THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF RESOURCE CURSE AND THE NIGER DELTA CRISIS IN NIGERIA: MATTERS ARISING

Abstract

Political economy literature is awash with analyses that attempt to identify the corereasons behind the development and or underdevelopment of different states and zonesof the world. Two major questions that such studies attempt to answer are, “how does astate’s natural resource wealth influence its economic development?” and “How doesnatural resource endowment contribute to political conflict in countries that are soendowed?” For some decades now, the exploitation of natural resources has been adetermining factor in the stability or otherwise of natural resource rich states. Studieshave shown that the exploitation of natural resources like crude oil, columbite anddiamond have contributed to a number of civil wars and internal crises in Africa. InNigeria, it has been a case of armed struggle in the Niger Delta creeks; between militantsand federal forces posted to secure the area. The result is that instead of yielding foreignexchange and prosperity to the citizens of the countries so endowed, the presence of suchresource, constitute a major source of political conflict within nations, resulting in suchcountries being referred to as the poorest of the poor in the world. Some studies indicatethe fact that these problems evolve from politics surrounding ownership, management,and control of natural resources in Africa. It is in the face of this reality that we attemptto situate Nigeria’s Niger Delta crisis in this resource curse matrix and propose thehypothesis that, there is a relationship between the resource curse theory and the NigerDelta crisis in Nigeria. Our findings agree with the core assumption of this paradigm thatinstead of ushering in development, poor management of resources, greed and badgovernance in the third world contribute greatly to her underdevelopment, strife andpoverty, in the midst of abundant natural resources.