Photos: YouTube\Wikimedia Commons
A Nigerian oil pipeline damaged by a blast last week has been restored, its owner said, though the political fallout from the explosion persists.
Oil accounts for more than 90% of the country’s foreign exchange earnings, and the Trans-Niger Pipeline has a capacity of 450,000 barrels per day — about a third of the output in Africa’s biggest crude-producing nation.
A rupture at the pipeline in Rivers state triggered a domestic political crisis, with President Bola Tinubu declaring a state of emergency, and suspending both the governor and local legislature. Tinubu’s move “looks like decisive action… but it isn’t,” a Bloomberg columnist warned. Nigeria’s leader “has chosen a quasi-military solution for a political problem.”
