Ed Kashi's work in the Niger Delta documents the existential nightmare of what oil wealth means in reality.
One of the main rebel groups fighting in the Niger Delta has called off its unilateral ceasefire, just weeks after announcing the truce.
ECONOMIST: A big rebel group in the Niger Delta calls off its ceasefire
The 12 police officers were reported missing, presumed dead, after gunmen attacked a police boat in the creeks of the Niger Delta, officials said.
Kashi, an American photojournalist, spent three years compiling his photos of the Niger Delta, making a total of five trips to the troubled region.
Local activists in the Niger Delta, which produces most of Nigeria's oil, regularly kidnap oil workers for ransom or smash installations, sometimes seriously cutting production.
Shell's local subsidiary is the top foreign oil producer in the Niger Delta, an oil-rich region of mangroves and swamps about the size of Portugal.
An email purportedly from the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (Mend) said it was responsible for the ambush in southern Nigeria on Friday.
Many of these groups have been backed by political figures or ethnic figures in the Niger Delta, to vie for influence ahead of elections in 2007.
Aluko is now Deputy CEO and a leading shareholder of Seven Energy, which has operations and key interests in four onshore fields in the Niger Delta.
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Kreddha has been involved in mediation work in the Niger Delta, and in New Caledonia between a mining corporation, Goro Nickel, and an indigenous environmental organisation called Rheebu Nuu.
So, Ofeibea, the group that's holding the oil workers is called the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, and it's fairly new in Nigeria, but well organized, I gather.
Huge problems await the next government: social unrest in the oil-producing areas of the Niger Delta, grinding poverty in the north, everywhere a collapse of long-neglected infrastructure, particularly in telecommunications and electricity.
In the Niger Delta region, his homeland, where militants have long campaigned for a greater share of their land's oil revenues, he vowed to build on Mr Yar'Adua's amnesty of last summer.
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Mr. DINO MAHTANI (Reporter, Financial Times): Usually, in the Niger Delta, you have a series of armed groups who crawl the swamps and the rivers, tapping into pipelines, emptying well heads, and bunkering ships.
Kidnappings of expatriate oil workers in the Niger Delta region by the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) earlier this year have also increased concerns surrounding the security of the county's energy infrastructure.
In "Curse of the Black Gold: 50 Years of Oil in the Niger Delta, " Ed Kashi captures the impact of the oil industry on Nigeria's environment and people since it was first discovered five decades ago.
He reported on wars in Sudan, Angola and on the Eritrea-Ethiopia border, elections in Algeria and Kenya, Aids in Mali, unrest in the Niger Delta, and conducted one of the BBC's last interviews with Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe.
His immediate problem is the Niger Delta, the source of almost all of Nigeria's oil wealth and the battleground for numerous local wars, with rival groups fighting for resources and the largesse of the big oil companies operating there.
The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), the main rebel group fighting for political autonomy and local resource control in the oil-producing Niger Delta region, has called off its unilateral ceasefire, just weeks after announcing the move.
ECONOMIST: A big rebel group in the Niger Delta calls off its ceasefire
The BBC's Will Ross in Lagos says Okah may no longer be a headache for the Nigerian authorities but the threat of instability in the Niger Delta remains strong, despite a fall in the levels of violence since a 2009 amnesty.
Last August Malabu sued Shell, accusing it of colluding with Nigerian officials to snatch its juicy oil prospecting license, OPL 245, a giant block in the deepwater area of the Niger Delta, with estimated reserves of more than 1 billion barrels.
Last year, a report by the United Nations Environment Programme said that over half a century of oil operation in the region, by firms including Shell, had caused deeper damage to the Ogoniland area of the Niger Delta than earlier estimated.
Second, as Shell President John Hofmeister pointed out in his testimony, prices are shooting skyward in part because of rising demand in China and India, the rising cost of materials and labor, and international events, such as supply disruptions in the Niger Delta.
And Nigeria is one of the biggest suppliers of oil to the United States, which explains why the attacks by a group calling itself the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, has been blamed for rising oil prices around the world.
"If you are on the Niger delta, you have armed bodyguards, you won't let your people go out on their own, or they live in a guarded compound, " says one security analyst with nine years experience working in hostile environments with private security firms.
In a key 2009 ruling, a district court in the Netherlands declared itself "competent" to handle claims for alleged damage caused by the oil company's activities in the Niger Delta, contrary to Shell's argument that the court did not have the jurisdiction to rule on its Nigerian subsidiary.
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For many in the conservation and development communities who worry about the environmental and social impacts of the extractive industry and who have looked at the challenges of operating in sensitive areas like the Niger Delta and northern Alaska, the news of gas companies coming to northern Mozambique is not entirely welcome.
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According to some press reports the attack at Abiteye in Delta State was carried out by oil thieves angry that the military Joint Task Force in the Niger Delta is succeeding in its effort to stop illegal oil bunkering in the area, thereby jeopardising the livelihood of local bandits who often masquerade as militants.
ECONOMIST: A big rebel group in the Niger Delta calls off its ceasefire
When Jonathan became vice president in 2007, MEND said its operations helped him gain national prominence, which propelled the neglected Niger Delta region and its largest ethnic group, the Ijaw, into the spotlight.
This week's violence in the north comes on top of unceasing violence in the southern Niger Delta region, where an insurgency by militants demanding a bigger share of the country's oil wealth continues to disrupt oil exports.
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