Since the discovery of oil in the Niger Delta, the region’s economic, strategic, and political fields have been significantly affected. The delta is a vast coastal plain at the southernmost part of Nigeria in 1956 accounting for most of Nigeria’s oil and gas production as well as most of its national revenue. Oil is the fiscal basis of the Nigerian state, as it accounts for over 90% of export earnings and 80% of federal revenues. Nigeria is one of the world’s top ten oil exporters. About half of the oil goes to the US. Despite this immense wealth generated by oil production, the Niger Delta and Nigeria remain poor.
The section 2 of the Petroleum Decree No. 51 of 1969 grants the oil minister “the only right to grant oil mining leases to oil companies”. This decree, expropriating all the oil in the Niger Delta in the name of the Nigerian federal military government did not involve the people of the Niger Delta.
The World Bank estimates that roughly sixty nine percent of Nigerians live in poverty. The 2006 Niger Delta Human Development Report’s findings state “inadequate, unavailable and poor quality infrastructure” and high unemployment rates. And the Delta’s people are extremely hostile to both oil companies and the government. They feel they have received little or nothing in return for the more than $300billion the government has earned from oil production over the last three decades. In fact, many complain about the pollution caused by oil spills and the huge orange flares that burn off waste gas; and criticize companies and politicians for failing to develop infrastructure or provide them with jobs. In 2003, the violence worsened as weapons flowed into the Delta; militias and community members took oil from pipelines to sell on the black market. And up to now, this situation remains unchanged. The oil extraction leads to little or no benefit to the inhabitants; clashes between militias and government troops; killings; illegal oil bunkering and anger linked to the alienation; dispossession of the people of the Niger Delta and neglect of the ethnic-minority people by the transnational forces of “fossil fuel” capitalism. It leads to vast swaths of resistance against the transnational oil alliance – which comprises the oil multinationals, their home governments, the Nigerian state, and ruling elite coalitions built within its structure of power. All this raises as the Nigerian state, the corrupt ruling elite and its transnational partners actually use oil wealth for empowerment in the Niger Delta. There is therefore little hope that the country can develop unless measures are taken.