Relative deprivation and insurgency: What lessons from Nigeria’s flawed federalism?

Abstract

In the heyday of insurgency in Nigeria’s oil-rich but poor Niger Delta region, much scholarly effort was made to explain this conflict as being borne out of relative deprivation. This paper contests the logic of using relative deprivation as the cause, as opposed to the reconfiguration of power in Nigeria’s national politics. This has seen the emergence of a president from the once marginalized Niger Delta region and the resultant dynamics of post-conflict peace-building. We also examine the consequences of a return to peace in the Niger Delta, in spite of the failure of the Nigerian state and oil transnational corporations to address the grievances that were widely canvassed as the reasons for rebellion. I conclude that insurgency in Nigeria is spawned not so much by conditions of relative deprivation, as by the nature of Nigeria’s fundamentally flawed federalism.