The origins of this black market lie less than an hour’s drive away, across Benin’s eastern border, in Nigeria, where imported fuel is sold at subsidised rates and the price paid by drivers is capped, thus generating a massive trade in illicit petrol. Known in Benin as kpayo, it is a third cheaper than the legal stuff; 80% of the petrol in Benin’s cars is said to have been smuggled in. Of the 2m or so barrels of oil pumped out of wells in Nigeria each day, as many as 400,000 are reckoned to be stolen, often with the connivance of politicians (...)

Sabotage of Nigerian gas pipelines also upsets the country’s neighbours. Attacks have been increasing in the approach to Nigeria’s presidential and general elections expected (after a delay) later this month. Some say that opposition supporters want to create a “politically motivated disruption”, reports Malte Liewerscheidt of Verisk Maplecroft, a risk consultancy.