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
Affairs, while some would condemn it as another conduit pipe to
siphon resources. While the propriety of the creation of the ministry
was in contention, it was another battle over who should head it.
This feeling understandably, is derived from past experience where
such bureaucracies are often perceived as political agencies rather
than an interventionist agencies.
The task of developing the Niger Delta region is exacerbated by
government’s lack of sincerity and well defined policy framework for
the region. This is rooted in the failure of consistent policies of
coercive contention employed in the past, which rather deepen the
crisis and have contributed to make it the seeming intractable
problem it has assumed at present. The problem is compounded by
the apparent lack of conceptual clarity of the Niger Delta crisis (which
of course predates the present government) and which has been the
reason why no noticeable progress has been recorded on the issue.
Most Nigerian leaders like Obasanjo had a queer impression that the
problem could be dealt with by merely maintaining illicit liaison with
some of the region’s governors. This obvious display of confusion and
lack of clarity that had marked the Nigerian Government appreciation
of the Niger Delta crisis has often misled it into adopting a futile
approach that has proved more of a recipe for more crisis rather than
an antidote to the crisis.
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