CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

Nigeria is not only Africa’s most populous nation state, but is also a major and prominent petroleum producing country in the continent. Over 90% of the country’s external revenues are derived from crude oil exports, although the non oil producing sectors are beginning to exhibit significant revenue generating capabilities. Nigeria’s vast crude oil reserves are geostrategically located in the Niger Delta region, which constitutes only 9 of the 36 states in the ethno culturally diverse federation. The Niger Delta region refers specifically to the following States: Abia, Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Cross River, Delta, Edo, Imo, Ondo and Rivers. There are about forty ethnic groups and a population of over 30 million people who reside in the greater Niger Delta region. Some of the major ethnic groups in the Niger Delta include: the Ijaws, Itsekiris, Urhobos, Isoko, Edos, Igbos, Yorubas, Ogbia, Ibibios, the Ilajes, Ikweerres, Kalabaris, Efiks, and the Ogonis. The above map presents a vivid illustration of the geo-territorial configuration of the battle for crude oil in the modern Nigerian political system. Some of the Oil Majors operating in the resource rich, and destitute Niger Delta region, also dubbed as Nigeria’s “Kuwait” include: Shell Petroleum Developing Company, Nigerian National Petroleum Company, Chevron/Texaco, Exxon Mobil, Total Fina, ELF Aquitaine, Agip and their subsidiary contracting companies. Crude oil exports have fallen to less than 2 million barrels per day production as a result of pipeline vandalism, illegal bunkering or illegal tapping of crude oil by criminal syndicates that includes a plethora of sea pirates, cults, brigands, restive youths, and more organized insurgent groups that have unleashed a reign insecurity, impunity, hostage takings, and other forms of economic violence in order to capture spoils, demarcate preferred petroturfs for black market activities. Currently the most prominent ethnic militia in this turbulent region is the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND). Nonetheless, there are a plethora of armed groups, criminal syndicates operating in the nine Southern states of the Niger Delta region. In a profound sense, therefore, studies of resource curse, the Dutch Disease, the Petro-State-Complex, Oil bunkering, Militias’ Insurgency, Ethnic Separatism, Fiscal Federalism, and the enabling effects of Multi-National Corporations in Host-Communities, as well as stakeholders pursuit of sustainable economic development in the Niger Delta region, most encompass a multi-layered approach to the diagnosis and analysis of the complex interplay of State power, local-regional political dynamics, and ethnic strife. Brutal contestations for resources, historical revisionisms of proprietorship rights, and convulsive communal environmental calamities should be studied beyond the conventional primacy of economic determinism and rational choice models. The Niger Delta Question thus calls for an interpretatively qualitative and holistically integrated analysis which combines strands of different theoretical paradigms and more importantly, integrates perspective that focuses on the historical sociology of the region and an analysis of the internal political roots of the ethno-energy-conflicts and security dilemma. Indeed, multinational corporations have both positive and negative effects on economic growth in resource rich and ethno-culturally intertangled polities such as the modern Nigerian political system.