The Niger Delta Crisis In Southern Nigeria

The Niger Delta Crisis in Southern Nigeria. - Ogoni Land

The oil-rich Niger Delta region of Nigeria has been embroiled in crisis between the government forces and some militant elements that are aggrieved over certain fundamental issues affecting the Region

According to Bontee (2009) Before oil was discovered in Nigeria, there were other export commodities like Groundnut, Tin Ore, Cotton, e.t.c from the Northern Region and Cocoa from the western region. Economically viable petroleum was discovered in Ogoniland in 1957, just one year after the discovery of Nigeria's first commercial petroleum deposit, resulting in the oil boom era of the 70’s, Agriculture which was the mainstay of the economy was in the hands of both Northern and Western

A 1979 constitutional amendment gave the federal government full ownership and rights to all Nigerian territory and also declared that eminent domain compensation for seized land would "be based on the value of the crops on the land at the time of its acquisition, not on the value of the land itself." The Nigerian government could now distribute the land to oil companies as it deemed fit, said the Human Rights Watch"

The root cause of the whole Niger Delta crisis is an injustice. The people of the regions are saying they are being exploited and have not received adequate profits from the profitable. In Wiki "1980s saw government promised benefits for the Niger Delta peoples fall through and fail to materialize, with the Ogoni growing increasingly dissatisfied and their environmental, social, and economic apparatus rapidly deteriorating.

In 1992, the conflict between the Ogoni and the oil companies escalated to a level of greater seriousness and intensity on both sides. Both parties began carrying out acts of

This unrest has resulted in drop in total crude oil output, lost of lives, burnt houses,

3: Identify Possible Causal Factors: The sequence of events that lead to this unrest are: Discovery of Oil in Ogoni land, 1957, Lands are taking from communities and given to oil companies without proper financial settlement, amendment of constitution that state that all land belongs to government and oil block owned by the governance

4 Identify the Root Cause(s) : The real reasons this problem exist is greed, corruption, and injustice. The communities are faced with deteriorating properties, hazardous gas. The Federal Government sharing formular allocation is not satisfy by those in the South South of Nigeria and even when the government tries to compensate, them, the money still ends up in a personal account.

5: Recommend and Implement Solutions

- Landowner should be compensated with the value of the land, not the crops

- The people from the community where this oil was discovered should be allowed to own part of oil blocks

- Oil companies should prioritize oil clean up especially to affected environment

- Dialogue with the