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Since Nigeria's capital was built after a 1970s oil boom, it has grown into one of Africa's most expensive cities. Wealthy politicians and tycoons are among the elite who call Abuja home. But many others have been priced out, including hundreds of thousands of civil servants who keep the government running.

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21 dead in attempted jail break near Presidential villa

A shootout at Nigeria's State Security Services headquarters near the presidential villa killed at least 21 people Sunday, a government spokeswoman said of what appears to be an attempted jailbreak by Islamic extremists.

Residents described shooting that went on for more than two hours Sunday morning.

Security services spokeswoman Marilyn Ogar tried to minimize the event, saying it involved one detainee who tried to disarm a guard by hitting him on the back of his head with his handcuffs. Ogar's statement said the only shots fired were warnings by guards and soldiers who quickly deployed around the perimeter of the compound, fearing collaborators from the outside.

Later Sunday Ogar reported 21 deaths — but did not specify if the fatalities included security agents and soldiers. She said two "service personnel" were seriously injured.

Residents described a shootout that began at about 7 a.m., when detainees are served breakfast, and continued until after 9 a.m.

"Whatever this is, it appears more serious than an attempted jailbreak claimed by the SSS," said a tweet posted by Nasir El-Rufai, a former Cabinet minister who lives in the neighborhood. He said there were exchanges of gunfire and a helicopter gunship hovering overhead.

"What I witnessed with my eyes and heard this morning was a full-scale battle," tweeted another former Cabinet minister, Femi Fani-Kayode. He said he lives 50 meters (55 yards) from the state security headquarters and the presidential villa called Aso Rock.

Agents at the scene said a detainee received a smuggled pistol along with his breakfast, and used it to shoot a guard who had unlocked his handcuffs so he could eat. It was unclear if the guard survived. The agents spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak to reporters.

Jailbreaks are common in Nigeria, often aided by corrupt officials. But not from the state security headquarters which holds suspects of special interest including alleged fighters in the northeastern Islamic uprising that has killed more than 1,000 people this year.

That insurgency is led by the Boko Haram terrorist network that on March 14 staged a daring jailbreak in an attack on Giwa Barracks, the main military barracks in the northeastern city of Maiduguri. Hundreds of detainees held at the barracks were freed. The military said it killed hundreds of them. Hospital workers said they counted 425 corpses at the morgue, the worst fatalities recorded in the 4-year-old uprising.

AP

12 including 2 British nationals arrested for oil theft in Nigeria

Nigeria has arrested two Britons and 10 of its own citizens on charges of trying to bribe a military officer to facilitate oil theft, the military said on Friday.

Oil theft by armed gangs is rampant in Africa's top crude-producing country, with estimates ranging from 100,000 barrels to 250,000 barrels a day lost to so-called "bunkerers".

Major-General E.J. Atewe, commander of the mixed military and police Joint Task Force (JTF) for the oil-producing Niger Delta region, said two of the bunkerers, both Nigerian, had gone to an officer to request clearance to move the crude oil.

They had openly admitted their plan was to hack into a pipeline and connect a hose that would siphon crude out of it onto a waiting boat, and offered him $6,500 to provide a gunboat to protect them on the way out.

"The suspects were immediately arrested for attempting to bribe the brigade commander for economic sabotage," Atewe said in a statement, and a follow-up operation had led to the arrest of two Britons and another eight Nigerians.

Stories of collusion with the security forces are common and the sheer scale of oil theft in Nigeria would not be possible without systematic collusion by various security agencies, security sources say.

Loss of output from theft and outages caused by sabotaging pipelines has cost the treasury - which relies on oil for about 80 percent of revenues - billions of dollars. Critics, however, say theft is exaggerated to cover up embezzlement of oil revenues by officials in the state oil firm, a charge they deny.

Oil theft has contributed to the high likelihood Nigeria will lose its top African crude oil exporter spot in May, as exports could fall to their lowest since records began in 2009.

Production of the Forcados grade has been hit by

underwater pipeline leakage, which Shell blamed on oil theft, and which led the operator to declare force majeure on the grade this week.

Despite widespread evidence of collusion between Nigerian security forces, the government has been keen to portray oil theft as the work of foreign criminal gangs. Analysts say the main buyers are gangs in the Balkans and refiners in Singapore.

Reuters

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Oil theft is a threat to the Nigerian economy that the government is determined to curb. On Sunday at the Global Nuclear Security Summit in the Netherlands it announced it had allocated huge resources to cut down on theft and vandalism and to prosecute thieves.

Aliko Dangote 'Africa's richest man' plans to acquire Shell assets

Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote, is planning to acquire a stake in a Nigerian gas field owned by Anglo-Dutch multinational energy giant Shell.

According to a report by Africa Intelligence, Dangote Industries submitted the highest bid for Shell’s stake in Oil Mining Lease (OML) 18 at an auction organized last year in the Niger Delta region. The financial details of the bid and the exact stake Dangote is looking to acquire are undisclosed.

Shell is currently the operator of the Alakiri Creek plant on the OML 18 field. The Alakiri Creek plant processes 80 million standard cubic feet per day (MMpc/d), but has the potential to rise to 120 million square feet per day (mmsf/d). The OML 18 field is said to have reserves of close to 1.5 billion barrel of oil equivalent (BOE) of gas.

This is not the first time Dangote would make an attempt to acquire an asset owned by the Dutch oil major. In 2010 Dangote put in a bid for Shell’s 45% stake on OML 30, but lost his bid to Conoil Producing, an exploration company owned by billionaire Mike Adenuga. The Nigerian Petroleum Development Company (NPDC), the exploration and production subsidiary of the Nigerian government-owned oil company would later cancel the sale of the stake to Adenuga and sell it to London-listed Heritage Oil PLC. Shell has recently been divesting from some of its key Nigerian assets in the wake of crude oil theft and weak refining margins.

Dangote, who made his $24 billion fortune trading cement, sugar and flour, has recently ramped up his efforts to boost his investments in Nigeria’s booming oil sector. While his largest and most publicized investment in the energy sector is a planned $9 billion private oil refinery in Nigeria, Dangote also owns minority stakes in a handful of oil exploration concerns, including a 9% stake in block 1 in the Joint Development Zone between Nigeria and Sao Tome, where Chevron is the operator. He also owns a 10% stake of block 3 in the JDZ.

Forbes

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