A Study on Development of Niger Delta, Nigeria

Abstract

Nigeria's Niger Delta was one of the foremost regions to come in contact with European civilisation, as far back as the 15th century.  Moreover, the region accounts for a great portion of the country's economic resources arising from its rich human and natural resources.  In other words, Nigeria's economic mainstays – oil and gas – are largely domiciled with the Niger Delta region.  However, the region is still grappling with severe underdevelopment, despite the forgoing.  It is bad enough that the region is severely underdeveloped; what is worse is that successive governments in Nigeria have laid claim to one development intervention in the region or the other, since independence.  It is this irony of poor development condition of the Niger Delta in the midst of various so-called interventionist development programmes in the region that necessitated this study to interrogate why the region is not developing.  In so doing, Marx's class analysis was employed as the theoretical framework within which the inquiry was conducted.  Contents of data largely collected from secondary sources were analysed to show that the Niger Delta is not developing because the different programmes of intervention in the region appear not to be development interventions but conscious avenues for personal aggrandisement of Nigeria's governing class.  The study therefore recommended the institutionalisation and implementation of real fiscal federalism as well as establishment of Community Trust Funds in the respective Niger Delta communities as panacea for the region's development crises.