Informed sources revealed Wednesday that oil producers have defied the federal military government of Nigeria and paid royalties to the secessionist state of Biafra. The act provoked immediate retaliation. The sources said the federal government has imposed a total blockade on all oil shipments coming out of Biafra, which was the Eastern Region of Nigeria until it seceded May 30. The payment of the royalties - even though made under the threat of Biafra's military pressure - was a blow to the federal government. The move implied some form of international commercial recognition that the East was under the control of secessionist leader C. Odumegwu Ojukwu and not the federal government. But the blockade was a sharp blow to the oil producers who lose their markets in this period of a worldwide oil shortage caused by the Middle East crisis...

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