1:04:36

become kind of a very, they've

1:04:39

actually become very transnational, international

1:04:41

in recent years. Because

1:04:44

as the kind of Nigerian diaspora has grown

1:04:46

with kind of larger ways

1:04:48

of Nigerian migration, and

1:04:51

especially, you know, it's typically, you

1:04:53

know, certainly not always, it's

1:04:55

typically slightly better educated

1:04:58

Nigerians, you know, those with university degrees

1:05:00

who are migrating abroad. And

1:05:02

so a small number of them in like,

1:05:05

you know, whether it's going to the US or, you know,

1:05:07

places like Italy or the Netherlands, or England

1:05:10

have been have kind of been involved in these cults.

1:05:13

And when they get to, you know, when they get to Europe,

1:05:15

or when they get to the US or Southeast Asia or whatever,

1:05:18

you know, then they kind of, they become like

1:05:21

the, the consigliere,

1:05:23

if you will, for the for that cult in

1:05:25

that part of the world. And so they become engaged

1:05:27

with, you know, local, whether it's drug trafficking,

1:05:30

or internet scams, prostitution,

1:05:32

human trafficking, you know, all that

1:05:34

stuff. So there's actually

1:05:37

a very good BBC documentary

1:05:40

about one particular cult called black

1:05:42

acts. I recommend everyone watch

1:05:45

it. And it's from BBC

1:05:47

Africa. I, a lot of it was actually filmed

1:05:49

near the University of Lagos. And

1:05:51

about you know, cults that have historically

1:05:54

operated on that campus, which is where I've been

1:05:56

based. And there,

1:05:58

you know, one of the interesting things about black is that

1:06:00

like they there was some

1:06:02

interval operation a year or two ago where like

1:06:04

essentially they rounded up 50 you

1:06:06

know 50 of these guys that were in countries from

1:06:09

like Mexico to Malaysia

1:06:11

to you know, Denmark to

1:06:13

Russia and stuff. I mean they really it's you

1:06:15

know it's just often one or two guys, but

1:06:17

um, they're uh, they're you know

1:06:19

all over the world and so they're involved in some of

1:06:21

these these criminal activities, um

1:06:25

And uh and that again and that actually

1:06:27

I mean beyond the the individual harm that

1:06:29

those cultists do when they're overseas

1:06:31

it actually It creates

1:06:34

tremendous headaches and real challenges

1:06:36

for the um, you know, the thousands of of

1:06:39

very well-meaning Nigerians

1:06:41

who are trying to immigrate to those countries and I you

1:06:43

know, I speak from personal experience with you know friends

1:06:46

and my partner and stuff like trying to deal with visa

1:06:49

stuff where um You

1:06:51

know in countries that have had issues with like the

1:06:53

the cultists or the the internet scammers and

1:06:55

stuff It's just like there all these other hoops you

1:06:57

have to to jump through to you know

1:06:59

prove that you're not going to engage in any sort of uh

1:07:02

nasty nasty activity while you're

1:07:04

overseas

1:07:05

so it's um

1:07:06

Yeah, anyways, that's that's kind of a long uh

1:07:09

open-ended Response,

1:07:11

but I think the the subject of cults should

1:07:13

be you you you should you should reach

1:07:16

out to another kind of

1:07:17

expert on those and and maybe kind

1:07:19

of fill you in on that because that that's a fascinating topic

1:07:21

in its own right right and They're not like from

1:07:24

what i'm understanding them. It's not like cults as

1:07:26

in the way we might see them in the west It's

1:07:29

more of just a fraternity with

1:07:31

that name like they're not doing rituals or anything

1:07:33

like that or they are I don't know All right.

1:07:35

No, actually most of them do um, but

1:07:37

I do it's the same thing I mean again, you

1:07:39

know, you're british. So you you didn't have

1:07:41

to go through the the craziness of american fraternities.

