Oil Companies Fail to Bolster Peace in Nigeria, Presidential Adviser Says

Bloomberg

15 July 2011

Oil Companies Fail to Bolster Peace in Nigeria, Presidential Adviser Says

Peace in Nigeria’s main oil- producing area is threatened by the failure of companies to invest in improving residents’ living standards, a special adviser to President Goodluck Jonathan said.

While a government amnesty in August 2009 ended most of the fighting in the Niger River delta and disarmed thousands of militant fighters, the oil companies “are not giving back,” Kingsley Kuku, the president’s adviser on the region, said yesterday in an interview in London.

Oil output in Nigeria, Africa’s biggest producer, has risen to more than 2.1 million barrels a day from 1.7 million barrels in July 2009, a month before the amnesty. Attacks by armed groups cut more than 28 percent of oil output between 2006 and 2009, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.