scholarly journals Environment pollution: The rise of militarism and terrorism in the Niger Delta of Nigeria

Author(s):  
Christian Madubuko

Oil was discovered in large quantities in Nigeria in 1956 and exploration began in the same year. Before oil, agriculture and fishing had assured the Niger Delta people of a bright future. Since 1956, oil has been extracted from the Niger Delta with destructive consequences on the environment, bringing about environmental degradation and destruction of the people’s primary means of livelihood. Land and water were badly polluted, and the health of the people affected because of leaks from oil pipelines, gas flaring and acid rains. Several petitions and non-violent protests by Delta communities, women and youth against environmental destruction failed to receive attention. Rather, opposition to peaceful protests earned the people military invasions of their communities, clampdowns and jailings. The rise of militarism and terrorism in the Niger Delta was the result of the Federal Government and Oil Companies’ clampdown on non-violent protests for environmental justice in the Niger Delta. This paper discusses the history of oil exploration in the Niger Delta, oil laws, effects of oil exploration in the region, and the rise of militants and terrorists in the area. The paper uses the term, ‘environmental Justice’ to denote unfair treatment and destruction of the Delta environment resulting from oil exploration, non implementation and enforcement of environmental laws and regulations, and abuse of human rights.The paper suggests solutions for peace in the Niger Delta.

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Obumneme Achunike

Oil was discovered in Nigeria in1956 at Oloibiri in the Niger Delta Region after almost 50 years of exploration. Shell-BP at that time, was the sole concessionaire because non-British companies were not given exploration license to operate in Nigeria. After Nigerian Independence in 1960, exploration rights were extended to other multinational oil companies. More than 16 multinational oil companies were in operation with little or no supervision from the Nigerian Government, which created significant environmental, political,and social impact in the region. A critical discourse analysis of documents from Shell, Amnesty International, THISDAY Newspaper revealed that the Nigerian government has failed to safeguard the environment and the lives of the people. On the basis of evidence presented on this research, in addition to literature, it can be argued that oil has turned out to be a curse to the Niger Delta Region and Nigeria in general.


2008 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 832-853 ◽  
Author(s):  
F J Streets

There is within the history of Christian worship practices a long tradition of someone offering a sermon to those gathered for worship. The primary means for many Christians throughout the world of receiving Christian education and guidance is by listening to sermons. There is generally embedded in all Christian preaching some attempt on the part of the preacher to share a worldview based upon the his or her biblical and theological interpretation of the meaning of faith and their application to daily living. This article explores how the sermon can be a source of religious instruction and aspect of pastoral caring for those infected and affected by HIV and AIDS. The article also suggests that such sermons can be a form of advocating social justice for those who are stigmatized because of their HIV status. Note: The people mentioned in this article, are real but, their names, Rob, Inspiration and Pastor Able are fictitious for reasons of confidentiality.“My Africa is fading and no one sees or cares that it is happening.”


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 68-86
Author(s):  
Kelly Bryan Ovie Ejumudo ◽  
Ogochukwu Harrison Amede

Abstract This study examines the problematic of oil production and water pollution in selected oil-bearing communities in Bayelsa State. The design of the study was descriptive survey. The instrument used for data collection was questionnaire. The data were analyzed using chi-square. The findings of the study revealed that there is a significant relationship between the role of the Nigerian State, multinational oil companies as well as the community leadership and the negative effects of water pollution on the health, occupation/economic and the livelihood standard/poverty level of the people of the oil-bearing communities in Bayelsa State. The study recommended among others that the multi-layered levels of government should formulate and genuinely implement policies that will mitigate the effects of water pollution on the health, economic and livelihood status of the people and the multinational oil conglomerates should be truly committed to integrated policies and strategies that will close the developmental gaps in the Niger Delta Region.


