Africa Development, Vol.
XXXVIII, Nos 3 & 4, 2013, pp. 21 – 32
© Council for the
Development of Social Science Research in Africa, 2014
(ISSN 0850-3907)
Militancy
in the Niger Delta and the Deepening Crisis of the Oil Economy in Nigeria
Chijioke Uwasomba* and Victor S. Alumona**
Abstract
The
area known as the Niger Delta spans over 70,000 square kilometers. At the
geographical and ecological levels, it is regarded as one of the foremost
wetlands in the world, and rated as the ninth vastest drainage area in the
world. In 1957, when oil was discovered at Oloibiri in today’s Balyelsa State
of Nigeria, the British
enacted the
Mineral Ordinance Act which vested all the minerals in Nigeria in the British
Crown. This Act paved the way for the continued denial that has characterized
the relationship between the oil-bearing communities and the central government
of Nigeria, leading to the Resource Control agitation by the peoples of the
Niger Delta. This article argues that the Nigerian state, true to its colonial
origins tightened its grip on the instruments with which to allocate profitable
opportunities in the burgeoning oil economy of Nigeria at the expense of the
oil-bearing communities. This condition has led to complaints, agitations, and
finally to militancy which is crippling the Nigerian economy. The article notes
that the Nigerian state and elite forces within and outside the Niger Delta
should be held responsible for the crises in the region and concludes that
militancy is a product of frustration.
Keywords: militancy, Niger Delta, oil,
economy, Nigeria, ecology, elite forces.
Résumé
La zone dénommée Delta du Niger s’étend sur plus de 70
000 kilomètres carrés couvrant des espaces tant géographiques qu’écologiques
qui en font l’une des
principales
zones humides au monde, classée neuvième plus vaste zone de drainage au niveau
mondial. En 1957, lorsque le pétrole a été découvert à Oloibiri dans l’État
actuel du Balyelsa au Nigeria, les Britanniques ont adopté la Loi sur
l’Ordonnance des Minéraux [Mineral Ordinance Act] qui a permis à la Couronne britannique
de mettre toutes les ressources minéralières du Nigeria sous coupes réglées.
Cette loi a ouvert la voie à la négation continue qui a caractérisé les
relations entre les communautés pétrolifères et le gouvernement central du
Nigeria ;
* Department of English,
ObafemiAwolowo University, Ile-ife, Nigeria.
Email: cjsomba@yahoo.co.uk
**
Department of Philosophy, ObafemiAwolowo University, Ile Ife, Nigeria. Email:
Onuegbe2002@yahoo.com
22
situation qui s’est soldée par des agitations des
peuples de la région du Delta du
Niger pour
pouvoir prendre le contrôle des ressources. Cet article soutient que l’État
nigérian, fidèle à son passé colonial, a renforcé son emprise sur les
instruments lui permettant de s’arroger de plantureux avantages dans cette économie
pétrolière en plein essor au Nigeria au détriment des communautés abritant ces
gisements de pétrole. Cette situation a donné lieu à des plaintes, des agitations,
et enfin à l’émergence d’un militantisme rédhibitoire pour l’économie
nigériane. Le document souligne que l’État nigérian et les forces d’élites à
l’intérieur et hors de la région du Delta du Niger doivent être tenus
responsables des crises qui secouent la région et conclut que ce militantisme
résulte de la frustration. Mots-clés:
Militantisme, Delta du Niger, pétrole, Economie, Nigeria, Ecologie, Forces
d’élites.
Introduction
The crisis in the Niger Delta of Nigeria is
one of the numerous intractable problems besetting the Nigerian state, and this
has manifested itself in different dimensions with adverse consequences for the
oil economy of the country. Initially, protest took the form of agitation,
declarations, and campaigns in which the people of the area and their
organisations asked for justice and equity in the sharing of the oil resources
that drive the economy. These campaigns led to the formulation of the fiscal
discourse of the nation. The idea of fiscal discourse resonates in the various
debates about the way and manner in which the state allocates its resources to
the various federating units in the country in a lopsided manner that allows
the Federal Government to take 52.68 per cent (including special funds): states
26.72 per cent, while the Local Governments are allocated 20.6 per cent
(Revenue Mobilization, Allocation and Fiscal Commission 2011).
Many of the federating units find this structure lopsided
and inequitable, as it runs counter to the practice of federalism elsewhere in
the world, as in the US and Switzerland. In the latter countries, federating
units only pay tax to the central government for the resources exploited in
their localities. The current practice in Nigeria is the source of tension and
conflict which are manifested in many arenas, raising even the issue of
citizenship rights, equity, fairness, and justice in the Nigerian polity as a
whole (see Okonta 2008).
