The Riddle of the Oil Thief: The Story of Exploitation and Despoliation of the Niger-Delta

Oil, the greasy fluid has become a curse to Nigeria with all the trappings of
underdevelopment in display. The Niger Delta peoples of Nigeria and their environment
have suffered irretrievably and irredeemably the shockwaves of the curse of oil in all its
ramifying dimensions.
Since 1914, when Lord Lugard, the soldier of fortune enacted the Colonial Ordinance
which made oil precincts in the country a British monopoly with ownership rights vested
in the crown and the subsequent 1937 colonial Nigeria Ordinance, which gave Shell
D’Arcy exclusive exploration and prospecting rights, the Niger Delta has not known peace.
In this power-packed, riveting book, titled The Riddle of the Oil Thief, HRM, King
Bubaraye Dakolo, the Ibenanaowei of Ekpetiama Kingdom in Bayelsa State, gives the
history of oil in Nigeria and the damaging consequences the resource and its management
have brought to the Niger Delta communities. The book which gives an appearance of a
faction is by every standard of conception and reading a factual reality of the sorrow and
death that have become the story and lot of the Niger Delta.