Crisis and Reform in the Oil Industry

Historically, crisis in Nigeria dated back to flag independence on October 1, I960.1 From political crisis, Nigeria waded through social and economic crises, some of which threatened her foundation as a nation. The political crises at various times, particularly in the early 1960s, were so serious that many foreign observers had predicted that Nigeria would dismember into the federating regions before the close of the decade.2 By the mid-1950s, the political unrest degenerated into a situation that lured the military into intervention in politics on January 15, 1966. Military intervention set a new psychological paradigm that has remained difficult to reset, even long after the return to civil rule. The basis of the crisis during the period was less economic but more political because each region and the Centre amicably pursued their respective economic interests based on natural endowment.3 Much later, from the mid-1970s, the blessing of the emergent oil resources ushered in a new regime of life characterized by economic advancement, mono-product syndrome, commonwealth mentality, struggle for cake sharing, and inevitable crisis. Oil became the blessing and bane of Nigeria, providing over 75 percent of her earnings, and paradoxically fueling the embers of regional and class politics, struggles and intrigues, all culminating in endless crises. Thus, Saka Luqman and Fatima Lawal aptly remarked that: