Flares burn at an oil flow station in Idu, Rivers State, Nigeria. A governor in one of Nigeria’s crude producing states has declared “total war” against rampant oil theft and illegal refining that’s costing the country billions in lost revenues and contributing to environmental pollution. The pilfered crude is turned into gasoline, diesel and kerosene in makeshift refineries that have proliferated in the cover provided by the creeks and forests of the Niger Delta region. “It is sabotage to the nation’s economy and very dangerous to the health of the people,” Nyesom Wike, the governor of Rivers state, said in an interview. “We cannot sit down and see our people dying with all kinds of ailments,” he said in Port Harcourt, the state capital. Africa’s biggest oil producer loses as many as 150,000 barrels of crude per day to criminals that tap into the pipelines crisscrossing Rivers and other […]