ZANU-PF stashes the cash

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THE INSIDE VIEW

‘Blood Oil’ is the term coined by Dele Cole, a veteran politician from Nigeria’s River State, for the billions of dollars of oil stolen yearly from the Niger Delta. Oil companies in Nigeria reckon the country is losing more than 100,000 barrels a day in organised heists, often with the connivance of the security forces. It was a short trip for Cole from an opinion piece in London’s Financial Times to driving an international campaign. Cole prompted President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua to raise the blood oil banner at the G8 summit in Japan and in talks this week with Gordon Brown, the British Premier. Brown has offered ‘to assist the Nigerian government to launch a campaign at the UN to declare stolen crude to be blood oil – just like they’ve done with the Kimberley diamond (process),’ Yar’Adua told Africa Confidential. He added that Britain was willing to help set up a tracking system for the stolen crude and declare it contraband. Such cooperation may have unintended results, as could Cole’s idea that private military companies police the oil cargoes and take a percentage of all stolen oil retrieved. After Brown offered training for Nigerian soldiers in the Delta, militants said they would end their ceasefire and that British interests ‘would suffer the consequences’. Undaunted we hear that private military companies – such as Aegis and Blackwater – are prospecting for business in the Niger Delta. Apparently Iraq’s regulations are getting too onerous.