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

Dr. William Ehwarieme
who had been engaged in these economic activities before they were
born, had nothing to show for it. One, a graduate of Political Science,
wondered why anyone would expect him to become a local fisherman
after he had taken the pains to acquire University education. But even
with the best of efforts, every youth, school leaver or graduate from
the Niger Delta could not have been engaged by the oil companies or
the local, state or federal governments. Matters are however, made
worse by the fact that there is no evidence of any deliberate efforts to
address the issue of employment creation, income generation and
poverty reduction in the region. Thus, there exists a large army of the
unemployed, pervasive poverty and inequality in the midst of the
enormous wealth from oil produced in the Niger Delta.
It is the dynamics of the oil economy and oil politics within the
Niger Delta and the larger Nigerian polity that has helped to transform
the army of unemployed youths into “fishers of men. “ Oil turned
Nigeria into what has been described as a rentier state and made rent
seeking, which is unproductive activity to obtain private gain from
public office, action and resources the behaviour code for almost all
public officials at all levels of governance. Revenues were centralized
and the formula for sharing the “national cake” as the huge revenues
from oil has come to be regarded among the constituent states of the
Nigerian federation ceased to be an emphasis on the principle of
derivation which was the vogue when agricultural products produced
by the majority ethnic groups were the mainstay of the Nigerian
107