1:07:44

Um, no Yeah, it's really really

1:07:47

you got yo they do

1:07:49

They like drown people and shit, right

1:07:51

like kick the shit out of people. Yeah Some

1:07:54

of them aren't that bad, but certainly there there are enough

1:07:56

of them that have that like stereotypical

1:07:59

You know that there are enough of them that kind of fit

1:08:01

the bill to kind of perpetuate

1:08:03

that stereotype. But you know,

1:08:05

like the, you know, American fraternities,

1:08:07

right, they were also formed as

1:08:09

secret societies, right? Same thing as like the

1:08:11

Freemasons or whatever. I mean, like the

1:08:13

Freemasons today, they still exist in

1:08:16

the US. I'm not a Freemason,

1:08:18

so I don't know, but I'm like pretty confident

1:08:20

that they're not actually doing all this like crazy

1:08:22

conspiratorial stuff that you might read about

1:08:25

on the internet. I really think it's just like a

1:08:27

social club for adults, but they still

1:08:29

have these like, you know, secret rituals and stuff.

1:08:31

And same thing like most fraternities, most

1:08:33

guys just joined because like, you know, they want to drink

1:08:36

and, you know, hook up with girls and stuff.

1:08:38

But there's still this element of like, you know,

1:08:40

the brotherhood and the secret rituals to

1:08:42

enforce all that. So

1:08:45

like the Nigerian cults, like, especially

1:08:47

like, they really are doing like

1:08:50

secret conspiratorial stuff now, right? Like most

1:08:52

of them are actually involved in criminal violence

1:08:55

and in criminal conspiracies, you know, in some

1:08:57

instances, colluding with working

1:08:59

with like very senior Nigerian political figures.

1:09:02

And so like they really

1:09:04

do take like oaths of secrecy and stuff very

1:09:06

seriously. That's why something like the BBC

1:09:08

Africa eye documentary

1:09:12

is, is notable because it's like, it's not necessarily

1:09:14

easy to get access to like these cult meetings

1:09:16

or whatever. And when I've interviewed

1:09:19

cultists, you know, it's not been like in

1:09:21

their, you know, secret trine or whatever,

1:09:23

it's, it's, you know, been interviewing them one on

1:09:25

one or whatever. So

1:09:27

yeah, I mean, there's, they

1:09:29

do actually engage in a lot of these secret rituals,

1:09:32

some of them, you know,

1:09:35

are more kind of violent than others.

1:09:38

It can sometimes be hard to know, because there's so much

1:09:40

like rumor. So it's hard to know, like, you

1:09:42

know, how much is sensationalized? Like, does this cult

1:09:44

really actually like, you know, perform

1:09:47

cannibalism as part of the initiation? Okay,

1:09:49

maybe not. And then in other instances, it's like, oh,

1:09:52

no, like, you actually have a detailed police

1:09:54

report showing that yeah, these, you

1:09:56

know, so some of some of them are really,

1:09:58

you know, do some pretty bonkers

1:10:00

stuff. So I don't mean to downplay

1:10:03

that. I just think that their

1:10:05

trajectory is interesting from kind of

1:10:07

emerging as more of like an activist movement

1:10:10

into

1:10:10

more of a criminal underworld. I

1:10:14

just put in quickly in the Google about

1:10:17

the cults and there's this guy, a techie

1:10:20

Tom, King a techie Tom. You

1:10:22

know this guy, his Royal Majesty. Yeah,

1:10:25

and I'm looking at his Insta and

1:10:27

I mean, the Royal family in England doesn't

1:10:30

have this much like gold chairs and plates

1:10:32

and stuff. Yeah, this looks

1:10:34

high end cult, definitely. Yeah,

1:10:36

well, and it's interesting you mentioned him because he's actually

1:10:39

one of the big players in the Niger Delta conflict as

1:10:41

well. And so I take

1:10:43

it Tom was, yeah, he's a longstanding

1:10:45

kind of cultist or, you know, at least

1:10:48

by allegation, I don't think he's ever fessed up

1:10:50

to his, you know, original cult ties,

1:10:54

but he was actually someone who like when the Niger

1:10:56

Delta conflict was kicking off, he

1:10:58

formed what was called the Niger Delta vigilantes.

1:11:00

And so his like militia outfit,

1:11:03

you know, they claimed to be, you

1:11:05

know, providing protection to the local people

1:11:08

from the militants, from the pirates and all that stuff.

