Oil-rich Niger Delta Region Research Articles

The Gains and Pains of the Amnesty Programme in the Niger Delta Region of Nigeria, 2007–2012: A Preliminary Assessment

The amnesty programme initiated by the Yar’Adua/Jonathan administration to placate militants in the oil-rich Niger Delta region, though reactive – like previous governments’ strategies – has ensured relative peace in the region thereby bringing oil production to its maximum level thus far. But painfully this has not translated to a better life for the vast majority of those living in the Niger Delta who are not included in the amnesty programme. In this study, based on descriptive analysis, we aim to demonstrate: (i) the futility of the previous government’s strong-arm measures in the management of the Niger Delta crisis and how this led inadvertently to the evolution and radicalization of militant groups that needed to be placated in order to curtail their heightened disruptive activities; and (ii) the amnesty programme adopted for this purpose is a short term expediency that could not address the myriad problems confronting the Niger Delta comprehensively. This implies that more broad-based programmes, targeted at the rapid development of the area, creation of job opportunities, environmental restoration and robust support for sustainable socio-economic endeavours geared towards self-reliance, would have to be proposed in order to ensure lasting peace in the region.

MYTHIC OIL: RESOURCES, BELONGING AND THE POLITICS OF CLAIM MAKING AMONG THE ÌLÀJẸ YORÙBÁ OF NIGERIA

ABSTRACTThis article examines the genealogies of the Ìlàjẹ and the narrative of belonging that reinforces claims to ownership of land and natural resources such as oil. The article maps how oil flow stations, pipelines and platforms have come to represent an ancestral promise of wealth to many members of Ìlàjẹ communities. This claim making is embedded in a mythic origin that continuously reinforces a distinct identity that projects an imagined community connected to the Yorùbá of south-west Nigeria as well as the oil-rich Niger Delta region. While many scholars have studied the myth of origin of the Yorùbá, in most cases focusing on rituals and political imagination that intersect with linguistic evidence in determining Yorùbá identity, these scholars have often neglected the centrality of these myths to oil resources. Thus, I investigate how the Ìlàjẹ narrative of belonging creates its own specificity of ‘ownership’ of natural resources through ritual performances connected to migration and dispersal of subject populations. I examine how such narratives create spaces of opportunity for the organization of protests against multinational oil corporations and the Nigerian state.

The Poverty of Crisis Management Strategies in the Niger Delta Region of Nigeria: A Focus on the Amnesty Programme

The oil-rich Niger Delta region of Nigeria has for many years been the site of environmental degradation, violence, vandalism, and chaos. The exploration and extraction of oil mineral resources is at the root of this problem. Conflicts between the region‟s residents and the Federal Government of Nigeria started as soon as the oil multinationals began setting up their operations. Over time, the people have had successive federal and state governments disregard their needs. Environmental degradation, pollution from oil spills and gas flares not only destroy the people‟s lands and livelihood, they shorten life expectancy. These resulted in local unrest and gradually deteriorated into armed struggle, obstructing local and national socio-economic development. By 1998, the region had become a “lawless zone”, where youths disrupted oil production activities, engaged in kidnapping and hostage talking, and communities frequently engaged with little provocation in destructive inter- and intra- community strife. Successive administrations have employed several strategies to resolve and manage the crisis in the region without success. The Amnesty Programme introduced in 2009 by Late President Yar‟Adua is one of such strategies. This study seeks to examine the inadequacies and short-comings of the Amnesty Programme as a crisis management strategy in the Niger Delta.

Epidemiology of non-fatal injuries among adolescents in an urban Niger delta community of Nigeria

Background:Injuries affect the lives of 10 – 30 million children and adolescents each year and have been acknowledged as the leading cause of mortality among young people in the age range of 15 – 19 years. Injury, as a research problem has been largely ignored in developing countries like Nigeria.Aims:This study was aimed at determining injury prevalence, external causes / mechanism of injury, various factors affecting injury occurrence, injury severity, type of treatment received, as well as the most common days and times of injury.Settings and Design:The study was conducted in the Agbor Metropolis of the oil-rich Niger delta region of Nigeria and adopted a cross-sectional study design.Materials and Methods:Semi-structured questionnaires were distributed to 386 subjects selected using a stratified and simple random technique.Analysis:Analysis was done using Social Science Statistical Package, with the level of significance taken at 0.05Results:Injury prevalence was 284 (73.6%) with a mean frequency of 1.8 per child. About (221) 57.3% of the injuries sustained resulted in 1+ day's activity loss, with about 136 (35.2%) requiring medical attention. The top injury sites were street / road, 49 (12.69%) and school environment and sporting arena, 47 (12.18%), respectively, followed by home vicinity, 43 (11.14%). The key causes of injury were collision, 53 (13.73%), falling, 41 (10.62%), and cut / stabbing, 41 (7.51%). Most treatments were at the hospital, 136 (47.72%). Most injuries occurred in the afternoons, 108 (28%) and evenings, 89 (23.1%). Injury experience was associated with Respondents / Parents level of education, family type, alcohol consumption, and age (P < 0.05 for all).Conclusion:Injury experience was relatively high and varied with site, activity, age, family type, alcohol consumption, and parental educational status.

