The Gulf of Guinea: the new hornet's nest for piracy
Piracy in the Gulf of Guinea is a growing problem.
In 2020, the Gulf of Guinea once again emerged as the world's most dangerous region for shipping. According to the International Maritime Bureau's annual report on piracy, 95 per cent of hijackings took place in this area in 2020. One year later, in 2021, the Gulf was home to almost half of the world's hijackings and was the only region to be the only one where crew members themselves were hijacked. A total of 57 sailors were kidnapped, a figure that has put the region in the spotlight in terms of security and stability.
Piracy has been transformed. What used to be an action in which pirates boarded ships and stole the goods and then resold them, has evolved into the direct kidnapping of crew members to take them hostage for ransom. These developments have meant that maritime security has begun to emerge as one of the most salient security issues in Africa.
Professor and intelligence analyst Fernando Ibáñez Gómez noted that, at the moment, the objective of pirates "is to kidnap people in order to demand a ransom for them. They take them to the mainland in kidnappings that last a few weeks. The pirates attack ships (freighters, oil tankers, fishing boats) heavily armed with AK 47s and grenade launchers from small merchant ships and fishing boats" and then demand ransom money for them.
"They are kidnapping more and more sailors to increase the ransom demanded for them. In 2008, they were kidnapping three people from each ship (often the captain and two officers) and getting about $25,000 per kidnapping. By 2020, they were kidnapping an average of more than six people and getting $250,000 per kidnapping," he adds.
In this aspect, the incessant attacks that this region has suffered, with attacks on maritime security in Somalia being even more violent, have led pirates to attack, in addition to maritime vessels, installations that are found inland in countries such as Nigeria, Cameroon and Guinea, affecting, above all, employees of foreign companies present in the region.
In fact, Nigeria is key to understanding piracy in this area as a strategic enclave with a wealth of energy and natural resources, a situation that does not correspond to the very poor situation of its population.
The Gulf of Guinea is home to thousands of kilometres of coastline stretching from the south of Senegal to the coast of Angola. It also includes the countries of Liberia, Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, Togo, Benin, Nigeria, Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon and Sao Tome and Principe. This vast region also includes particularly important transit sea lanes through which thousands of ships pass, transiting these routes to carry out commercial operations.
To understand why this region has become a new focus for piracy, it is necessary to address the current situation of insecurity and poverty in Nigeria. In this regard, the country is still carrying the wounds of the civil war, a vicious conflict that pitted Muslim and Christian populations against each other, leaving an estimated 500,000-3,000,000, of which an estimated 1,000,000 civilians may have been killed.
Not only did the civil conflict leave a dramatic death toll, but the number of wounded, refugees and social devastation left its mark on a country that is otherwise rich in natural resources. According to Ibáñez, "it is estimated that 80% of the Nigerian government's income comes from hydrocarbons extracted in the south of the country, specifically in the Niger Delta region. This sector accounts for up to 90% of its export revenues. A country with record figures on the African continent: the main oil producer, the most populated country with more than 200 million inhabitants".
However, these figures do not correspond to reality, as the Nigerian country has the highest number of people living in extreme poverty. In this situation, at least 86 million Nigerians are trying to survive on 1.65 euros a day. In this situation, a percentage of this population sees crime as a way out of their situation, which explains why the origins of this piracy have "a socio-economic and political component in this type of maritime crime, at least in its origin. The problem is that, as happened in Somalia, in the end, this type of crime generates organised crime activities that are difficult to eradicate", he adds.
Ibañez stresses that "the wealth of its subsoil has not prevented Nigeria from being the country with the highest number of people living in extreme poverty since May 2018. Nigeria now has 70 million people living in this situation: 33% of its population". As a consequence, this data has meant that in 2019 Nigeria occupied "seventh place in the misery index published by Johns Hopkins University, behind Venezuela, Argentina, Iran, Brazil, Turkey and South Africa".
Nigeria is currently the country most affected by piracy and armed robbery in the world. Already in the 1980s and 1990s, isolated incidents were reported in ports such as Lagos, Bonny and Port Harcourt.
Nigeria's wealth of natural resources, coupled with insecurity and poverty, has made it the perfect target for pirate activity. Ibañez points out that there are currently "some 6,000 kilometres of oil pipelines in the Niger Delta and their sabotage causes spills and significant environmental damage. Sometimes the responsibility must also be attributed to the multinational companies present in the country for not investing sufficiently in the maintenance of their installations".
This situation has led to the emergence of various armed groups in the region, the most important of which appeared in 2006: the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND). This group, according to the professor, "demands a greater share for the region in the profits generated by hydrocarbons. To this end, it has been carrying out sabotage and acts of piracy. In 2008, it deployed its most spectacular action by attacking Shell's main oil field, Bonga, located in the open sea". A crucial attack because "Bonga was producing more than 200,000 of Nigeria's two million barrels of oil a day".
