Environment and the Economics of Nationalism: Revisiting the Oil Issue and the Restless Run of Locusts in the Niger Delta

The Niger Delta crisis has, in very recent times, taken a dangerous dimension, underscoring the degeneration of the issue due to the failure of the government at all levels, and other non-state actors, including multinational companies (MNCs), to bring the crisis to an end. The emergence of militias and cult groups in the last three years points to the aggravation rather than the resolution of the conflicts. The government’s seeming complicity in protection of the MNCs, using instruments of state force to protect foreign companies, has multiplied illegal means and instruments to fight the cause of "economic and social emancipation", as some militants claimed in February 2007 in an interview by Jeff Koniange of the American Cable News Network (CNN). This study examines the protracted Niger Delta crisis, exacerbated by oil, ecological and socio-ethnic factors, and its implication for Nigeria's external relations. It does this by revisiting the many unresolved issues, including the Ogoni crisis, which explain the escalation of the crisis