1:11:10

You talk to a lot of people from Ocrica, you know, from his

1:11:13

area, they'll say, actually, they were engaged in all

1:11:15

the criminal activities that they claimed to be

1:11:17

fighting against. And they were also kind

1:11:19

of co-opted by local politicians

1:11:21

and, you know, so they kind of,

1:11:24

they were very much part of that dynamic of like the

1:11:26

gray zone of criminality. But

1:11:29

I take it Tom's interesting, cause like he kind of, he

1:11:31

positions himself as, you

1:11:33

know, one of the big militants,

1:11:36

because the militants, at least in the Niger

1:11:38

Delta are kind of, you know, they're talked

1:11:40

about, I think, it's probably

1:11:42

safe to say, like a decent portion of the population

1:11:45

kind of sees the militants, even if they don't always agree

1:11:47

with the tactics, they'll see the militants as like, primarily

1:11:50

being driven by grievance and like actually

1:11:53

trying to address or like redress

1:11:55

real wrongs and injustices. And

1:11:58

the militant- That makes sense. Yeah. The militants

1:12:00

themselves certainly position themselves, they won't

1:12:02

say, you know, we're militants, they'll say we're freedom

1:12:04

fighters, right? We're fighting for the Delta people.

1:12:07

And so like, Ateke Tom will position

1:12:09

himself as like one of the militants, one of those like freedom

1:12:11

fighters, but a lot of his kind

1:12:14

of adversaries will say like, no, no, no,

1:12:16

he's not a militant, like he's a cultist.

1:12:19

I was interviewing one, you know, once

1:12:22

a militants for this, you know, an Atra

1:12:24

Delta expose I did last year. And when

1:12:26

I mentioned Ateke Tom in like the same breath

1:12:29

as a bunch of other militants, and the guy cut

1:12:31

me off and he's like, no, no, no, Ateke Tom's not a militant,

1:12:33

he's a cultist, right? Like he's

1:12:35

a step below us, he's a criminal. He

1:12:38

didn't, he never purported to fight for, you

1:12:41

know, for the actual like people of the Niger Delta.

1:12:44

Yeah, I mean, there's a lot, you know, I don't, I haven't done

1:12:46

like deep biographies on all these individual

1:12:48

guys. So I'm not gonna weigh in on the specific

1:12:51

accusations or counter accusations, but it

1:12:53

is interesting how the different

1:12:56

labels kind of carry different connotations and

1:12:58

carry different weight within the Delta and

1:13:00

outside the Delta. Yeah, no, it's so

1:13:03

interesting. I

1:13:05

wanna meet Ateke Tom, this guy

1:13:07

looks just, I love his

1:13:09

crown and stuff, man. Yeah,

1:13:11

it's a mad situation out there. Is

1:13:14

there any sign that the

1:13:18

incoming government or whatever is

1:13:20

like particularly focused on this region?

