Triangulation, Emotional Reactivity, and Violence in the Niger Delta

Benjamin Aigbe Okonofua

doi:10.1177/2158244013483758

Abstract

The Niger Delta conflict, for many years, was blamed on myriad forces, including greed, economic exploitation, pollution and ecological damage, resource appropriation and distribution disputes, ethno-religious antagonisms, poverty, unemployment, large-scale infrastructural deficits, corruption, militarization of oil producing communities and election processes, sociopolitical marginalization, cultism, and weapons proliferation. While all of these issues are important, they are not nearly as important as the deliberate roles played by high-level social, economic, and political interests who activated violence as a means to secure economic advantage from the delta’s oil industry. This study shines the light on this small, exclusive, and very powerful group whose actions triggered off the violence and yet are at the center of efforts to institute peace including the current disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration (DDR) program. I argue that unless the contributions of these powerful interests are carefully teased out and the structures they have built to advantage themselves from the conflict are dismantled, peace will remain elusive in the Niger Delta.

Highlights

Insurgent violence in Nigeria’s Niger Delta region, the heart of Nigeria’s oil production activities, has yet to abate, two decades after hostilities first began and despite numerous attempts by the state and other stakeholders to stop the violence
I suggest that triangulation is not just one of many factors that produced the Niger Delta violence; it is the very milieu within which the violence takes place and it is by means of the militancy rules that different elements within this enterprise get their signification
The conflict process model of triangulation that I propose in this article does not reject the notion that armed conflicts result from unresolved grievances

Summary

Introduction

Insurgent violence in Nigeria’s Niger Delta region, the heart of Nigeria’s oil production activities, has yet to abate, two decades after hostilities first began and despite numerous attempts by the state and other stakeholders to stop the violence. The violence is intractable only because its etiology has not been properly understood or conceptualized by those involved in the conflict If this is a correct assumption, the application of proven methods like DDR might fail to achieve the results stakeholders expect or desire. The question of cause, should be central to the design and implementation of any intervention This was not the case in the Niger Delta DDR experiment, which spectacularly missed the opportunity to interrogate the host of potential cause(s) of the violence. This failure is in itself, a near catastrophe that potentially sets the stage for a dramatic resurgence of violence

Objectives

Methods

Findings

Discussion

Conclusion