Contending Issues in the Niger Delta Crisis of Nigeria - Journal of ...

Dr. William Ehwarieme
palm oil, agricultural production became increasingly oriented
towards the satisfaction of external interests; new forms of economic
activities emerged in response to European demands, for example,
forestry;
a new class of indigenous merchants emerged and
Europeans began to build factories in the region. Of course, the region
also became a market for the products of European industries thereby
radically altering consumption patterns. Finally, the most profound
impact yet is in the political arena when, as a result of imposition of
colonial rule at the beginning of the twentieth century, the small but
independent pre-colonial social formations in the Niger Delta were
constituted as part of the new nation, Nigeria which came into
existence in 1914 as a result of the amalgamation of the Southern
and Northern Protectorates by Lord Luggard. This singular act led to
the loss of independence of the various pre-colonial nations and
introduced ethnicity in the relations among them in the face of interethnic
struggles for scarce socio-economic resources. (Nnoli, 1978).
In 1939 when the country was reorganised into three regions-North,
East and West –dominated by Hausa-Fulani, Igbo and Yoruba
respectively, the people in the eastern and western halves of the Niger
Delta became minority ethnic groups in Eastern and Western regions
respectively. From then till the end of colonial rule, the cry of
marginalization was unabated. It reached a crescendo just before
independence, necessitating the setting up of the Willinks’s
Commission to inquire into the fears of the minorities. Although the
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