Elites, oil and violence mitigation in the Niger Delta

The crisis in the oil-rich Niger Delta in Nigeria is one of the world’s forgotten conflicts in which thousands have been killed and the country’s vital oil industry has suffered. In the past twenty years, environmental destruction, youth unemployment, poverty and organised crime (such as massive oil theft) have persisted or even increased. The federal government’s brutal military intervention, ineffective development initiatives and a strategy of coopting powerful militant group leaders with judicial and economic benefits have failed to address the causes and drivers of conflict.

This paper offers analysis of the continuing crisis in the Niger Delta, and details a number of policy recommendations aimed at mitigating violence and progressing prospects for development. These include:

• Strengthening accountability and mechanisms of redress at the local through to the federal levels of government and governance

• Building the capacity of Niger Delta civil society as well as community and social organisations and movements to participate in decision-making processes related to local and regional development and oil production

• Linking the reintegration into economic and social life of demobilised militants to local development efforts in the Niger Delta, with a particular focus on job creation and vocational training for youth

• Strengthening Nigeria’s justice system to reduce judicial impunity, corruption, human rights violations by state security forces and [state-sponsored] criminality, such as massive oil theft and illegal oil lifting.