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Nigeria: Questions Mount Over U.S. Airstrikes in Northern Nigeria$

By Leslie Varenne, MondAfrique: The American strikes carried out in Nigeria on Christmas Day raise serious questions. Beyond the confusion surrounding the objectives of the operation, inconsistencies in official statements, and the unclear nature of the targets, the...

Nigeria grapples with end of fuel subsidyF

By Alexandre Martins Lopes: Nigerians are struggling with surging fuel prices after newly elected President Bola Tinubu declared an end to popular subsidies, a move analysts and experts said was long overdue. On his first day in office, Tinubu kept to his campaign...

Nigeria: Seven killed in oil production facility in Niger DeltaF

Posted On 9 July 2020

Abuja, July 8, 2020 – An explosion at an oil production facility in southern Nigeria has killed seven workers, the country’s state-run oil group said on Wednesday. The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) said the blast happened during operations at the Gbetiokun OML 40 production platform in the Niger Delta region of the West African country.
“The incident, which occurred on Tuesday during the installation of a ladder on a platform… unfortunately caused seven fatalities,” the NNPC said in a statement. The company said other workers on the facility have been accounted for, and an investigation has been launched into the incident. The NNPC said the victims were employees of a firm engaged for the job.
Although Tuesday’s incident was due to an operational factor, pipeline and tanker truck explosions are common in Nigeria, where most people live in poverty even though the country is the biggest oil producer on the continent, with around two million barrels per day.  Some incidents happen when residents try to siphon off oil or petrol from pipelines or when tanker drivers have accidents on the country’s ill-maintained roads. In March, a gas explosion in the commercial capital Lagos killed at least 15 people, injured many more and destroyed around 50 buildings.
AFP

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Seven months into an air campaign against ISWAP and Boko Haram, Nigeria’s broader insecurity crisis remains largely untouched. As Washington weighs a similar strike option against JNIM in Mali, the Nigeria case raises hard questions about what airpower can actually buy.

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