The Contradictions of Riches: Petro-Business and the Impoverished Local People in Nigeria’s Niger Delta.
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Date
2019
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Society for Peace Studies and Practice. Institute for Peace and Strategic Studies, University of Ibadan.
Abstract
In the Niger Delta, environmental degradation and pollution of the ancestral land erodes traditional livelihoods of the people. The high poverty rate in the Niger Delta in contrast with the oil wealth has become one of the world’s starkest and most disturbing examples of the “resource curse”. The increasing sense of relative deprivation experienced by the people of the Niger Delta, which is engendered by the contradiction of riches, has led to youth militancy, government and oil-companies’ brutal repression. This study explores how oil exploitation by oil-multinational fuels a vicious cycle of poverty and inequalities in the region. Drawing on data from in-depth interviews with key informants, Focus Group Discussion (FGD) and extant literature, the study argues that Petro-business has generated huge profit for the government and oil-multinationals and provided oil for the global community, while on the other hand it has resulted in a vicious cycle of poverty and inequalities among the local communities that replicate the asymmetric power dynamics between the government, oil multinational and the host communities in the Niger Delta region. The intricate poverty strategies designed and implemented in the Niger Delta have not mitigated the crucial problems of exclusion, inequalities and human deprivation.
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Keywords
Oil Exploitation, Poverty, Inequalities, Global Petro-Business, Niger Delta, Nigeria
Citation
Babatunde, A.O. (2019). The Contradictions of Riches: Petro-Business and the Impoverished Local People in Nigeria’s Niger Delta. In Readings in Peace and Conflict: Essays in Honour of Professor I.O. Albert. Bogoro, E. S., Meyer, M., and Danjibo, N.D. (eds). 737-748. Published by the Society for Peace Studies and Practice. Institute for Peace and Strategic Studies, University of Ibadan.