In this article, an attempt is made to locate the current
crises of militancy within the general conflict situation that besets Nigeria.
The nature of the Nigerian state is such that it is enmeshed in the struggle
for accumulation and, in the process, loses legitimacy to intervene in their resolution.
These crises erupt in various forms, such as the question of indigeneity,
resource control and management, structural deformities, class and religious
conflicts, inequality and injustice, leadership failure, etc. These constitute
what has come to be known in Nigeria as the Nationality Question (Amuwo and
Agbaje, et al. 2004; Adedeji and Otite et al. 1997; Nnoli 1981; Okonta 2008).
23
Today, as can be seen from the events that are rapidly
unfolding in the Niger Delta region, the struggle for resource control and
management has taken on a new dimension with the introduction of militancy and
kidnappings by the various groups that have emerged in the politics of oil in
the area. These burgeoning groups and their militant activities have become a
source of worry and concern to all the strategic stakeholders within and
outside the Nigerian economy. Since June 2006, violence in the Niger Delta has
reduced Nigeria’s total oil production by a quarter. It is important to note
that Nigeria has a nominal output capacity of 3.2 million barrels per day but
its actual production is running short of this level. This has grave
implications for the Nigerian economy which depends heavily on oil.
The Historical Background of the Niger Delta
The area known as the Niger Delta in
Nigeria spans over 70,000 square kilometres. According to Olorodo (2000),
quoting Ogunbunmi (1999), at the geographical and ecological level, the Niger
Delta is one of the foremost wetlands in the world both in terms of expanse and
bio-diversity. It is also rated as having the ninth vastest drainage area in
the world and the third largest mangrove forest (Oyerinde 1998).
As have been documented by Dike (1956), Ofonagoro (1979)
and Okonta (2008), prior to the coming of the Europeans, the Niger Delta people
were relatively successful as they engaged in trading activities amongst
themselves and their neighbours. The area was known for its production of and
trade in palm oil. No wonder that by 1889, the British colonial overlords
renamed the area the Oil Rivers Protectorate. The Berlin Conference of European
powers, convened in 1885 to divide sub-Saharan Africa among themselves, had
effectively brought the Niger Delta zone under British suzerainty.
George Goldie, an English merchant attracted to the Niger
by the booming palm oil trade had by 1884 bought out oil rival companies
operating in the Niger Valley, including French competitors, amalgamating them
into the Niger Company. Prior to this time, the Delta middlemen had been
relatively successful in confining European trading firms to the coast. But as
the competition intensified for the palm-produce trade, the trading companies
began to put pressure on the consuls appointed by their home government to
regulate trade and also to protect them from ‘marauding natives’, to intervene
and remove all remaining obstacles on their path after the deportation of King
Jaja of Opobo. As earlier noted, in 1889, Her Majesty’s Government
renamed the area the Oil Rivers
Protectorate.
According to Perham (1937), by 1893, the Oil Rivers
Protectorate was already paying its way, earning a customs revenue of £136,000
in that year alone. It was renamed the Niger Coast Protectorate the same year.
In 1900,
24
the protectorate was amalgamated with the
Royal Niger company territories in the Niger valley. In 1906, the protectorate
of southern Nigeria amalgamated with the colony and protectorate of Lagos to
become the colony and protectorate of Southern Nigeria, comprising three
administrative provinces: Western, Central, and Eastern.
Oil Exploration and its Benefits
In 1957, oil was discovered at Oloibiri, in
the present-day Bayelsa State. The first instructive thing the British did was
to enact the Mineral Ordinance Act which vested all the minerals in Nigeria in
the British Crown. This Act, in hindsight, paved the way for the continued
denial that has characterized the relationship between the oil bearing
communities and the central government of Nigeria. We must hasten to state that
the resource control agitation by the peoples of the Niger Delta is linked
within the matrix of the minority question and, by extension, the larger
nationality question. One outcome of the London Constitutional Conference of
1957 was the appointment of the Willink commission to ‘investigate the fears of
the ethnic minority groups in the country and the means to allay them’ (Willink
Commission Report 1958). The Willink
Commission report had recommended the inclusion of a bill of rights in the
independence Constitution. Accordingly, both the 1960 and the 1963
constitutions of the republic set out the fundamental rights of the Nigerian
people. In addition to the incorporation of the said bill of rights, section
140 of the Republican Constitution provided for the establishment of the Niger
Delta Development Corporation. The right to 50 per cent of the proceeds from
mineral resources produced in every region was equally guaranteed in the
constitution. But since the peoples of the Niger Delta, like all other
minorities in other parts of Nigeria, were denied the right to a region of
their own, they were subjected to utter neglect and complete marginalization in
the first republic.