Something Mightier: Marginalization, Occult Imaginations and the Youth Conflict in the Oil-Rich Niger Delta

This contribution examines the role of occult imaginations in the struggle against perceived socio-economic marginalization by youth militias from the Ijaw ethnic group in the oil-rich Niger Delta region of Nigeria. It argues that the asymmetric power between the federal government/transnational oil corporations (TNOCs) and the militias may have privileged the invocation of the supernatural as a critical agency of strength and courage by the youth militias. The conflict in the region embodies a cultural revision which has been necessitated by both the uncertainty of the oil environment and the prevailing narratives of social injustice. Hence the Egbesu deity, seen historically as embodying justice, has been reinvented by the youth militias and imbued with the powers of invincibility and justice in the conflict with the government and oil companies. The low intensity of the conflict has limited both the extent of operations and scale of force used by the military task force in the area and thus reinforced the perception of invincibility of the militias attributed to the Egbesu.

Functional education, militancy and youth restiveness in Nigeria’s Niger Delta: The place of multi-national oil corporations (MNOCs)

The oil-rich Niger Delta region of Nigeria has been in global focus for sometime due to youth restiveness and lately, militancy occasioned by the disruption of activities of multi-national oil corporations, hostage taking of both foreign nationals and Nigerians alike. This paper opines that functional education is the only panacea to the prevailing situation in the region. By functional education, the paper means such that will equip youths of the region to compete favourably with their peers from within the country and beyond, for job placements (at high levels) in oil companies. The paper calls on the multi-national oil corporations to take ‘the bull by the horns’ in this respect by building and equipping the primary and secondary schools in the region to international standards; and also, paying some reasonable allowances to teachers in such schools to avert their attraction to other sectors. The paper sees this as a long-term, but most effective instrument to curb the negative tendencies of youths in the region. Key words: Functional education, militancy, youth restiveness, Niger delta, multi-national oil corporation.

The challenges and opportunities of implementing the integrity pact as a strategy for combating corruption in Nigeria's oil rich Niger Delta region

AbstractIn recent years, significant local and transnational concerted initiatives have been instituted to curb the incidence of corruption that has undermined socio‐economic development in Nigeria. Drawing on the critiques of such initiatives, and the experience from the process of implementing the Integrity Pact in the Niger Delta Development Commission, this article suggests that the Integrity Pact in principle offers real opportunities that can both reinforce and complement existing anti‐corruption initiatives in Nigeria's public sector. However, political instability, lack of continuity in civil service leadership and limited capacity are core challenges that confront the successful implementation and institutionalisation of the Integrity Pact as a means of fighting corruption and meeting sustainable development objectives in the Niger Delta. The article concludes by considering the implications of the findings for the fight against corruption in Nigeria. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley &amp; Sons, Ltd.

Socio- demographics, life event stressors and psychosomatic disorders among public servants in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria

This study aimed at relating socio-demographics of people and their life event stressors to psychosomatic disorders or symptoms they have experienced or suffered during their day to day living. The respondents were 1631 public servants systematically sampled in Nigeria’s oil rich Niger-Delta region of the Federation which has nine out of the thirty-six States. Their socio-demographics included: sex, age, residence, marital status, educational and economic status. Two measuring Psychometric tools: Holmes and Rahe’s Life Event Inventory (modified) and Omoluabi’s Psychophysiologocal symptoms checklist were used. The data generated was statistically analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences version 11. The result show that stressors do cause somatic symptoms but the nature and pattern of psychosomatic symptoms and diseases depends on socio-demographics such as sex, age, marital status, residence and economic conditions. It was concluded that therapeutic measures should be anchored on socio-demographics in order to alleviate or eliminate psychosomatic disorders. Key words: Socio-demographics, stressors, life event inventory, psychosomatic symptoms.

