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

Olawale Olaopa, Ibikunle Ogundari, Mike Awoleye, and Willie Siyanbola
of despair that the country has sunk to than Nigerians' love for
autocratic rule. The general mood is that the immediate past
President does not listen and his government does not care.
Tragically, the people do not expect the government to care anymore
and now expect the worse. There is now a dangerous indifference from
both the government and the people.
Besides the issue of labour and civil society resistance to the entire
question of liberalization of the oil sector, there is an even more
critical battle that the government has to deal with. It is the issue of
agitations for resource control by states and communities from where
crude oil is being exploited. For more than a decade, the oil-yielding
communities have been agitating for an increased share of oil
revenue, along with control over resources and an end to
environmental pollution. Under both military and civilian regimes, the
government has responded to the agitation with undisguised severity.
The current crisis contains the ingredients for another civil war,
which could break up the Nigerian federation.
The struggle of the oil-yielding communities to redress this
untoward situation has led to bitter conflict with the central
authorities. Specifically, the Niger Delta has been in turmoil since the
1990s. What started as a limited, non-violent agitation in the delta
states for an increase in their share of the oil revenue accruing to the
accounts of the federation, has now escalated to a sustained,
determined, and increasingly effective military attack by sundry delta
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