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

Dr. Lere Amusan
the African continent and within the African in the Diaspora, the oil
boom of the late 1970s turned Nigeria to a beggar of some sort, as it
indulged in borrowing binge to finance the running of the government.
Therefore one could say that the availability of fossil fuel in Nigeria
turned to be a curse for several reasons discussed below.
The traditional sources of foreign exchange such as agriculture,
mining (solid minerals) and import substitute industries suffered in
the hand of every government in Nigeria from the 1970s. This was
immediately after the Yom Kippur War in the Middle East that
brought about the quadruple increase in the price of crude oil at the
international market. Overreliance on the finite unsustainable crude
oil brought down the government and the same led to political
instability as the coup d’état experienced in the country were
attributable to the need for the military to share from the fuel dollars.
The major players in the fossil fuel business, the MNCs wielded
enormous power so much that the host states could not control their
activities at will without boomerang effects politically and
economically. This brought about the employment of divide and rule
in the Niger delta, which eventually led to the incessant crises in the
region that have in turn, aggravated the state’s underdevelopment.
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