Minority Rights Issues in Nigeria: A Theoretical Analysis of Historical and Contemporary Conflicts in the Oil-Rich Niger Delta Region

AbstractNigeria's delta region was famous for its role in the trade and supply of palm-oil to the then industrialising world. Thereafter, its high quality crude-oil made it a significant player in the global oil market. However, the region has become (in)famous for the spate of violent conflicts that threaten both local and international economic stability and security. This paper highlights the correlations between these two eras, the parties and fundamental causes of the violent conflicts that beset the area. It argues that the underlying factor for restiveness in both periods is the exclusion of the local communities from participating in the exploitation and benefits of the resources. The paper theorises the causes of conflicts during the two periods based on social justice concepts of distribution and recognition. It suggests that the actualisation of normative elements of distribution and recognition that quelled the first of these conflicts has a fundamental role to play in resolving the multifarious conflicts that currently pervade the Niger Delta region. Consequently, it suggests that initiatives that recognise public participation in the crude-oil industry be extended to resolve the present conflicts.

The other side of civil society story: women, oil and the Niger Delta environmental struggle in Nigeria

The study based on the outcome of a 2 year involvement with women organizations in the oil rich Niger Delta region of Nigeria avers that in spite of their apparent invisibility in the dominant Niger Delta discourse, women form the first line of social defence against socio-economic privation in the region. The women play active socio-economic roles in the hostile Niger Delta environment in engendering and sustaining group and individual development. In spite of the structural and cultural limitations imposed on women, their associational life seen in the formation of various socio-economic groups has been invaluable to development in the region. Thus apart from providing coping niches for individual women, these women pool together in groups and associations to tackle the every day challenge of living in the region. This fact makes women and their groups critical agencies of intervention and development devolution in the region that should be properly harnessed in addressing the complex Niger Delta situation in Nigeria.

Corporate citizenship in the Nigerian petroleum industry: a beneficiary perspective

Based on ethnographic data from Nigeria's oil-rich and gas-rich Niger Delta region, and relevant secondary data, this article presents a case for a beneficiary-centred approach to analysing and reporting on corporate citizenship, and for a shift from the dominant top-down approach. It addresses one key question: What do the experiences of people who share their socio-ecological and cultural neighbourhoods with petroleum operators say about some specific practices of corporate citizenship? The article does not present an anti-theory of corporate citizenship or of the broader sustainable development debate. Rather, it relates a counter-narrative informed by the new scramble for natural resources in Africa and the experiences and stories of respondents in communities targeted by corporate citizenship initiatives. The paper offers a modest empirical basis for re-examining how corporate citizenship affects local communities and how it can be made a powerful mechanism for empowering them.

Niger Delta chaos

The oil-rich Niger Delta region of Nigeria is in the grip of a security crisis, with kidnapping and violence rife. The troubles are caused by the mixture of crime and corruption with long-standing grievances of local people against the oil industry and their low share of oil revenues. The problems are of growing concern to foreign governments not only because of the region's oil resources, but also because a collapse into anarchy risks fostering extremism and terrorism.

Beyond the Threshold of Civil Struggle: Youth Militancy and the Militia-Ization of the Resource Conflicts in the Niger Delta Region of Nigeria

The resource agitations and conflicts in the oil rich Niger Delta region of Nigeria that were originally civil and communal have since been transformed into armed struggles conducted by disparate youth militia groups. Crime, violence and insecurity, state militarization, ethnic militia-ization and communal and ethnic wars now pervade the re- gion. The study analyzed the youth militancy and militias in the context of deep economic and resource crises and found that multinational oil company strategies and state repression conduced the emergence and consolidation of the militia phenomenon from the youth who are plagued by unemployment and poverty. The study also found that infiltration of political elites, loss of focus and poor control have combined to turn the militias into perpetrators of crime, violence and insecurity and agents of private interests and greed. The consequences of militancy and militia-ization have been very disruptive and devastative to the economy, gov- ernance, inter-group relations, communal cohesion and security of the Niger Delta region.

THE EFFECT OF OIL SPILLAGE ON CROP YIELD AND FARM INCOME IN DELTA STATE, NIGERIA

Environmental degradation of the oil-rich Niger Delta region has been wanton and continuous with dire health, social and economic consequences for its peoples, for over three decades. Using a sample of 262 crop farmers drawn randomly from 10 communities and 5 LGAs in the oil producing agro-ecological zones of Delta State, the negative impact of oil spill on crop production was accentuated. Oil spill reduced crop yield, land productivity and greatly depressed farm income as a 10 percentage increase in oil spill reduced crop yield by 1.3 percent while farm income plummeted by 5 percent. In order to halt the continual degradation of the Niger Delta environment, the authors recommend the enactment and enforcement of stringent environmental laws to protect the area as well as the implementation of policies to reduce the crushing level of poverty and guarantee a better livelihood for the people.

