Hurricane Obama hits Nigeria?
It’s not just Brazilian politicians and gun dealers who are riding the Obama wave to success. Rebel groups are getting down on the action. The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) a rebel group in Nigeria, writes this today to its e-mail list of correspodents: We are being informed that the JTF ...
It's not just Brazilian politicians and gun dealers who are riding the Obama wave to success. Rebel groups are getting down on the action. The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) a rebel group in Nigeria, writes this today to its e-mail list of correspodents:
It’s not just Brazilian politicians and gun dealers who are riding the Obama wave to success. Rebel groups are getting down on the action. The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) a rebel group in Nigeria, writes this today to its e-mail list of correspodents:
We are being informed that the JTF [an army taskforce], still reeling from the humiliating defeat of the first oil war and the recent embarrassment in the hands of trainee militants in Bayelsa and Rivers [two states in Nigeria] are planning to launch an attack on two major MEND camps in Delta and Bayelsa with all they have got.This will be a big mistake as it will lead to another oil war (Hurricane Obama) where we are sure of a "landslide" victory.Hurricane Obama will target the oil industry in a way never done before which will in turn make the Nigerian governments 2009 budget projections based on oil revenue an economic disaster."
Clever. The rebels even noticed that it was the financial disaster that kicked "Hurricane Obama" into electoral overdrive in the United States, and now believe the same collapse can work in their favor. I’m not quite sure if that was the "righteous wind" that Obama was talking about.
Elizabeth Dickinson is International Crisis Group’s senior analyst for Colombia.
More from Foreign Policy

Can Russia Get Used to Being China’s Little Brother?
The power dynamic between Beijing and Moscow has switched dramatically.

Xi and Putin Have the Most Consequential Undeclared Alliance in the World
It’s become more important than Washington’s official alliances today.

It’s a New Great Game. Again.
Across Central Asia, Russia’s brand is tainted by Ukraine, China’s got challenges, and Washington senses another opening.

Iraqi Kurdistan’s House of Cards Is Collapsing
The region once seemed a bright spot in the disorder unleashed by U.S. regime change. Today, things look bleak.