2021 ◽  
Vol 25 (spe) ◽  
pp. 1-25
Author(s):  
Fo Nyemutu Roberts

This article interrogates engendering access to environmental justice in Nigeria's oil producing areas and its connection with poverty and disempowerment of women. Women already suffer from the fact that access to justice for the vast majority of Nigerians is challenging and restrictive. It is discriminatory against women. Access to environmental justice is, therefore, an additional burden on them, and of significant concern to the people in the country's oil producing Niger Delta region. Militant youths, women and communities have protested in diverse forms against the injustice they suffer as a result of oil and gas production in the region. However, the Nigerian State has often responded with brutal repression resulting in deepening environmental insult in the region. The oil producing areas, therefore, suffer a triple jeopardy. First, access to justice remains a huge challenge for the people, including women. Secondly, there is the additional burden that they have to struggle for environmental justice against a State and international oil companies that are complicit in the adverse environmental desiderata, a disproportionate brunt of which is borne by women who, however, occupy an auxiliary position in the struggle. Thirdly, where there is policy intervention by way of environmental "clean up" projects, such interventions hardly face up to the need to involve women in developing and implementing key policies, which means that important issues for women are ignored and women continue to suffer substantive environmental injustice.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
‘Gbade Ikuejube ◽  
O.A. Funmilayo

Coastal Yorubaland is one of the richest parts of Nigeria in terms of natural resource endowment. The area is blessed with extensive forests, good agricultural land and abundant water resources such as fish. It is also blessed with reserves of crude oil. This natural resource has attracted the attention of oil companies, whose activities often result in economic and social problems such as environmental pollution, occupational dislocation, cultural extinction and rural urban drift. However, the attitude of the people in this region, especially the militant youths, has also contributed to environmental degradation: oil pipe vandalization has become a constant occurrence, and it has a debilitating effect on the environment. Environmental devastation, economic poverty and constant conflict constitute a lived reality. Oil exploitation activities have also left much of the area desolate, poor and uninhabitable. This article argues that the effects of oil exploitation on Ilaje Ugbo communities are comparable to what occurs in other oil communities of the Niger Delta region of Nigeria.


2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 465-483
Author(s):  
Ndidiamaka Chijioke ◽  
Susan Audu-Bako ◽  
Ikechukwu Uwakwe

The discovery of crude oil in Oloibiri-a town in the present Bayelsa state, Niger-Delta region of Nigeria) in 1956 and the subsequent exploration activities have over the years impacted tremendously not only on the ecosystem and livelihood pattern of the Niger Delta but on the pattern of conflicts that has trended.. While resources accruable to Nigeria from sale of crude oil are shared by all, the impacts of oil spill an offshoot of crude oil exploration activities are borne solely by the Niger Delta region. Oil spill appears to have found a permanent abode in Bayelsa state; from Southern Ijaw to Sagbama local governments, Olodiama to Azuzuama communities. Local communities are faced with the problem of continuous oil spill. This in turn has brought about conflicts between oil bearing communities and oil companies. These conflicts in some instances led to shut down of operations of oil companies, vandalism, and reduction of Nigeria’s crude export. In view of the illustrated background, this study examined the strategies for management of oil spill related conflicts in Bayelsa state regarding that oil spill is a key impact of crude oil exploration activity. Findings revealed that the strategies deployed in the management of oil spill in the state can be categorised into three: community strategies, regulators and non-governmental organisations strategies.


2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 22-36

Abstract The Niger Delta since inception of oil exploration in 1956 has been witnessing series of environmental insecurities which culminated into long term sufferings of the people living in the region. The activities of oil companies paid less attention to the well-being of the region and consequently metamorphosed into youth’s militancy –in terms of kidnapping and armed struggles. The effects of militancy led to the proclamation of amnesty programme designed to ameliorate the crisis situation and pardon those who were involved in militancy by the President Yar’Adua led administration in 2009. However, the question of insincerity from the government, multinational oil companies, agencies and militants remains a burden undermining the amnesty implementation programme and its successes in post-amnesty Niger Delta. This seminar, therefore, examined the social impact of amnesty programme and its challenges on Niger Delta. Internet explorations, magazines, newspaper cut-outs, books and journals were the instruments of data collection. Suggestions for proper implementation of amnesty programme and developmental actualisation in the Niger Delta Region were proffered. Keywords: Niger Delta, Crisis, Amnesty Programme, Nigeria