"The situation became untenable and a year later President Goodluck Jonathan (a Christian born in the Niger Delta) decreed an amnesty for those militants who surrendered in exchange for providing them with training and jobs (plus a monthly allowance of 65,000 naira, about 200 dollars)". This initiative led to "some 30,000 MEND personnel taking advantage of the amnesty, reducing the number of attacks and increasing oil production. Other groups have taken over from MEND and it is now estimated that there may be between four and six pirate groups".
The Gulf of Guinea has undergone a transcendental evolution in this area as a result of the fight against maritime piracy in Somalia. Thus, Ibáñez stresses that "since May 2012, Somali pirates have not been able to capture a ship for ransom. This is because, following the hijacking of the US container ship Maersk Alabama (which gave rise to the film Captain Phillips, starring Tom Hanks) and the capture of the Spanish tuna boats Playa de Bakio and Alakrana, there was a change in the national legislation of several countries to allow the embarkation of security guards armed with weapons of war".
This change in legislation "greatly affected the pirates in a significant way, as they could no longer board or hijack ships. In fact, no ships protected by armed guards were hijacked by Somali pirates. As a result, Somali piracy has practically disappeared and the investors who were involved in this activity are now involved in other activities (arms trafficking, human trafficking, etc.)".
In this context, the Nigerian authorities have demonstrated significant success in securing and defending their waters. Previously, the pirates had been active in the area closest to their bases in the Niger Delta. However, due to the efforts of the Nigerian authorities, the pirates are moving away from the coasts.
This evolution is well reflected in the data collected over the last decade. Dr Ibañez states that "in 2012, Nigerian forces were barely able to assist 5% of the ships attacked in their waters and ports. However, in 2020, almost half of the ships attacked received some kind of assistance. Even merchant ships anchored close to ports, which was quite unprecedented years ago. Moreover, most of the ships that did not receive assistance in 2020 were attacked in the last quarter of that year and quite far from the coast: at distances of between 70 and 200 miles."
"In other words, Nigerian pirates deployed their actions further and further from the coast in order to evade the presence of local naval forces. This is a trend that has intensified in 2021. As a result, Nigerian pirates are now operating in the waters of neighbouring countries (Ghana, Togo, Benin, Equatorial Guinea...), creating a real problem not only for the region but also for other countries. For example, in the case of Spain, there are 14 tuna vessels fishing in the fishing grounds of Sao Tomé, Equatorial Guinea and Gabon, countries that have suffered a notable increase in piracy incidents in recent months," he points out.
In addition, international cooperation has also played an important role in tackling piracy in these waters. In these actions, Operation Atalanta stood out as the first European Union maritime operation to take place within the framework of the European Security and Defence Policy. The aim of the EUTM-Somalia training mission in which Spain participated was to train Somali security forces to deal with terrorism and maritime piracy. In addition, Spain became the first country to take command of this mission, with a total of 38 troops, making it the European country with the most military personnel assigned to the mission.
Likewise, as the analyst points out, "the European Union (EU) approved in January 2021 a pilot programme known as Coordinated Maritime Presences". The aim of this programme was "to promote the coordination of naval assets voluntarily dispatched by various EU countries in the region, albeit operating under national control".
In this context, he adds that "it is common for vessels from France, Portugal, Italy and Spain to be in the Gulf of Guinea at different times of the year. In November 2021, Denmark also sent a frigate to the area. The European External Action Service explains that by 2022 Portugal has committed to a three-and-a-half-month deployment, Denmark to a four-month deployment, Spain to a seven-and-a-half-month deployment, Italy to an eight-month deployment and France to an 11-month deployment. In this way there would be EU vessels for eleven months, while "in August there would be no European military presence in the region".
Maritime security is one of the main challenges facing the African continent, a challenge of considerable importance, especially in terms of both international and national trade, since more than 90 % of African imports and exports are carried out by sea.
This importance stems from the EU's own exports in this sector. "For the European Union, 10 % of its crude oil and 4 % of its natural gas come from the region. In the case of Spain, this dependence is even greater: 26% of oil and 16% of natural gas come from there. Therefore, this is a strategic area and there is an enormous interest in guaranteeing the safety of oil tankers, cargo ships and fishing vessels that sail in the area," he says.
On the other hand, Nigeria is reportedly increasing and upgrading its military forces to deal with piracy, as in 2017 all recorded hijackings were committed in Nigerian waters. However, three years later in 2020 these hijackings "affected six countries in addition to Nigeria itself: Benin, Gabon, Ghana, Equatorial Guinea, Sao Tome and Principe and Togo". These data show a bleak scenario for the future as "pirates will probably continue to operate in the least protected areas and in waters where countries do not have sufficient means to deal with them".
For this reason, both regional and international cooperation remain one of the most viable and effective solutions to eradicate an insecurity that has already proven to have sufficient capacity to transcend maritime areas.