The Economy of Conflict in the Oil Rich Niger Delta Region of Nigeria

AbstractEconomies of war underpinned by greed and opportunities have been posited to underlie causality, dynamics and the sustenance of conflicts – particularly Africa's resource wars. This study examines the economy of conflict in the resource conflicts in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria. It found that a conflict economy comprising an intensive and violent struggle for resource opportunities, inter and intra communal/ethnic conflicts over resources, and the theft and trading in refined and crude oil has blossomed since the 1990s. This paper examines the interfaces between the Nigerian state, multinational oil companies, the international community, and youth militias with the economy. This paper found that though the economy did not cause the conflict, it has become a part of the resistance and a resource for sustaining it. The economy underpins an extensive proliferation of arms and the institutions of violence and the pervasiveness of crime, violence and communal/ethnic conflicts.

Ethnicity, Federalism and Revenue Allocation in a Democratic Nigeria: The Niger Delta Problem

Recurrent violence in the oil-rich Niger Delta region poses a growing threat to Nigeria\'s new democracy. Many believe that only a genuine federal system based on a fair fiscal policy can resolve the Niger Delta dilemma and safeguard Nigeria\'s democracy. Africa Insight Vol.34(2/3) 2004: 23-30

The Oil Rich Niger Delta Region: A Framework for Improved Performance of the Nigerian Regulatory Process

The adoption of this policy framework has the ability to reconcile industry, the environment and community interests, taking into account all factors that are relevant to managing developments that are both sustainable and contributory to the achievement of industrial and community stability. The management of resource development is crucial in sustaining the Niger Delta ecosystem and the human population resident in the Niger Delta region. If these separate bodies are constituted they would have the potential to reduce and discourage: i) the vulnerability of the regulatory body to influential and powerful multinational oil companies; ii) the proclivity for unaccountability to the people of the Niger Delta region, since the people of the Niger Delta would have access to the regulatory body's classified and unclassified information, and are part of the decision-making process; and iii) a reduction in conflict between the oil mining companies and the aggrieved youths of the oil rich Niger Delta region. This policy framework also has the added advantage of producing high quality decisions and more acceptable decisions than those for which the people of the Niger Delta region are excluded from the processes that concern their existence. The agency decision-making could now become a multilateral process and thus promote and enhance the accurate, impartial and rational application of legislative directives to given cases or classes of cases. Most importantly, the Minister of Petroleum Resources should be empowered by legislation to revoke any license or lease in respect of an area designated as marginal if left undeveloped for a period of 5 years and grant a lease or license for the area to a more responsible oil company.

The Oil Rich Niger Delta Region: A Framework for Improved Performance of the Nigerian Regulatory Process

The Oil Rich Niger Delta Region: A Framework for Improved Performance of the Nigerian Regulatory Process

Water Resources in Nigeria: Rights, Accesibility, Allocation and Management

The UN Administrative Committee for Co-ordination (UACC) task force on social services states that: ‘at the highest political level there needs to be recognition that water and sanitation are basic needs and rights.’ Similarly, the ministerial declaration of the Hague Conference on Water Security (March 17-22, 2000) also states that water is vital for the life and health of people. We have one goal, it claimed, ‘ensuring that every person has asses to enough water’. Despite such statements, the right of Nigerian people to access to safe water has been persistently violated. Water resources are grossly mismanaged and unequally distributed despite the return of democracy to the country. Local people (especially women, who bear the greater burden of the water crisis) are invariably excluded from decision-making processes involving their water resources. The highly flawed constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999, puts the management and control of water resources beyond the reach of ethnic nationalities and peoples that makes it the exclusive preserve of the federal government of Nigeria. Legislation stipulating how water resources should be managed exists, but it is almost always ignored. This paper uses field analyse, reports and interviews from the oil-rich Niger Delta region as case studies outlining the multifarious problems that bedevil the country as a result of poor water management. The Niger Delta, the most threatened ecosystem in the world, has been degraded by oil multinationals like Shell, Chevron and Mobil. Wetlands and mangroves universally recognised as fragile ecosystems are under stress due to waterlogging and oil pollution. Nigeria recorded 400 oil spills in the first nine months of 2000; these rendered fresh water sources highly polluted. The paper also examines the struggle for self-determination headed by the Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People (MOSOP). It considers sustainable water resource management and fights over resource control between the federal government and the highly impoverished, pauperised and marginalised ethnic nationalities who have organised social movements in the country. It highlights the implications of this situation not only for Nigeria but also for the entire world. Finally, the paper recommends for practical ways of bridging the gap between the government and the people of Nigeria, restoring the people’s right to access to the quantity and quality of water they need, ensuring the equitable allocation of water resources among the Nigerian peoples, and providing for the sustainable management of water resources in the country. Water Nepal Vol.9-10, No.1-2, 2003, pp.349-360

The Oil Rich Niger Delta Region: A Framework for Improved Performance of the Nigerian Regulatory Process

The Oil Rich Niger Delta Region: A Framework for Improved Performance of the Nigerian Regulatory Process