Boko Haram’s new boldness put Nigeria’s search for oil on hold

By Odunewu Segun

The audacious kidnapping of a team of geologists contracted by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) by Islamist militants in the Northeast has hurt FG’s ambition to find new crude reserves in Nigeria’s least developed region.

The team was hired by NNPC to conduct geological surveys in parts of the Lake Chad basin.

It was the state company’s first attempt to find oil reserves in the area since exploration was put on hold in 2014 following a surge of violence.

Recall that the Boko Haram Islamist group on July 25 staged an ambush on the geologists hired from the University of Maiduguri and soldiers in a bid to disrupt attempts to find oil reserves in regions other than the restive southern Niger River delta

National Daily gathered that at least 48 people died in the attack, according to medical and military officials in the city of Maiduguri who asked not to be named as they weren’t authorized to comment.

They are being held by a Boko Haram faction of Abu Musab al-Barnawi, the leader recognized by the Islamic State, according to one of the captives.

“It’s been a very long time since we had such an audacious attack,” said Freedom Onuoha, a senior lecturer of political science at the University of Nigeria in Nsukka in the southeast.

The July 25 attack in what was considered a low-risk area shows that the insurgency is “re-invigorated” in Nigeria, according to Nnamdi Obasi, senior Nigeria analyst at the Brussels-based International Crisis Group.

ALSO SEE: Boko Haram threatens oil prospecting in Northeast, abducts 10

“For a government that had held up its counter-insurgency campaign as its foremost achievement, this attack and other recent attacks could jeopardize that achievement,” he said.

Nigeria has been plagued by a decline in the production and the price of oil as the economy shrank 1.6 percent last year, the first full-year contraction since 1991. Sabotage of oil pipelines in the Niger River delta, where almost all of Nigeria’s crude is currently produced, cut output to a 27-year low last year and deprived the government of an estimated $7 billion in income.

Minister of State for Petroleum Resources Emmanuel Kachikwu has vowed the search for oil in the northeast will continue, saying exploration will resume as soon as the military has given security clearance. “The objective of this patriotic exercise is to open up new areas for oil exploration for the common good of all Nigerians,” Acting President Yemi Osinbajo said in a statement on July 30.

Boko Haram has waged an eight-year war from its base in the northeast to impose its version of Islamic law in Africa’s most populous country, leaving tens of thousands of people dead and forcing millions to flee.