Collision and Continuity
By the late 1960s, Nigeria’s oil was no longer a distant promise—it was a prize. The discovery at Oloibiri in 1956 had matured into a steady flow, and Shell-BP’s derricks dotted the Niger Delta. But as the nation fractured into civil war in 1967, oil became more than an economic resource. It became the engine of survival, the bargaining chip of diplomacy, and the battlefield of competing empires.