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

Chapter IX: The Politics and Policies of Oil Deregulation in Nigeria:
Implications and Policy Suggestions
as long as it continues to flow the country will be kept together by
hook or crook. The struggle for bitterness and acute value placed on
political power is to enable the various competing cliques and subcliques
within the political and military elite to get more and more of
the proceeds from oil for their own class and self-promotion.
Both by nature's selection and deliberate political engineering, Oil
remains essentially a resource that is predominantly found in areas
occupied by National minorities on the Niger Delta area. The logic of
Nigeria's center-centric Federalism is simple: What cannot be claimed
as the exclusive monopoly of the big Three (i.e. Hausa-Fulani, Yoruba,
and Igbo political elites) belongs to everybody. But what belongs to
them individually is theirs (Odiase, Op cit). That is why the country
operated a more balanced federalism in the immediate postindependence
period with powerful regions controlled by the three
dominant groups, which were dependent on agricultural commodities.
As Oil gained importance and became the main source of national
revenues the near con-federal consensus gave way to a virtual unitary
state (AbdulRahaman, 2003).
This process was aided and by prolonged military rule. No military
can function without a clearly defined command structure and
commandism. Thus the current situation where the center continues
to divide and rule unchallenged by breaking the country into more
states. And at state level every village wishes, with time and oil still
flowing, to become a local government. The theory is that government
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