Buhari’s Delta gamble

Fresh violence in Nigeria’s oil heartland is cutting output and threatening upstream investment

AFTER several years of relatively subdued activity, violence in the Niger Delta has erupted again, escalating beyond a spate of attacks on oil pipelines to an assault on a Chevron-owned oil platform in early May. Oil production has been badly hit and producers must once more review their strategies in the region. The upsurge in unrest followed a change of tone in government relations with militants in the Niger Delta – the heart of the country’s oil industry – who have waged a decades-long campaign to win a greater share of the country’s oil wealth for their still largely impoverished region. President Muhammadu Buhari, who came to power after last year’s elections, has kept in place some fi