Niger Delta Militants bombed a pipeline feeding electricity to Chevron’s Escravos terminal Thursday, shutting down the U.S.-based oil major’s onshore operations in Nigeria, the attackers and residents said.
The attack comes as community leaders in Nigeria’s oil-producing Niger Delta are voicing support for a new group of violent militants, saying their demands for a greater share of oil wealth match the aspirations of local people to protest decades of abuse and pollution.
Participants in a stakeholders’ meeting Thursday in Warri accused Nigeria’s government of a heavy-handed military response and warned such a campaign will not stop attacks that have cut oil production by more than 40 percent. The attacks have caused Nigeria to lose its position as the conti nent’s biggest producer to Angola.
The bomb attack Thursday forced U.S.-based oil major Chevron to halt onshore activities in Nigeria at its 160,000-barrel a day Escravos export terminal. It was the third attack this month on Chevron.
It was the third assault on a Chevron Nigeria facility this month. It’s the latest in a string of attacks claimed by the Niger Delta Avengers that has brought Nigerian production to a 20-year low and lost the West African nation its position as the continent’s biggest oil producer to Angola.
The attack forced Chevron to suspend operations at the terminal exporting more than 160,000 barrels a day, residents said. They spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals from soldiers deployed to halt attacks.
Meanwhile community leaders meeting Thursday warned the sweeping military campaign has thousands of people fleeing the fallout and will not halt the attacks.
“Zero Chevron,” the Avengers, a new group, gloated on social media. “We warned #Chevron but they didn’t listen.”
The Avengers have ordered all oil companies to leave the southern oil-producing delta by the end of May. They say they want a greater share of Nigeria’s oil wealth for delta residents whose fishing and agricultural grounds have been destroyed by oil pollution.
In a surprise development, civilian leaders sided with the attackers, calling them “armed agitators” protesting failed government policies.
“Until the issues of resource control that the Niger Delta people have been fighting for since 1960 are addressed … there can be no peace,” said Udengs Eradiri, president of the Ijaw Youth Congress.
Leaders called for “true fiscal federalism” and self-determination.
The Niger Delta Avengers, who have claimed recent attacks, have been calling for secession.
Politicians have been trading accusations about who is sponsoring the Avengers, with southern politicians accusing the party of President Muhammadu Buhari, a northerner, of fomenting a crisis to allow it to militarize the south; Buhari’s supporters say it’s an attempt to embarrass his government by adherents of former President Goodluck Jonathan, a southerner.
But analysts say the Avengers may be funded by Christian southerners opposed to President Muhammadu Buhari, a Muslim from the north and ex-militants deprived of multi-million dollar pipeline protection contracts in the Delta region.
The attacks come as Buhari’s year-old government is weighed down by crises: shortages of electricity, fuel and foreign currency and an imminent devaluation of the naira currency caused by plunged oil prices, the ongoing Boko Haram Islamic extremist uprising in the northeast and ethnic unrest in central Nigeria.
Buhari marks his first year in power Monday beset by crises.