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
a leading Ogoni patriot and scholar, has referred to the NDDC as a
monumental distraction, which may do no better than its institutional
predecessor, OMPADEC, in achieving its development task. The
current Ministry of Niger Delta, created by the President Sheu Musa
Yar’adua’s administration, has equally generated hot criticism
concerning its ability to solve the problem it was created to solve.
Equally, the military efforts of the federal government to contain
the conflicts have failed largely because the crisis is political, rather
than military. What the militias, with the support of the people of the
region, are asking for is the complete control of their resources or, at
least, 50 per cent of it in the sharing of the oil revenue. At the
political reform Conference in 2005 the oil producing states were
offered 19 per cent of the oil revenue, up from 13 per cent, but their
delegates turned this offer down as totally inadequate. That deadlock
has remained unresolved. Currently the federal government gets over
51 per cent of the oil revenue, the 36 states some 35 per cent, and the
over 700 local government less than 15 per cent, down from the 20
per cent previously allocated to them. Five per cent of the revenue due
to the local governments was recently inexplicably deducted and
added to the shares of both the federal and state governments.
Over time, the struggle in the Niger Delta has become bound up
with the overall struggle in Nigeria for demilitarization of governance
and the expansion of political space. With the military's retreat to the
barracks in May 1999, expectations have risen that the deprivation of
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