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A ruptured pipeline in Nigeria has sparked a political crisis, highlighting the challenge of increasing output — and revenues — in Africa’s biggest crude oil-exporting nation.
The Trans-Niger Pipeline in the southern state of Rivers has the capacity to carry 450,000 barrels of oil per day — about a third of the country’s output — from production fields to an export terminal. An initial assessment of the explosion along a section of the line by owner Renaissance Africa Energy, a consortium of four local companies and a foreign partner, blamed arson. Vandalism and theft along pipelines have been cited as reasons for the country’s failure to reap the rewards of high global oil prices in recent years.
Within a day of the incident, President Bola Tinubu declared a state of emergency and suspended the local governor, his deputy, and all state parliament lawmakers for six months — a deeply unusual move whose legality is now being questioned by lawyers, opposition politicians, and democracy activists.
