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UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

NIGERIA: Third U.S. warship arrives for Niger Delta duty

LAGOS, 5 September 2003 (IRIN) - Nigeria has received a third U.S. warship donated under a security cooperation programme and is deploying ships to check unrest and crude oil theft in the Niger Delta, officials said on Friday.

The ‘NNS Nwambe’ which docked at the Lagos port on Thursday is among seven former Coast Guard ships being refurbished and sent to Nigeria by the U. S Defence Department at the cost of US $3.5 million each. The first two arrived in March and the rest are scheduled for delivery before the end of the year.

The ships come without arms and ammunition but are fitted with canons and machine guns by the Nigerian authorities before deployment.

“Our national assets in the sea are worth billions of dollars and the arrival of NNS Nwambe would help to safeguard them,” head of Nigeria’s navy, Vice-Admiral Sunday Afolayan, was quoted as saying by an official statement.

The authorities in Nigeria estimate that between 200,000 and 300,000 barrels of crude oil (10-15 percent) of daily production of about two million barrels are being stolen from pipelines into sea vessels for sale abroad by sophisticated criminal gangs operating in the Niger Delta oil region.

The shadowy figures behind this racket are widely believed to have flooded the Niger Delta with sophisticated weaponry that are used by the tribal gangs to attack each other and the government's security forces.

More than two hundred people have died in clashes between rival ethnic Ijaw and Itsekiri militias around the oil industry hub of Warri in March and August this year. Oil operations have also been seriously disrupted.

The Nigerian navy said increased patrols of the country’s territorial waters in recent months have yielded results, including the arrest of several suspects and the impounding of 15 ships suspected to have been used in the theft of crude oil.

Theme(s): (IRIN) Conflict, (IRIN) Economy

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