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

Chapter II: The Niger Delta Crisis: The Political Economy of Fossil Fuels in
Nigeria
of the state of nature of Thomas Hobbes. This situation led to a call
for re-colonization of the region by the masses based on the view that
when the United African Company (UAC) was active in the Oil
Protectorate, there were job opportunities because of the labour
intensive commercial activities of the company. The capital intensive
nature of the companies where the expatriates outnumber the
indigenes and the fact that the sub-contracting jobs are too technical
to leave in the hands of Nigerians brought about resentment and
hatred against the oil companies. Similarly, the fact that the award of
scholarship to Nigerians by the oil companies does not guarantee
them to be absorbed in the managerial level of the companies for
security concern compounds the more the hatred and resentment. In
some cases when the Niger deltans had been employed to the services
of oil companies at managerial level, the employee would be children
or candidates of the traditional chiefs, who hitherto continue to
benefit from the oil spoil. Also allowed to pick employment by these oil
MNCs are the products of the prestigious American and European
university institutions such as the Harvard, Yale, Oxford and
Cambridge. These are the people that have been politically socialized
with western political, economic and socio-cultural values. It is
observed that some pipeline sabotage recorded by the oil companies
were said to have been caused by the information given to the
militants by the junior oil workers employed in the Niger delta.
Nigerian government can go extra miles in a bid to satisfy the wishes
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