What´s going on in Nigeria?

Thursday March 27th

Last tuesday, March 18th, there was an explosion in the Trans-Niger pipeline. The pipeline is recognized for being critical infrastructure in the Nigerian economy, as it its responsible for transporting 450.000 barrels of oil per day from the oil fields in the Niger delta to Bonny terminal. The incident must be seen in accordance with similar attacks and political instabilities in the same area from the locals. Regional leaders for the communities in the area have demanded increased shares of the oil revenue from the federal government. The values that are being discussed is so substantial for the local communities that they have threatened with disruption in oil production if their demands are not met. In the past, some of the crude oil was transported by trucks, but these have been banned by the federal government because of the repeated attacks on the vehicles.

Historically the oil production in Nigeria have been regularly discussed and critiqued. Criticism have been related to oil spills, ownership of the resources and responsibility. 

The political instability in the country is hampering President Bola Tinubus goal of exporting 2 million barrels of oil per day, and furthermore the economic growth of the country. The situation arises the question, how should the ownership structure for natural resources, and crude oil particularily, be in reality? Should the federal government reduce some of its influence and revenue to the regions?

An option for the federal government is a decentralized oil revenue model, which could ease some tensions in the area and increase total revenue from exports with more stable transportation by keeping  pipelines intact. This would ensure a greater part of the revenue is directly reinvested in distributed to the areas where the resource is extracted. Additionally the regional government should further invest in preventing oil spills and taking better care of the environment. 

But what would the rest of the country say?