Militants in Nigeria's oil-producing Niger delta have been tapping pipelines and illegally exporting crude for the best part of a decade. Their activities have grown into a multi-billion dollar racket with tentacles reaching far into state institutions and criminal connections that stretch from Abidjan to Odessa.

Now, inhabitants of the delta have started processing crude. In small, modular refineries they are producing kerosene and other fuel and selling to the local market from so-called mushroom enterprises in the creeks and swamps.

In the context of an industry in precipitous decline, beset by a campaign of sabotage and a crisis in funding, this might seem a detail. It is indicative, however, of fast eroding state authority and the failure of government to regain control of a resource on which the nation's development depends.