Implications Of The Niger Delta Conflict On National Development In Nigeria

Abstract

This paper examines the implications of the Niger Delta conflict on national development in Nigeria. The Niger Delta conflict has witnessed unprecedented spate of violent conflict in the last decade, all efforts to manage the conflict seem to have failed to yield the desired result. Although the conflict has lasted for more than a decade, there have been little attempts at analytical explanation of the relationship between the conflict and national development. Previous studies have focused merely on the causes and possible solutions to the conflict, and side-stepped the implications of the conflict on national development. This paper attempts to provide a new perspective to the study of the conflict. The qualitative method is adopted for the study while the theoretical framework used for the analysis of the study is the theory of war economy. The study concludes that the persistent crisis in Niger Delta region has negative implication on national development. The paper calls on the Nigeria state, oil multinational companies and stakeholders in the Nigeria project to urgently address the fundamental issues that led to conflict, such as; fiscal relations among the federating units, marginalization and neglect of the region in infrastructure development and the rising ratio of unemployment in the region.