Nigeria is a country where petroleum prices and polio are both booming, where small villages challenge giant oil companies, and scooter drivers run their own mini-state. The oil-rich Delta region at the heart of it all is, as Peel shows us, a troublespot as hot as the local pepper soup. Through a host of characters, from the prostitutes of Port Harcourt to the Area Boys of Lagos, from the militants in their swamp forest hideouts to the oil company executives in London, Peel tells the story of this extraordinary country, which grows ever more wild and lawless by the day as its crude oil pumps through our cities.

Michael Peel is the legal correspondent for the Financial Times, having previously been its West Africa correspondent. He has contributed articles on Africa to the London Review of Books and Prospect magazine.

Maps
Prologue: Trigger Point

PART ONE - THE HUNDRED YEARS OIL WAR
Stark Illiterates and Junkies
Where Duty and Glory Lead
More Popular than Churchill

PART TWO - LIVING AT THE OIL FRONTLINE
The Boys from the Bookshop
Fuel the Bike, Fuel the Rider
The Discerning Gentlemen

PART THREE - THE NEW GULF CONFLICT
Fish, but not Fishing
Things Are Looking Up
Not Hostages but Journalists

Epilogue: The Hope of the World
Notes and Select Bibliography
Acknowledgements
Index