Political Economy of Ungoverned Spaces and Management of Oil Theft in Nigeria (2015-2024)

Nigeria as the Africa’s largest oil producer in Africa, depends heavily on oil exports to sustain itsfiscal and developmental obligations. However, these revenues have drastically declined due tothe persistent problem of oil theft, a phenomenon that has plagued the Niger Delta region fordecades. Between 2015 and 2024, Nigeria reportedly lost over $46 billion to oil theft, amountingto millions of barrels siphoned daily by criminal networks operating with impunity. This is despitenumerous efforts by the government to secure oil installations along the nation’s waterways, in theNiger Delta region. The persistence of this problem, informed this study. To further understandthese issues, two research questions were formulated. They are as follows: (1) Does the weaknessof state institution account for the increase in the operation of oil thieves? (2) Do patronagenetworks in the oil sector account for the contraction of private security firms for pipeline securityin Nigeria. Grounded on the rentier state theory, and applying the expo-facto research design,where documentary data were analyzed using content analysis. The findings revealed thatexistence of weak institution such as poor policy implementation by the judiciary, involvement ofsecurity personnel in oil theft, highly contribute to the increase in oil theft in Nigeria. Additionally,the findings reveal that the contraction of private security firms in monitoring of the oil pipeline,was done as a result of patronage. Based on these findings, we recommend that Government andits agencies should ensure adequate monitoring strategies and policy implementation in makingsure that oil theft participants are dealt with. The contraction of private security for pipelinemonitoring should be done on the bases of efficiency and effectiveness of the contracting firm infighting oil theft rather than base on patronage for settlement purposes.