AGITATION FOR THE CONTROL OF PETROLEUM RESOURCES IN THE NIGER DELTA REGION OF NIGERIA: THE LEGAL AND ECONOMIC ISSUES

The quest for resource control by states in the Niger Delta region is one of the contentious issues in Nigeria. The clamour for resource control followed the inability of the government to address the adverse social and economic conditions under which the people of the Delta region have been forced to live since the discovery of oil at Oloibiri in 1956. The exploration and production of oil and their concomitant negative effects have continued to affect the people’s agricultural and fishing activities. Pollution and gas flaring have continued to wreak havoc on the people’s means of livelihood while the love for money as well as the desire to live above poverty line in the Niger Delta have forced many into all kinds of obnoxious practices such as illegal oil bunkering, illegal oil refining, militancy, disruption of the activities of oil companies operating in the area; kidnapping of oil workers with demands for ransom and vandalization of petroleum facilities to cause spillage of which communities would demand compensation. This study examines the Agitation for the Control of Petroleum Resources in the Niger Delta Region of Nigeria: The Legal and Economic issues involved. The study adopts doctrinal or library based research methodology relying on both primary and secondary sources. The study reveals that Federal experiment around the globe responds to the changing dynamics of the political economy of each respective state. Thus, Nigeria’s centralizing Federalism is congruent with its Mono-cultural economy with over 90 percent dependence on oil Revenue. Finally, the work concludes by suggesting the possible ways that the Federal Government could adopt in response to this agitation, so that enduring peace could be restored to the Niger Delta region in particular and Nigeria at large.