Pollution protesters attack Chevron oil platform in Nigeria

Armed militants attacked and blew up a Chevron oil and gas platform off Nigeria’s southern Niger Delta region on Wednesday, the Nigerian military said today. The bombing is the latest in an ongoing spate of attacks by disgruntled militants that have threatened the country’s power supply. Officials worry the bombing campaign marks the resurgence of militancy in the region.

Chevron’s spokesman, Deji Haastrup, said the attack on its Okan platform forced the facility’s closure, but it will not affect the company’s commitment to export crude. Chevron is the third largest exporter in Nigeria, where crude oil sales make up 70 percent of the national income.

The Niger Delta Avengers, a new rebel group, took responsibility for the attack and threatened anyone who tries to repair the platform.

“This is what we promised the Nigerian government,” the group said in a written statement. “Since they have refused to listen to us, we are going to bring the country’s economy to zero.”

The group threatened more attacks in Nigeria’s capital, Abuja, and in Lagos, the country’s commercial center. In February, the Niger Delta Avengers claimed responsibility for an attack on a Shell oil pipeline that resulted in the facility’s shutdown.

Local authorities believe members of the rebel group are affiliated with the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, a group formed to protest the effects of oil pollution on the region’s predominantly fishing and agricultural communities by destroying several pipelines and oil facilities across the region. In 2009, the government offered the militants an amnesty deal that included unconditional pardons and stipends to some 30,000 militants who laid down their arms. The deal ended attacks that killed 1,000 people a year and reduced the country’s oil production by 40 percent. But the current administration’s plan to end the amnesty program has renewed frustrations among the militants.

Nigeria’s power supply has been unstable over the past year—a problem largely blamed on gas pipeline vandalism. Nigeria’s The Nation newspaper said power output has fluctuated between 5,000 megawatts and 1,455 megawatts.

In response, security forces launched an attack and deployed several military chiefs across the region. President Muhammadu Buhari said the country will treat all vandalism and attacks on oil platforms as economic sabotage.

“The government is still being dared, but those who are sensible would have learned a lesson,” Buhari said in April. “I hope this message will reach the vandals and saboteurs who are blowing up pipelines and installations: We will deal with them the way we dealt with Boko Haram.”

The Nigerian government is battling the Niger Delta militancy as Boko Haram’s insurgency ravages the northeast and increasingly violent clashes continue between armed nomadic herdsmen and farmers across the country.