The Quest for Resource Control in Nigeria: The Niger-Delta Experience

Abstract

The paper examines some fundamental factors that spur the quest for resource control in the Niger Delta areas in Nigeria. The pursuit for resource control has been at the centre stage of public discourse in Nigeria’s quest for fair sharing and public discourse. The clamour for fairness, justice, equity, equality and good conscience has been the wish of many groups and civil society organisations, communities in the Niger Delta. The paper reviewed the probable areas under which the aggrieved communities could be catered for especially social amenities. For some time now, the subject of this paper has been on the front burner of public discourse through incisive and engaging features by youth groups, CSOs and communities political leaders such as states governments from the oil producing states in the South-South zone of Nigeria. This work highlighted the great potential of Africa and urgent developmental needs of this vital geo-political region of the Niger Delta with critical analysis of the link between variables of ethnicity and religion as vital instrumentalities fueling the quest for resource control. This work also traced the historical antecedents of resource control vis-à-vis the environment as the main cause of conflict globally and the Niger Delta situation in particular. The paper concludes within frustration aggression theory that the role of the federal government through some policies in collaboration with the oil drilling companies have exacerbated the restiveness and agitations in the Niger Delta. Thus the processes and outcome of the scenario is inimical to the ethos of socio-economic and political development in the region and Nigeria as a whole. The paper therefore revealed that various governmental attempts aimed at providing solutions to resource control through requisite institutional framework like the NDDC is sine qua non to the agitation by various communities in the region. To arrive at this conclusion the paper relied on secondary sourced data from electronic and printed documents.

Keywords: Resource Control, Quest, Nigeria, Development, Niger-Delta.