Maritime piracy in Nigeria: Old wine in new bottles?

Abstract

Focused on maritime piracy in the oil-producing Niger Delta (Nigeria), this article addresses three main questions. First, how can we measure the escalation or decrease of criminal violence at sea? Secondly, what is the relationship between piracy and the (permanent) crisis of the state in Africa? Finally, what is the relationship between violence at sea and conflicts onshore? Actually, there are not enough data to monitor the real trend of maritime piracy in Nigeria. Another difficulty is that statistics and the international community focus on attacks against "big" commercial boats and the oil industry. As a result, they ignore "small" trawlers and fishermen who are the first victims of pirates in terms of homicides. Moreover, quantitative monitoring does not give details on the political economy of piracy. Too often, security analysts provide simplistic explanations that point to usual stereotypes on Africa: poverty, the failure of the state, etc. But the problem is more complex. The modernization of maritime piracy is different from a quantitative growth and has a lot to do with the local dynamics of political conflicts and crime in the oil-producing coastal states of Nigeria. © Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.