OPINION: More oil workers have been kidnapped in Nigeria, raising the spectre of yet another wave of unrest with militants laying siege to operations across the Niger Delta, just as confidence in the upstream sector had begun to return.

Two Shell executives along with expatriates and indigenes working for a local operator in the Bayelsa swamps have fallen victim to a malaise that has plagued the oil creeks and Nigeria for decades.

Crude is the lifeblood of the Nigerian system, enabling successive regimes to feed political cronies, buy off opponents and ease the colic of agitators in irate communities pushed to the wall after generations of neglect.

Throwing money at regional elites is the traditional way of maintaining peace in this nation of 200 million souls spread over 36 states.

Marginalisation is most acutely felt in the six oil producing states, dominated by the Ijaw people who declared sovereignty in 1966, predating the Biafran War, before getting beaten back by superior federal fire power.

Ijaw outrage predates modern Nigeria — and oil. Its plight was alluded to by Henry Willink in his eponymous 1958 report on minorities, urging Ijaw areas be designated as a special development area.

Half-hearted attempts by subsequent regimes regularly sought to apply sticking plaster to long running sores, handing out a little cash, erecting a few signs on promised projects — to little effect.

Militants signed a peace deal in 2016, but the government has failed to deliver on change.

February’s inconclusive elections unleashed a fresh wave of violent lawlessness, preying on disaffected communities denied a unifying voice.

Calabar technocrat Jonathan Amakiri, then boss of the Niger Delta Environmental Survey, told Upstream 20 years ago that the first challenge is to get locals to appreciate the value in their own lands and resources.

Instead, the people fight one another, “at each other's throats while their birthright is frittered away”.

Even if the Nigerian presidency wished to parley, with whom can it negotiate?

(This is an Upstream opinion article.)

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OPINION: Latest kidnappings raise spectre of meltdown in Nigeria