MILITANCY IN NIGER DELTA: ITS IMPACT ON NIGERIA NATIONAL SECURITY

ABSTRACT

The first discovered of commercial quantities of oil in Nigeria was in 1956 at Oloibiri. about ninety Kilometres west of Port Harcourt in what is now Bayelsa state. Other discoveries soon followed and exports began in 1950, although significant quantities only began to flow from 1965, with the completion of the terminal of Bony Island, on the Atlantic coast. Following a drop in production due to the civil war of 1967 to 1970. output rose rapidly from 1970. and by 1974 oil revenues, figures which have remained similar since then1 . In 1980, when oil export revenues peaked at U.S $24.9 billion, external indebtedness had reached U.S $9 billion. oil accounted for 27 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). about 80 percent of government revenues and expenditure, and 96 percent of total exports receipts. Today, the petroleum sector comprises more than 340 percent of the GDP. continuing to provide more than 95 percent of exports Estimates of Nigeria's oil reserves range from 16 billion barrels. Most of this oil is found in small fields in the coastal areas of the Niger Delta (according to the Ministry of Petroleum Resources, there are 159 oil fields, producing from 1.481 wells.