WHAT HAS CHANGED WITH DEVELOPMENT IN NIGERIA’S NIGER DELTA REGION? THE CHALLENGING TRAJECTORIES OF A CURRENT DAY INTERVENTIONIST INSTITUTION

Abstract

The Niger Delta regional development question predates Nigeria’s political independence and the complexities that characterise it explains why the myriad of state responses to answering it has persisted. The Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) as one such response has over the years made attempts to provide viable and sustainable answers. However, given the current global uncertainties, the changing narratives with development in relation to how the NDDC has administered the needed socio-economic and infrastructural transformation in the region needs proper documentation. This is with the aim of underscoring current day institutional relational dynamics within the NDDC and how it affects development outcomes for people who are daily roped with multidimensional problems despite the avalanche of human and natural resources. The study employs an exploratory research design, using semi-structured Key Informant Interviews drawn from urban and rural based community leaders, women groups, youth groups, and Nongovernmental Organisations whose activities relate to development in Bayelsa, Delta and Rivers States. Other Key Informant Interviewees were two academic staff of the Department of Political Science, Ignatius Ajuru University of Education, Port Harcourt, and two staff of the NDDC. David Easton’s Systems Theory is adopted to explain the input-output nexus between beneficiaries of interventions and the NDDC and how that affects development outcomes in the region. The study reveals the current administrative imbroglio between the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs and the NDDC as a new challenge and threat to achieving sustainable development in the region. This challenge as revealed by the study has aggravated issues of poor institutional planning, poor community interface mechanisms, poor monitoring and evaluation, and the aggressive nature of interventions. The study concludes that although these challenges do not subvert the relative transformation achieved so far by the NDDC, however, such relativity suggests that the desired change in development is not substantial enough to alleviate the excruciating socio-economic and infrastructural conditions of the people