Author(s):  
Ibaba Ibaba

This paper examines the contradictory realities that have thrown up the conflicting relationship between oil companies and oil producing communities in the Niger Delta of Nigeria. To achieve this objective, the paper, after the introduction which provides the background and framework of analysis, situated the conflict in its political setting. It established that the privatization and ethnicisation of politics in Nigeria, has resulted to a resource distribution system that alienates Oil Producing Communities from the oil wealth. State legislations on the oil industry and manipulations of the revenue allocation system have made this possible. The article demonstrates that although the causes of the conflicts are complex and interrelated, material deprivation is central to the conflicts. It highlights oil based environmental degradation induced productivity losses and occupational disorientation, inadequate compensation for damages caused by oil industry activities, poor channels of communication by the oil companies, failed community development programmes of the oil companies, among others as causes of the conflicting relationship. The paper notes that current policies have not addressed these factors that motivate conflict. In addition to compensation, the paper suggests the integration of the people into the oil economy, and the direction of public resources to public good as the likely solution.


2005 ◽  
Vol 2005 (1) ◽  
pp. 825-829
Author(s):  
Charles Mrabure ◽  
Patrick Ngene

ABSTRACT Crude oil exploration and production in Niger Delta area of Nigeria started over fifty (50) years ago, and had brought with it several cases of oil pollution which as well as other human activities have resulted in devastation of the ecological landscape leading to depletion of natural resources, a source of livelihood for the indigenous people. Due to the stress/hardship occasioned by depletion of natural resources such as fishes, other aquatic life, Land etc, the people have evolved from peace loving to hostile communities. They have embarked on several protests and kidnappings, the oil companies being primary target in all cases. Working in this area became a risk for the companies. Clean up of polluted sites thus became an almost impossible activity; initiating dialogue with the people became a herculean task because of lack of mutual trust. In the case of PK26.5 oil spill clean up, several fruitful efforts were made to dialogue with the people, and this resulted in a partnership that saw Elf Petroleum Nigeria Ltd and her Contractor clean up an oil polluted site in this volatile region to the satisfaction of Regulatory authorities. Of the forty-four workers, forty (40) were from the community.


Author(s):  
Charles Feghabo ◽  
Blessing Omoregie

Language use is central to Tanure Ojaide’s The Activist, negotiating a better living environment for the people of the Niger Delta region of Nigeria. Most literary essays on this text, however, overlook Ojaide’s deployment of language to achieve his subversive vision. The text has been interpreted as environmentalism colored by an ideology or artistic documentation of the despoiled ecosystem, its effects on humans, the flora and fauna of the Niger Delta, and the consequential eco-activism. Another read of the text, however, reveals a binary relationship of dominance and subversion in which language is significant to both sides of the intercourse. The existence of dominance and resistance, therefore, necessitates the analysis of the text drawing from the Subaltern theory, an aspect of the Postcolonial theory to which dominance and resistance are central. This essay examines the deployment of language as a hegemonic and subversive tool in the oil politics in the Niger Delta. The binary relationship is couched in bi-partite motifs captured in epithets and contrasting images. In the binary, the multinational oil companies operating in the Niger Delta yoked with the Nigerian military government, are juxtaposed with the people and the Niger Delta as oppressors and the oppressed. Through bipartite motifs that abound in the text, Ojaide concretizes the duality in the Nigerian society vis-a-vis the oil politics in the Niger Delta.  In the duality, language is reinvented and mobilized significantly by both sides as a tool for demonizing and excluding each other to enable the subjugation or subversion of the other.


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