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

Chapter X: The Politics of Interventionist Policies and the Niger Delta Crisis
in Nigeria: Impacts and Challenges
At this point the shenanigans of the three dominant ethnic
groups of the Yoruba, Hausa/Fulani and Igbo became blatant. So
much so that the foundation for the economic independence of the
regions which was laid by the 1960 and 1963 constitutions became
obliterated in the 1970s when crude oil replaced cocoa, groundnut
and coal as Nigeria’s foreign exchange earner. The obtrusive invasion
of Nigeria’s political landscape by the military only catalyzed the
efforts of the three major ethnic groups to short change the Niger
Delta Region in terms of revenue sharing formula.
Indeed the adoption of the twelve state structures by the
military administration of Yakubu Gowon marked the renaissance of
militarism in Nigeria’s body politic. This in turn translated to the
adoption of a unitary structure of governance in Nigeria. What this
portends is that a Federal Republic was now governed as a unitary
state. Perennial trips to Aso Rock to solicit for funds intensified since
state budgets were tied to allocations from the federation account
(Obagbinoko, 2008:221). On the other hand, between 1966 and
1975, when the twelve states replaced the former three regions, cocoa
and most other Nigerian agricultural products tumbled at the export
market, and crude oil became the single most important domestic and
export product of Nigeria.
Intriguingly, the revenue allocation
schemes were changed to give greater emphasis to need (proxied by
population) and state equality; the principle of derivation was thus
reduced in emphasis. (Philips, 1980:166)
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