IASPS - News Behind the News

July 11, 2002

Focus on West Africa

In the banner headline article “Oil Exploration: America Focuses On West Africa,” Suleiman Mohammed, writing July 8 in the Nigerian Daily Trust, reports that the US may well be in the process of shifting “attention from oil exploration in the Middle East to West Africa,” and Mohammed pins the success of this move on “on-going research by a non-commercial organization,” referring, of course, to the IASPS project, the African Oil Policy Initiative Group (AOPIG)

IASPS’s Paul Michael Wihbey is now in Nigeria with other members of IASPS and the African Oil Policy Initiative Group. AOPIG was founded and organized by IASPS and is chaired by IASPS. The IASPS delegation held hours of working meetings with Nigerian President Obasanjo and Vice President Atiku Abubakar. We can report these meetings were extremely useful and will be posting their results on this site as developments allow.

The Daily Trust correctly notes that this initiative “is poised to develop a new American oil policy with Africa, particularly the West African sub-region where large deposits of oil and gas abound.”

The most important development discussed with Wihbey and now reported in the Daily Trust is that “a proposal has been forwarded to Nigeria by America for the establishment of a Gulf of Guinea Commission, comprising oil producing West African States. Vice President Atiku Abubakar…said the proposal for the Gulf of Guinea Commission was strategic to global economy and energy security….it would serve as a basic linkage between West Africa and America as well as the International Community."

The vice president of Nigeria wants Wihbey’s delegation to work in close partnership with Nigeria towards ensuring the realization of the Commission.

According to the Daily Trust, the “leader of the Group…Wihbey disclosed that the US government had [designated] the Gulf of Guinea region as an area of interest, adding that the issue of debt relief would be linked to regional cooperation.”

“[Wihbey] said Africa had been identified as one of the fastest growing sources of oil and gas for American consumption, saying Nigeria and the rest of Africa are strategically located, and much endowed to play a critical role in both global trade and security.”

These developments follow upon an IASPS White Paper on the subject of West African oil, policy forums held this year and over the past few years in Washington, DC and a recent press conference on Capitol Hill.