Again, in 1968, the Dina
Revenue Committee Report centralized fiscal revenues, including oil revenue.
The petroleum decree of 1969 (Decree No. 51), stated that ‘the entire ownership
and control of all petroleum in, under, or upon any lands to which this section
applies’, be vested in the state.
The Decree also applied to the land under the territorial
waters of Nigeria, including its continental shelf. The complaints against the
Dina recommendations compelled the Supreme Military Council (SMC) under the leadership
of General Yakubu Gowon to reject the report. In November, the Federal Military
government published the petroleum Decree of 1969. The centralization of oil
revenues took several stages, and was driven by General Gowon’s ‘Super’
permanent secretaries. In 1970, after the civil war when oil began to feature
prominently in the economic and political equation of
25
Nigeria, the Gowon administration gave 45
per cent to the states. The figure was reduced to 20 per cent in 1975 when
Decree No. 6 was promulgated during the short-lived regime of General Murtala
Muhammed. By 1982, when a democratic government came into power, the allocation
dropped to 2 per cent. In 1984, during the era of General Muhammadu Buhari, the
figure depreciated to 1.5 per cent and later to 3 per cent during the time of
General Ibrahim Babangida who had carried out a palace coup against his boss,
General
Buhari. The current 13 per cent was
introduced during the regime of General Sani Abacha that began in November
1993, after Abacha had sacked the illegitimate interim government headed by
Ernest Sonekan.
As can be seen from the foregoing, the central government
from the war years on tightened its grip on power and the instruments with
which to allocate profitable opportunities in the growing oil economy of
Nigeria. As a result, access to important government offices became the
all-important ticket to riches and various kinds of influence. As the forces
that control the Nigerian state and the oil multinational corporations in the
country continue to rake in petro-dollars, the oil-bearing communities of the
Niger Delta suffer in want and are buffeted with all kinds of environmental and
social problems arising from oil prospecting and production-related activities.
In fact, their human ecosystem has suffered substantial damage through gas
flaring and persistent oil spillage. This condition has led to reactions,
complaints and agitation from the people of the region, leading to its being
described as a ‘boiling point’ (Olorode 2000). We shall return to this
presently.
The Nigerian State
Jean Jacques Rousseau’s dictum, ‘man is
born free but is everywhere in chains’ (1963) may seem axiomatic and compels
attention when considering the set-up in societies and states like Nigeria.
Society and its attendant government provide the fetters about which Rousseau
laments. Nevertheless, society and government are both necessary for the
procurement of human welfare and progress. On the one hand, society provides
evolutionary and resilient institutions and rules for accommodating human and
environmental inadequacies. On the other hand, government ensures that
institutions and rules girding and facilitating mutual dependence and
co-existence are upheld without incessant breaches by dissenting individuals
and groups for the purposes of realising the goals of collective human welfare.
However, when government and society’s constitutive rules
and associated institutions seem to fail in significant respects, demands arise
– directed at the state. It goes without saying that the duty of government is
to ensure that institutions work and that rules are put in place for the
realisation of the welfare of the people. When a government fails to discharge
its duties to the citizenry creditably, as has been argued by Okonta (2008),
they rebel.
26
Historically, the Nigerian state is a creation of colonial
rule and it has continued to function as the instrument of economic
accumulation and a key player in its distribution. Consequently, the battle to
win control of the resources of the state and its revenue has been particularly
fierce between contending political elites on the one hand and among various
social groups and communities, on the other. This struggle for the ‘spoils’ has
created considerable tension and controversy, leading Nigeria’s Northern
Region, for example, to threaten to secede from the federation in 1953; the
Western Region in 1954; and the Eastern Region actually to attempt to secede in
1967, culminating in a civil war that was fiercely fought for three years, with
dire consequences for the country.
