The Politics of Resource Control in Nigeria : Example of Niger Delta Region , 1990s - 2010

Abstract

This paper explores the nature of resource allocation in Nigeria with specific emphasis on the responses of Niger Delta Region to the politics of resource control as it affects oil fields in their territories. It investigates the factors responsible for persistent agitation for resource control by the local people, particularly the oil producing states, as well as the contradictions of resource control and the non oil-producing states in Nigeria. While the study notes that the region has enjoyed 50 percent allocation of revenue based on derivation, it also discovers that the military regime cancelled this which was adopted by successive government in Nigeria. The very important issue this paper addresses is why the abrogation of resource control took place in the first instance? The environmental despoliation of the region by the oil operators with little allocation that trickle down to the oil-producing area informed the massive protests and intense struggle for oil-resource control especially in the period 1990s and 2010. This paper further point out the fact that though the Niger Delta people’s struggle was mainly environmental, in a wider perspective, it is political because of long neglect from economic benefits that come from oil production. The authors argues that the Delta wanted adequate electricity, good roads, pipeborne water, employment, good and functional health care centres, and access to quality education. It concludes that though the structure of the nation’s political economy would never permit the federal government to relinquish or share the control of oil resources with the oilproducing states and communities, its failing promises to appropriate the revenue accrued from the region toward a sustainable development explain the basis for persistent demand and endless crisis in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria.