A Critical Analysis of the Impact of the Presidential Amnesty Programme on the Unrest in the Niger Delta Region
- April 21, 2022
- Posted by: rsispostadmin
- Categories: IJRISS, Social Science
International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS) | Volume VI, Issue III, March 2022 | ISSN 2454–6186
Socrates Ebo1, Yimini Shadrack George2
1Centre for Continuing Education, Federal University Otuoke, Bayelsa, Nigeria
2Philosophy Unit, Directorate of General Studies, University of Africa Toru-Orua, Bayelsa, Nigeria
Abstract: There is no gainsaying that the Niger Delta region has been a theatre of conflicts since the discovery of petroleum resources in commercial quantities in the area. It has been an unbroken chain of layers of conflicts. What took place in the region at the discovery of oil was akin to the scramble for Africa by European powers. Like in the scramble for Africa, the emphasis was on the control of resources. The control of resources has always been at the center of imperialism and its attendant conflicts. Ontologically, resources are scarce and will always be scarce. It is an existential fact that the scarcity of resources always induces conflicts. However, needs are infinite. Oil is a universally daily needed natural resource. As important as it is, it is not evenly globally distributed. The abundance of oil deposits in the Niger Delta ipso facto makes it a center of multinational economic interest. Naturally, the hawks, economic predators of all shades and hues did swoop in on the region. In the multinational quest for the control of the petroleum resources in the Niger Delta region, different theories of ownership were advanced. The refusal to be bystanders in the control of the oil resources domiciled in their region and the pains caused by the environmental degradation occasioned by oil exploration and exploitation led to series of confrontations that have culminated in a protracted unrest in the Niger Delta region. The introduction of the amnesty program to the region proved to be a game changer. This work critiques the impacts of the presidential amnesty program in the region.
Keywords: Niger; Delta; Oil; Insurgency; Amnesty; Nigeria; Exploitation
I. INTRODUCTION
The socio-economic and political milieu of the Niger Delta region drastically changed at the discovery of crude oil in commercial quantities in the region, few years before Nigeria’s independence from Britain, petroleum resources were appropriated by the federal government through the highly controversial Petroleum Act of 1969 [1]. There was oil rush in the region as all manner of multinational oil companies trooped into the Niger Delta region, prospecting for crude oil which was then seen as the liquidgold because of its economic importance. They did not give a damn about the locals. Their oil deals were with the federal government which had appropriated the oil resources in the region. The environmental serenity of the region was obtrusively violated as oil rigs sprout everywhere with the attendant environmental pollutions. The region was suddenly thrown into a new existential milieu unpreparedly. It was a milieu over which the inhabitants had near zero control. They neither had a say in bringing in the multinationals oil companies nor did they have any control whatsoever over the resources that were being exploited from their land. An abrupt political and economic order sprang in the region. Oil politics, the oil economy and their attendant negative exigencies betook the region. The Niger Delta was never the same anymore. The environment changed permanently. The pristine environmental tranquility bequeathed on the region by Mother Nature altered irreversibly.
