IN OTHER WORDS

Mayhem in Nigeria is escalating. Since mid-December, crime and violence have shut down 10 per cent of the country’s oil output. Last week, production has been cut by 20 per cent amid kidnappings of foreign workers, arson against offshore oil installations, bombings of pipelines and lethal clashes between Muslims and Christians.

But the world needs a stable Nigeria for reasons that go beyond oil. Nigeria is crucial to all of West Africa, having often provided the military troops and negotiating forums to quell civil war and related violence in neighbouring countries.

There are no easy answers to Nigeria’s troubles. A big part of the problem is that the people of the country’s oil-rich Niger Delta remain deeply impoverished because of corruption.

Some of the violence is a backlash against the Nigerian government’s recent anti-corruption successes. The government is unable to solve its problems. The Bush administration is well positioned to broker international arran-gements that would enhance transparency in the flow of oil dollars and development in the Niger Delta. Sub-Saharan Africa is on track to double its oil production in the next 10 years, when it will likely supply up to one-fourth of America’s imported oil, much of it from Nigeria. Now is the time for the US to pay more attention to this region. — The New York Times