Nigeria's Nationalization of British Petroleum

Abstract

On 30 July 1979, Festus Marinho, the managing director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) on behalf of Nigeria's military leader, General Olusegun Obasanjo, dispatched a telegram to BP (Nigeria) Ltd. stating that Nigeria intended to "increase its participation to 100%" in Shell-BP and BP (Nigeria).1 He went on to say, without elaboration, that the decision stemmed from the United Kingdom's (UK) proposed change in policy favoring the resumption of oil supplies to apartheid South Africa.2 Not surprisingly, this same message was repeated in Nigeria's government-monitored newspapers a day or two later.3 Within a week, however, journalists and scholars offered a modified version …