The Nigerian state is thus involved as a participant in the
accumulative processes and therefore is not neutral. This has created a major
problem in the resolution of conflicts and, especially, those that are engendered
by the competition for resources. The Nigerian state has not done away with its
colonial character; and at every turn, when there is a conflict, it resorts to
brutality and outright decimation of the people. As has already been stated,
from 1968 onwards, the Nigerian state became the sole player in allocating the
resources that accrue to the country. This it does, in conjunction with the oil
multinationals, to the detriment of the oil-bearing communities. Its coercive
monolithic character, as Ake (1990) has argued, gives it the impression of a
strong state with immense penetrative capacity. Ake further writes:
In Nigeria, for instance, the
state has little influence on the lives of the rural people. Much development
that has taken place in rural communities has occurred not because of the state
but in spite of it. To many rural dwellers, the state exists primarily as a
nuisance to be avoided in their daily struggle for survival (Ake 1990:38).
The Nigerian civil war of 1967-1970 created
the emergence of a new authoritarian state, centralising both administration
and fiscal resources, and forcing the people, even more firmly, into subject
status.
Resource Control in the Political History of
Nigeria as it has Affected the Niger Delta
As we have seen, the demand for equity from
the Niger Delta people is not new. Towards the tail end of the struggle for the
decolonization of Nigeria, the minorities had expressed fears of domination and
exploitation from the hands of those who were designed to inherit political
power from the departing British colonialists. When the legitimate demands of
the Niger Delta people for basic social and infrastructural developments were
treated with contempt by the neo-colonial ruling class, the youth of the region
began to revolt against the Nigerian state.
27
Thus, on 24 February 1966, Isaac Adaka Boro, an Ijo student
at the University ofNigeria, Nsukka, led a group of armed young men and
proclaimed an independent Niger Delta People’s Republic, to assert the right of
his people to self-actualisation. His 40-man Delta Volunteer Service blew up
two oil pipe-lines belonging to Shell BP, ransacked police stations and engaged
the police in a gun duel around Yenagoa (the present capital of Bayelsa State).
Boro and his men were defeated, charged with treason, tried, convicted and
sentenced to death by the Port Harcourt High Court. This amounted to judicial
high handedness, and many saw it as unjust, especially as the recommendations
of the Willink Commission Report were not implemented to the letter.
About two decades later, the Movement for the Survival of
the Ogoni People (MOSOP) was formed to champion the struggle for the
empowerment of the Ogoni to gain access to the resources which paradoxically
had turned into a curse for their existence. The Ogoni Bill of Rights (1990)
articulated the strategies with which MOSOP would employ and explore the
building and reinventing the Ogoni nation. Other ethnic groups in the Niger
Delta have also reacted in a similar vein as their Ogoni neighbours by setting
up organisations with bills of rights, charters and declarations. The Kaiama
Declaration, a product of the resolutions of All Ijaw Youths Conference held in
1998, was one of such numerous attempts by various groups within the Niger
Delta region to make demands on the Nigerian state and the colluding oil
multinationals in Nigeria.
As demands for justice and equity in the Niger Delta region
intensified in the 1990s, violence against the people, their environment and
their resources also increased. In 1990, as Akani (1992) has recorded, the
Nigerian government in cahoots with Shell ordered the notorious Nigeria Mobile
Police Force into Umuechem, in Etche community in Rivers State, on October 30 and
31, 1990. Umuechem youths had peacefully organized a protest against Shell over
the latter’s destruction and neglect of their land, leaving behind poverty and
environmental pollution. Shell officials requested the anti-riot policemen to
stop the protest, and the police killed about 80 people and burnt down an
estimated 500 homes in Umuechem. After Umuechem, it was Ogoni where several
villages were attacked, burnt down, and people arrested arbitrarily, while
others were murdered in cold blood. In November 1995, Ken Saro-Wiva and his
eight other Ogoni compatriots were hanged after a flawed judicial trial on the
orders of General Sani Abacha.
Earlier in 1994, the Uzere community in Delta State was
attacked. When Ijaw youths issued the Kaiama Declaration, they were met with
violence for their peaceful campaigns for resource control. In November 1999,
seven months after a new democratic regime under Chief Olusegun Obasanjo
28
came into power, the Odi community, in
Bayelsa State, was invaded and close to 3,000 persons were killed. Choba in
Rivers State, Odioma in Bayelsa State and several other Niger Delta communities
also fell victim to state and corporate violence. This cycle of offences
against the people and their natural resources has led to the present security
dilemma arising from the state’s attempt to secure the oil production which
lubricates the Nigerian economy.
One Earth, Environmental Pollution and Resource
Control
Clean water and clean air, safe living
areas, and nutritive foods are necessary for healthy human communities. When
the environment becomes degraded, the victims are usually human and other
beings. Crude oil production pollutes the air and can spill over and harm the
land. Without safeguards, oil production causes all kinds of environmental
problems for neighbouring communities. Crude oil production therefore raises
the question of a clash of rights between oil producers, the affected
communities, and the oil revenue seeking propensities of the national regime.
