Issue

Vol. 34 No. 2 (2009): Africa Development: Special Issue on The Humanities

5- Nigeria’s Niger Delta: Understanding the Complex Drivers of Violent Oil-related Conflict

https://doi.org/10.4314/ad.v34i2.57373
https://doi.org/10.4314/ad.v34i2.57373
Cyril Obi
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8440-4269

Corresponding Author(s) : Cyril Obi

cyril.obi@nai.uu.se

Africa Development, Vol. 34 No. 2 (2009): Africa Development: Special Issue on The Humanities

Abstract

This paper explores the complex roots and dimensions of the Niger Delta conflict which has escalated from ethnic minority protests against the federal Nigerian State-Oil Multinationals’ alliance in the 1990’s to the current insurgency that has attracted worldwide attention. It also raises some conceptual issues drawn from ‘snapshots’ taken from various perspectives in grappling with the complex roots of the oil- related conflict in the paradoxically oil-rich but impoverished region as an important step in a nuanced reading of the local, national and international ramifications of the conflict and its implications for Nigeria’s development. The conflict is then located both in the struggle of ethnic minority groups for local autonomy and the control of their natural resources (including oil), and the contradictions spawned by the transnational production of oil in the region. The transition from resistance – as-protest – to insurgency, as represented by attacks on state and oil company targets by the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), is also critically analyzed.

Keywords

Nigeria Niger Delta Conflict Oil Protests Ethnic Minorities
[1]
Obi, C. 2009. 5- Nigeria’s Niger Delta: Understanding the Complex Drivers of Violent Oil-related Conflict: https://doi.org/10.4314/ad.v34i2.57373. Africa Development. 34, 2 (Dec. 2009). DOI:https://doi.org/10.4314/ad.v34i2.57373.
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Author Biography

Cyril Obi

Cyril Obi is a program director at the Social Science Research Council (SSRC), Brooklyn, New York. He leads the SSRC’s African Peacebuilding Network (APN) and the Next Generation Social Sciences in Africa programs. He has published extensively on the political economy of oil, African peace, security, and development, globalization, environmental conflict and environmental security. The 2004 Claude Ake Visiting Chair at the Department of Peace and Conflict Research at the University of Uppsala, Sweden, Cyril Obi is also a recipient of fellowship awards from CODESRIA; African Studies Centre, Leiden; St. Antony’s College, Oxford University; Salzburg Seminar; and the SSRC. He also holds a 2020 Peace Distinguished Scholar Award of the International Studies Association (ISA), and is currently a research associate of the Department of Political Sciences, University of Pretoria, South Africa. He serves on the editorial boards of peer-reviewed journals, and has published extensively in the fields of international relations, African politics, peace, development, and security, and the political economy of oil in Africa.

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