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

Dr. Esekumemu V. Clark
properties worth millions of dollars destroyed (among others, see
Clark 1991). It has been argued that the failure of the federal to
impose order in the crisis-torn region, eventually triggered the first
military intervention in the country’s political process. In extant
literature had shown different reasons why the army supplanted the
civilian leadership in 1966. Correspondingly, there are two main
reasons why the Federal had failed to intervene in the West to end the
crisis. (1) The NPC-led federal government was a political ally of the
NNDP-led government in the Western region; and (2) the federal had
been criticised previously for reacting too soon in early 1962 in
declaring a state of emergency. This occurred when the AG crisis
began by appointing an Administrator to the region, thus fuelling the
situation by encouraging some of the protagonists to refuse to seek a
peaceful solution to the crisis.
Perhaps the federal government, under the leadership of
Balewa, had expected to see whether the political leadership,
including the Obas and chiefs in the West, would be able to find
amicable solutions to the political upheaval that had engulfed their
region.
Moreover, in 1964-65, the Tiv uprising led by Joseph Taraka,
the leader of the UMBC against the NPC-dominated government of the
Northern region, which was particularly focused on destroying a
minority political party seeking social justice in the region in order to
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