Partisan wrangling and commercial manoeuvring have derailed plans to make the oil and gas industry more efficient and accountable
Efforts towards comprehensive reform of Nigeria’s oil and gas industry are in tatters some five years after the first version of the Petroleum Industry Bill was presented to Parliament. After several redrafts, the PIB is still on the floor of the National Assembly and at the centre of partisan disputes, as parliamentarians pick over clauses which they claim favour one region of the country over another.Meanwhile, well connected companies and officials continue to benefit from an opaque system of management and operation that has allowed as much as US$100 billion to be siphoned off from state oil and gas revenue over the past decade, according to a report drawn up by the former anti-corruption czar, Nuhu Ribadu (AC Vol 53 No 9).
With Map: Recent Boko Haram activity: bombings, shootings, kidnappings, jailbreaks
At face value, the declaration by President Goodluck Jonathan’s government, dominated by appointees from the oil-rich Niger Delta, of a state of emergency in north-east Nigeria and...
Senior army officers are falling out over a succession plan which favours President Museveni’s son, Brigadier Kainerugaba Muhoozi
The raid by armed police on the Daily Monitor offices in Kampala on 20 May has deepened the political crisis. The newspaper had published a private letter from a dissident military...