Environmental rights are an integral part of human rights, as Sonibare (2008)
has pointed out. They are derived from a wide range of environmental laws and
principles adopted over the past several decades. By the 1970s, international
declarations and resolutions began to link environmental concerns explicitly to
human rights.
At the 1992 ‘Earth Summit’, governments adopted the
landmark Rio Declaration. Its Principle 10 stresses that ‘environmental issues
are best handled with participation of all concerned citizens’, while its
Agenda 21 states that sustainable development is the way to reverse both
poverty and environmental destruction. Achieving these aims will demand broad
public participation in policy development, combined with greater
accountability. Individuals, groups and organisations need to know about, and
participate in environmental and development issues affecting their
communities.
Similarly, Article 24 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples
Rights states that all people shall have the right to a generally satisfactory
environment favourable to their development. There are several other efforts
both locally and globally being made to ensure that the earth is being
exploited for human benefit in a sustainable manner. This means that people’s
environmental rights must be respected and negative impacts on the environment
must be anticipated and prevented, and where they cannot be altogether
prevented, remedial action is necessary. To ensure that environmental impacts
are not distributed in a manner that unfairly discriminates against any person,
particularly vulnerable and disadvantaged persons and groups, environmental
justice must be pursued. In principle, the 1999 Constitution of the Federal
Republic of Nigeria recognizes all these obligations, as can be seen in Section
20. This declares that ‘The state shall protect and improve the environment and
safeguard the water, air and land, forest and wild life of Nigeria’.
29
Basic human rights only become meaningful when it is
accepted that people will have to work towards making them real and this is
applicable to environmental rights. This means that on the one hand, the state
must follow the principles laid down in the constitution. Citizens and
communities, on the other hand, must demand that their rights be respected and
must demonstrate that they take up the responsibilities associated with their
rights.
In the course of oil exploration in the Niger Delta since
1956, the activities of the oil companies have disrupted the ecological balance
of the area, leaving the inhabitants with poverty, disease, widespread water
pollution, and soil and land pollution. It is very intriguing to note that in
the process of extracting oil and the petro-dollars that come with it, adequate
consideration is not given to the more than ten million people who live in the
Niger Delta. The unconscionable business habit of the oil companies in the area
runs counter to the ideals of One Earth with its guarantee that there are no
national boundaries in the atmosphere.
Militancy in the Delta: Implications for the Nigerian Economy
Okonta and Douglas (2001) in their work Where the Vultures Feast catalogue the
various environmental problems of the Niger Delta, concluding that the area is
the ‘most endangered delta in the world’. The World Bank estimates
that oil companies in Rivers and Delta
States spill about 2,300m3
of oil in 300 major accidents yearly (quoted in Okonta and Douglas
2001). As the oil companies, the Nigerian elites and the state appropriate the
resources coming from the zone, the Niger Delta people sink further into
poverty, hopelessness and despair. According to an editorial in the Nigerian Guardian, the UNDP is reported
to have identified the Niger Delta ‘as the poorest and the most backward
oil-producing region in the world’ (The
Guardian, 15 July,
2008:18).
Successive Nigerian governments have paid lip service to
the policy of developing the area, as their rhetoric is not translated into
concrete action. It is therefore no gainsay that it was the chronic
underdevelopment and environmental degradation of the area, which are the
primary defining characteristics of the Delta, that gave birth to militancy and
criminal activities in the area by various forces and organisations.
The struggle for resource control initially took the form
of debates, campaigns, agitation and declarations, as the people used every
available platform to ask for equity and environmental justice. In 1990, one of
the ethnic groups in the Niger Delta founded a movement to actualise its dreams
of controlling its resources, given the challenges confronting the region. That
organisation was the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP). The
organisation took the path of peaceful protest. It also demanded some form of
economic and political autonomy within a new
30
Nigerian federation. Ken Saro-Wiwa, one of
the leaders of MOSOP, in his introductory note to the Ogoni Bill of Rights, stated that ‘the system of revenue
allocation currently in force, whereby the natural resources of the minority
areas in the Niger Delta are transferred to the majority ethnic groups is
unjust, unfair and unethical, and a ready cause for dissension. Labouring under
this catalogue of social injustice and open exploitation, there cannot be peace
and stability – and therefore progress – in the Nigerian nation’
(Ogoni Bill of Rights, 1990).
