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| Africa Subsaharan |
| Nigeria Discovers Oil In Former Boko Haram Heartland |
| 2016-12-17 |
| [NEWSWEEK] Nigeria’s government says it has discovered crude oil in Borno state, the northeastern state that has borne the brunt of Boko Haram ... not to be confused with Procol Harum, Harum Scarum, possibly to be confused with Helter Skelter. The Nigerian version of al-Qaeda and the Taliban rolled together and flavored with a smigeon of distinctly Subsaharan ignorance and brutality... ’s seven-year insurgency. Jamila Shua’ra, the permanent secretary of Nigeria’s petroleum ministry, announced the find during a presentation at the Petroleum Technology Development Fund in the capital Abuja on Thursday, Nigerian newspaper Leadership reported. While the administration of Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari has sought to diversify the country’s economic interests, the oil and gas industry still accounts for the vast majority of national revenue. Petroleum products are worth more than 90 percent of Nigerian exports, according to OPEC. Shua’ra did not elaborate on how much crude oil had been discovered, but if it is found to be in commercially-viable quantities, the find could be an economic boon for Borno, which has been ravaged by Boko Haram. The bully boy group took up arms in the state capital, Maiduguri, in 2009 and have been fighting to create an extreme Islamic caliphate in northern Nigeria since. More than 26,000 people have been killed in Borno since 2011, according to the Council on Foreign Relations; the vast majority of the deaths are likely to be due to the insurgency. |
| Posted by:Fred |