Creative Living off the Margins of the Niger Delta: Implications for Corporate Governance

Abstract

The distribution and privatization channels of the wealth from Niger Delta’s oil and gas resources are multiple. The main channels excessively favor mainly office holders, international entrepreneurs and their contractors. The rest of the population, or the less favored majority will have to cut their share of the wealth via the alternative channels which may include violent insurgencies. This work focuses on one of these alternative channels, where an Igbo community creatively sustain their access to the oil wealth. An ethnographic study of Egbema, shows that the local population modify their traditional practices to sustain the flow of the oil wealth. This modifying capacity was manifest when they creatively transformed a fishing festival that was traditionally celebrated exclusively, into a public fish bazaar. This was done to keep hold of the money received as compensation for the land expropriated for oil extraction by Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC). This has implications for corporate governance, especially with regard to the relationship between companies and other stakeholders.