Oil gives unhappy Nigerians leverage

KOROKORO, Nigeria – Young boys scamper along weed-entangled pipes, transforming an oil-pumping station marked “Not In Use” into a jungle gym in the heart of Nigeria’s lawless oil region. Nearby wells rust under the palm trees, and gas-flaring chimneys have gone cold.

The scene in Ogoniland, where villagers ousted oil companies in the 1990s, offers a glimpse of the industry’s worst-case scenario: an absolute shutdown of production across the Niger Delta, where strife has already cut production by a quarter.


That would send already high oil and gasoline prices soaring. Particularly hard hit would be the United States, which relies on the turbulent West African nation for more than 10 percent of its crude needs. Therein lies the leverage for unhappy and impoverished Nigerians.

Protests against oil companies began here in Ogoniland, 500 square miles of oil-rich land where villagers drove out the oil companies in the 1990s. That brought relative peace