The Niger Delta crisis and the roles of governmental agencies in Nigeria

Abstract

This study sets out to establish that the rising militancy in the Niger Delta area of Nigeria is an outcrop of the lackluster quality of the country's leadership. Suddenly, the region has turned into a boiling cauldron, unsettling the existing political equilibrium in the country through hostage taking and vandalism of crude oil pipelines with the militants' quest being but a favorable sharing formula of the national revenue. However, at a point it appears that the militants have had their innocent goals hijacked by the local elites who come in with their ulterior motives. This is obvious following the pockets of incidents that continue recurring despite such ameliorative steps taken by the state as the ongoing amnesty to the militants and the newly established Ministry of Niger Delta to complement the already existing Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC). This paper goes ahead to suggest that a way out of the imbroglio is the scrapping of the Ministry of Niger Delta and its replacement with a sub-office of the NDDC in all the local governments in the Niger Delta to ensure widespread development, with clear-cut roles for each office to avoid unnecessary duplications.