Oil and Blood in the Niger Delta Area of Nigeria: A Critique of the Role of the State

Abstract

This paper focuses on the Niger Delta area of Nigeria. The paper argues that the discovery of oil in the region in late 1950s marked a turning point not only in the area but shaping and consolidating the character of the Nigerian state. As the deprived people of area protested against the massive environmental degradation occasioned by the exploitation of the oil resource and total near exclusion from the control of the resources in their domain, the state has always responded in a repressive and brutalizing manner. Conceptualizing the state in term of Marxist, Pluralist and Institutionalist perspectives, the paper argues that the state as monopoly of force has assumed repressive tendency in its attempt to control the oil resource and subjugate the people of the area. Also, the political actors who have been presiding over the affairs of the Nigerian state have succeeded in looting and pilfering the collective wealth generated by the region thereby keeping the people and indeed the entire masses of Nigeria in perpetual poverty while the state itself bears the unmistakably the features of a failed state.

KEY WORDS: State; Niger Delta; Oil; Crisis; Oloibiri.