In 1992, there was the establishment of the Association of
Minority Oil States (AMOS) comprising Delta, Cross River, Akwa Ibom, Rivers and
Edo States. Their aims, amongst others, were:
(i) To
press for an increase in the 1.5 per cent federal allocation to oilmineral
producing areas, as the allocation was inadequate to cope with the region’s
problems.
(ii) To press
for a more equitable revenue allocation, given the fact thatRivers, Delta and
Akwa Ibom States produced over 85 per cent of total oil exported outside and
consumed in the country.
There were also efforts by the then 17
southern governors of Nigeria to come together and speak with one voice on the
issues of resource control.
These intellectual and non-violent efforts were spurned by
the Nigerian state and its colluding oil partners. On 10 November, 1995, Ken
Saro-Wiwa and eight other members of MOSOP were hanged after they were tried
and convicted by a Military Tribunal for their alleged responsibility for the
deaths of four Ogoni leaders on 21 May, 1994.
Since the killing of Saro-Wiwa and other members of MOSOP,
the crisis in the Niger Delta has become very intractable, fuelling a jump in
the prices of oil on the international oil market. Various groups and
organisations have sprung up claiming responsibility for one sabotage action or
another against the oil multinationals, including the kidnapping of their
staff. Some of these groups include the South South Liberation Movement (SSLM);
Federated Niger Delta Ijaw Communities (FNDIC); Niger Delta People’s Volunteer
Force (NDPVF); Movement for the Sovereign
State of the Niger Delta (MSSND); Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger
Delta (MEND); Reformed Grand Alliance of Niger Delta (RGAND); Martyrs Brigade
(MB); Niger Delta Vigilante (NDV); Niger Delta Patriotic Force (NDPF), etc.
These groups and others operate both secretly and openly in the Niger Delta,
causing great security challenges to the Nigerian state. The cycle of violence
and militant agitation for a fair deal, by the youths especially, is causing
serious disturbances in the Nigerian economy which depends so heavily on oil
rents. The Federal Government has established a military Joint Task Force (JTF)
31
to handle the situation but the militant activities of the fighting
groups have continued, incurring casualties for both government forces and the
militant groupings.
In the 2008 budget, the Federal Government proposed to
allocate N444.6 billion for security in the Niger Delta. In the same budget
proposal, the government set aside only N69 billion for development in the
area, through the Niger Delta Development Corporation (NDDC), whose over N300
billion constitutional funds had been withheld by the same Federal Government
from 2001 to date. It is true that the security challenge faced by the Federal
Government in the region is indeed grave. Our contention, however, is that if
serious efforts and commitments are made towards developing the Niger Delta
area, militant activities will be greatly reduced – if not completely stopped.
But with the way events are unfolding in the Niger Delta, the prospects for a
resolution of the crisis look dim, with great economic cost to the nation.
Thus, the birth of militancy has given rise to criminality
and banditry as some of the organisations and individuals who claim to be
fighting for justice and equity are exploiting the crisis in the region for
their own ends. They kidnap oil workers and engage in various forms of illegal
bunkering. Even, government security chiefs are alleged to be involved in
illegal oil deals. The current secret trial of Henry Okah in Jos, Plateau State
of Nigeria, is informed by a conscious strategy of the Nigerian state not to
allow some dirty deals of some Nigerian army generals to be made public to
Nigerians and the world at large. In the meantime, the oil crisis in the Niger
Delta has thrown up emergency ‘small and medium scale’ so-called business
tycoons as bunkering and such other illegal activities continue.
Conclusion
The Nigerian state and the elite forces
within and outside the Niger Delta must take much of the responsibility for the
crisis in the region. The oil companies pay only lip service to environmental
standards, since the results of their activities in the Niger Delta would never
be countenanced in their own countries. A change of attitude on the part of the
Federal Government and its colluding oil multinationals is urgently needed.
Militancy is a product of frustration arising from poverty, environmental degradation,
unemployment and other forms of denial suffered by the region’s indigenes.
Government needs to rethink its development
strategy in the region as it is clear that previous efforts have failed.
It is obvious that implicated in the crises of the Niger
Delta are the state, its colluding elite, and the multinational oil giants who
seem concerned only with their financial interests. The challenge is for a
reconfiguration of the
32
Nigerian federation in such a manner that
issues of equity, fairness, and true federalism will become the basis for
interaction among the federating units. The current crises in the Niger Delta
raise fundamental questions bordering on the stability of the country, and the
need for an urgent and immediate resolution of the self-imposed logjam.
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