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

Chapter IV: Fishers of Men: The Political Economy of Kidnapping in the
Niger Delta
Commission did not deem it necessary to accede to the request for the
creation of separate states for the people, it nevertheless recognized
the difficulties posed for the areas’ development by its difficult terrain
and recommended the creation of a special development agency which
gave rise to the Niger Delta Development Board (NDDB).
Constitutional and political developments in the country in the
1940s up till the mid 1960s which gave increasing autonomy to the
regions and saw the formation of region-based political parties that
formed governments controlled by members of the majority ethnic
group in each region were to further accentuate the marginalization
of the Niger Delta people and region within the emergent Nigerian
federation and economy in which each of the Western, Northern, and
Eastern regions was blessed with major government revenue yielding
agricultural products- Cocoa, Groundnut/cotton and Palm oil
respectively. Marketing Boards were established for each of these
crops the control of which by the regional elites provided
opportunities for primitive capital accumulation. Incidentally, with
the exception of palm oil produced in the rain forest zone, the crops
from which the bulk of government revenues were derived were not
the ones for which the larger part of the Niger Delta was naturally
well endowed. Consequently, such traditional occupations as fishing
were not encouraged and could therefore be engaged in for
subsistence and local exchange only. Unfortunately, this source of
local employment even if only for survival and minimal income
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