US embassy cable - 03ABUJA1333

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 ABUJA 001333 
 
SIPDIS 
 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 08/06/2013 
TAGS: EPET, PINS, PGOV, ASEC, NI 
SUBJECT: OBASANJO TALKS TOUGH ON OIL THEFT AND WARRI CRISIS 
 
REF: A. ABUJA 1328 
     B. ABUJA 1286 
 
 
Classified by Charge d'Affaires, a.i. Dawn M. Liberi; reasons 
1.5 (b) and (d). 
 
 
1.(C) President Obasanjo summoned Charge Liberi and other 
diplomatic chiefs of mission to his office August 6 for a 
short briefing on the theft of oil in the Niger Delta.  The 
extraordinarily short (25 minutes) meeting gave the 
diplomatic corps a warning of imminent security force action 
in the Delta, most probably concentrated in the Warri region. 
 
 
 
 
2.(C) During the short briefing using power-points, the 
President highlighted the fact that the volume of crude oil 
lost to theft has  hit levels not seen since 1999, the last 
year of military rule.  As a result, Nigeria is losing over 
$3 billion a year, and is having difficulty meeting its OPEC 
oil production quota.  This theft is carried out by organized 
groups who siphon crude  oil from pipelines to coastal barges 
and ocean-going tankers.  Nigeria cannot afford this 
hemorrhaging of national revenues, he declared.   Noting that 
this illegal trade is protected by well armed militants, 
Obasanjo warned that Nigerian security forces may soon have 
to "disarm" them. 
 
 
3.(C) The Charge asked the President if efforts were being 
made to prosecute the perpetrators of this large-scale, 
organized oil theft.  After turning to his advisors, he 
responded that the government was indeed prosecuting 
offenders and that a "task force" was being established for 
this purpose.  The Charge also asked about his prior day's 
meeting with a group of traditional leaders from the 
oil-producing South-South region, which he proclaimed a great 
success; "they agreed with me and will cooperate" in attempts 
to curb oil theft. 
 
 
4.(C) Another diplomat queried the President on where the 
stolen crude oil was being sold, to which he replied "oil 
refineries in Cote d'Ivoire and Cameroon." 
 
 
5.(C) According to Ijaw national leader Chief Edwin K. Clark, 
a group of South-South traditional rulers and youth leaders 
was summoned to the Presidential Villa August 5 for a meeting 
on oil theft and pipeline vandalization.  In an August 6 
meeting with CRO, Clark cited the President's quote of over 
USD three billion per year as the annual cost of oil stolen 
and claimed Obasanjo called upon the community leaders to 
assist the federal government in suppressing such crimes. 
 
 
6.(C)  According to Clark, the President's meeting started 
with the viewing of a "video" on bunkering activity, showing 
the barges, oil tankers, valves and hoses/pipes used to tap 
into Shell and Chevron's pipelines and flow stations. 
(Comment: This was probably the slide show of surveillance 
photographs taken and assembled by Shell and given to the 
President recently. End Comment) Clark commented that the 
photos showed that this activity is not orchestrated by 
simple youths in the oil swamps but rather by powerful and 
sophisticated "barons" capable of marshaling resources like 
ocean-going oil tankers.  Nevertheless, the Ijaw chief 
conceded that "the boys" (his term for the Ijaw militants of 
the Federated Niger Delta Ijaw Communities--FNDIC) are a 
party to some of the oil theft. 
 
 
7.(C) After the video presentation, Obasanjo discussed how 
the communities could play a helpful role in curbing the loss 
of oil.  Clark and other ethnic leaders proposed community 
patrols to find and detain anyone attempting to tap into oil 
companies' pipelines or flow stations.  According to Clark, 
the President and ethnic leaders assembled agreed to create 
community-level watch groups, headed by community chairmen 
and involving youth such as the Ijaw militants of Warri, 
provided that the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) 
support these community patrols in cash and in kind.  The 
Chairman of the NDDC, Onyema Ugochukwu, and his acting 
deputy, Timi Alaibe, were at the meeting and agreed to fund 
the community patrol initiative, said Clark. 
 
 
Warri Notes 
------------ 
 
 
8.(C) Turning to the recent upsurge in violence in the Warri 
riverine area, Clark downplayed the significance of the 
August 2 Itsekiri attacks on three Ijaw villages, claiming 
these were "small villages" and revealing that residents of 
the Ijaw village near the Warri Refinery had been involved in 
the theft of oil.  Clark stated he had met with the Ijaw 
youth militants (FNDIC) immediately after the August 2 
attacks and persuaded them to refrain from engaging in 
retaliatory strikes, absent additional Itsekiri provocations. 
 
 
 
 
9.(C) In an August 6 meeting with ECONCONS and CRO, NDDC 
Acting Managing Director Timi Alaibe confirmed the plan to 
create local community patrol committees that the NDDC will 
compensate.  He characterized this plan as one of three parts 
of the larger security strategy for the Niger Delta that 
President Obasanjo began unveiling at the August 5 meeting. 
The second element is the creation of a federal security task 
force, comprised of police, army, navy and the NDDC, which 
will attempt to restore peace and security in the Warri 
region first.  The third element is an intensified effort to 
find a political solution to the Warri crisis.  Alaibe 
acknowledged that the NDDC's role in supporting community 
patrol committees will call for significant new funds for the 
already strapped Commission, but he claimed that President 
Obasanjo has pledged to provide supplemental funding. 
 
 
Comment 
------- 
10.(C) President Obasanjo appears to be confounding two 
separate security issues -- the theft of oil in the Delta and 
the rise of ethnic militancy.  Although there is overlap, as 
the Ijaw militants are clearly involved in oil theft, the 
threats are distinct.  Obasanjo may view it as expedient, 
however, to crack down on the militants of Warri under the 
guise of fighting oil bunkering crime.  The initiative to 
create community-based patrol groups may be little more than 
fluff in light of the ominous warning of a security crackdown 
but, if serious, could be counter-productive.  Such an 
attempt to use economic incentives to control belligerent 
youth involved in oil theft could easily be transformed into 
an extortion scheme by the militants, such as occurred to oil 
companies' well intentioned plans to improve security in the 
swamps through funding of community youth "home guards." 
LIBERI