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

Olawale Olaopa, Ibikunle Ogundari, Mike Awoleye, and Willie Siyanbola
the Niger Delta peoples will come to an end. Unfortunately, these
hopes are getting more forlorn. If the experience of Odi, an oil-rich
community that was scattered by the military on the order of
president Obasanjo due to stiff protest about the unbearable
environmental problem resulting from oil exploration activities, is any
indication, bleaker days may still be ahead. Irrespective of who is in
charge, whether military or civilian, the state apparatus in Nigeria
appears rigged to undermine the struggle of the oil-yielding
communities for control of their resources.
Yet the future of the Niger Delta struggle remains a critical part of
the yet-unanswered national question in Nigeria - the question of
whether the Nigerian federation will remain intact. Its resolution will
revolve around such related issues as the continued existence of the
country, domination by particular ethnic groups, how to organize the
federating groups, formulas for power-sharing, the military threat,
and so on. The redressing of historical wrongs in the Niger Delta will
not be an isolated event, but rather a gradual process animated by
dynamics within the entire Nigerian system - that is, if the region does
not convulse into another round of wholesale violence. The daily
buffet of violence served by the youths of the area to protest the
present arrangement, and the vigorous campaign by the governors
and leaders of the oil-yielding states for total control of their
resources, both on- and off-shore, may lead to a deeper crisis.
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