The Nigerian Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI): Tool for Conflict Resolution in the Niger Delta or Arena of Contested Politics?

Abstract

This article examines whether the Nigerian Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) can be a tool for conflict resolution in the Niger Delta. It explores how and why transparency emerged as a global norm for addressing conflicts associated with the ‘resource curse’. It finds that NEITI takes an overly simplistic view of the ‘resource curse’ by assuming that negative development outcomes in the Delta are due to poor resource revenue management and corruption. Whilst this has played an important role in contributing to the conflicts in the Delta, not all conflicts have their roots in oil, but need to be seen as the result of a longstanding history of marginalisation and a complex interaction of forces. NEITI is not a neutral tool for improving governance and contributing to conflict resolution, as it is bound up in the sensitive political question of resource use in Nigeria, where powerful elites have vested interests in maintaining the status quo. However, NEITI is a landmark as it has placed a large amount of information on the oil industry in the public domain. Furthermore the discourse around transparency is creating political space that civil society in Nigeria is utilising to make demands for transparency and accountability.