From the Guardian, 11th May 06:" An unidentified gunman riding a motorcycle shot dead an American oil worker in Port Harcourt in southern Nigeria yesterday."

For those of you who follow oil politics closely, you may have read that America is importing more and more of its oil from West Africa as Saudi supplies dry up and Iraq's insurgency prevents any large scale exploitation of oil there, whilst, simultaneously, a democratic socialist revolution sweeps Latin America from Venezuela to Bolivia and beyond.

The politics of oil exploitation follow a predictable course. We are beginning to read more and more about conflict in West Africa- some months ago several american oil workers were held hostage by the previously unknown "Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta", and oil installations are being regularly attacked. Today an oil worker was shot dead by 'unknown assailants' in a drive by. As america turns to Nigeria for oil, we can expect to see more of the familiar stories that we have become used to in Iraq, which are usually explained away as the actions of fanatical jihadis. This is just beginning in Nigeria now, as america begins its colonisation of Nigerian hydrocarbons and the people suffer more and more as a direct result, we can expect an escalation from hostage taking to militant attacks. If America tries to control West Africa the way it has the middle east, how long will it be before we see the rise of the african suicide bomber?