1:13:23

To be honest, you know, I don't think

1:13:25

that this government or even the last government

1:13:27

was particularly focused just

1:13:29

because, you

1:13:30

know, like I was saying earlier, you know, even

1:13:33

on the security front, which I don't

1:13:35

think security is always or even usually

1:13:37

actually a priority of the Nigerian political

1:13:39

elite. I think that's one reason

1:13:41

that Nigeria is the way it is today is that there's a lot

1:13:44

of negligence from the politicians. But

1:13:47

even within the security arena, like

1:13:49

Nigeria for the past 20 years, it's kind of

1:13:51

just been like putting out one fire after another

1:13:53

or at least attempting to. And

1:13:56

so right now, like, even though the

1:13:58

Niger Delta conflict because of the of that, you

1:14:01

know, because of it has the

1:14:03

potential to be almost an existential crisis

1:14:05

because of the oil and the ability of the militants to

1:14:07

kind of threaten that. But

1:14:10

kind of since 2009, like, to

1:14:12

a large extent, like the government

1:14:15

and you know, was able to kind of bring the conflict

1:14:17

down to a lower boil, if you will. And

1:14:20

I say the government and again, there's like a lot

1:14:22

of it was, you know, the work had already been done for the government

1:14:24

because there was already so much competition between

1:14:26

the militants. But like, essentially, that strategy

1:14:29

that the government employed of like the amnesty and

1:14:31

the security contract was a way to kind

1:14:33

of like reduce the tensions a bit. And

1:14:35

so, you know, and that actually happened,

1:14:38

like, you know, that presidential amnesty program came into

1:14:40

effect in 2009, which was the same year the Boko

1:14:42

Haram conflict started. And by 2013, the

1:14:44

Boko Haram conflict had just like escalated

1:14:47

like crazy. You know, really,

1:14:49

by like 2011, things were getting really bad in

1:14:51

the north with Boko Haram. And then, you

1:14:53

know, since I'd say 2018, 2019, or really since 2016, Boko Haram has been

1:14:55

a bit

1:14:58

more contained, though it's still very much, you

1:15:01

know, a challenge in the Northeast. And

1:15:03

to some extent, you know, there are cells elsewhere in the

1:15:05

country. But just as Boko Haram is being contained,

1:15:07

you have like banditry and farmer-herder conflicts

1:15:09

exploding in central and northwestern Nigeria.

1:15:12

And then just in the past two years, you've had kind of a resurgent,

1:15:15

secessionist violence in the southeast. So

1:15:17

just because of that, because of the kind of the constantly

1:15:20

evolving and overlapping security challenges, the

1:15:23

Niger Delta actually gets pretty easily forgotten.

1:15:26

Because I think that the kind

1:15:28

of thinking of the Nigerian government,

1:15:30

you know, the Nigerian political elite, whether

1:15:32

it's this president, the former one, you know, even

1:15:34

the big opposition candidates and stuff, assuming

1:15:38

the thinking is just like, well,

1:15:40

look, no one's really solved this conflict, right?

1:15:43

And, you know, so long as we can just like

1:15:45

keep things kind of at a low boil,

1:15:47

and then kind of keep it under wraps, like,

1:15:50

I shouldn't let myself get too stressed about this issue,

1:15:53

because, you know, frankly, they've been dealing

1:15:55

with, you know, kind of like agitations

1:15:57

in the Niger Delta since Ibrahim Babangita.

1:16:00

was, you know, military had a state in the early 90s,

1:16:02

right? So like, I don't think any president

1:16:05

kind of comes into office thinking that they're really gonna

1:16:07

like fix it overnight. I mean, maybe they

1:16:09

do. The current president, Sunubu,

1:16:11

who was inaugurated in May, you know,

1:16:14

he's, I mean, his whole, like a big part

1:16:16

of his agenda is to try to kind

1:16:19

of, you know, revamp the Nigerian economy and stuff.

1:16:21

And part of that, at least on paper, involves

1:16:24

modernizing the oil sector, but also, you

1:16:27

know, moving away from dependency on oil. But

1:16:29

you know, every Nigerian president

1:16:31

in the first year of their administration, you know, or

1:16:34

during the campaign, they have, you

1:16:36

know, they all kind of promise the same thing, right? They're

1:16:38

going to revamp the oil sector, they're going to diversify

1:16:40

the Nigerian economy, they're going to provide jobs for the

1:16:42

youths. And yeah, they're going to handle insecurity

1:16:44

and stuff. I think

1:16:47

so far, we haven't seen any kind of major moves

1:16:49

in the delta that point to

1:16:51

kind of a real paradigm shift. But

1:16:54

like I said, you know, there are, there's a possibility

1:16:57

that maybe the current president will adopt more

1:16:59

of a kind of business transactional

1:17:01

approach.

1:17:03

And so yeah, I think, I think, you know,

1:17:06

we'll see what happens in the coming months. All

1:17:08

right, mate.

1:17:09

I think a lot of our listeners will be really interested

1:17:13

to follow your work that you did out

1:17:15

there. Obviously, you went there, you were on the ground. Where

1:17:17

can people do that? Where's the best place?

1:17:20

Yeah, thanks. I mean, I think

1:17:22

I have the Twitter, the

1:17:25

Twitter, you know, mind virus, like

1:17:27

a lot of other people. So you can follow me there.

1:17:29

I spend too much time on Twitter. My

1:17:33

profile or username,

1:17:36

yeah, it's at JH underscore Barnett.

1:17:39

And then also, if you go to the website of the Hudson

1:17:41

Institute, which is a think tank that I'm affiliated with

1:17:44

in Washington, DC. There

1:17:46

you can also see in my profile.

1:17:49

You can see a lot of my writing there. All right.

1:17:52

Thanks very much. That was really, really interesting. Yeah,

1:17:54

thanks, Jake, for having me. It's a pleasure to be on.

1:18:02

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