Militarisation of Oil and Environmental Politics in Nigeria: Armed Resistance, State Responses and Peace Prospects in the Niger Delta Region

The contradictions inherent in interests of stakeholders in oil politics have escalated to armed confrontations in the oil-producing Niger Delta region of Nigeria. Years of unrealised development aspirations of the Niger Delta people and environmental crisis in relation to oil spillage and gas flaring have encouraged resistance against the oil industries and the state in the region. The manner of this resistance and state responses have undergone the process of militarisation in the last decades. The paper, which is qualitative in nature and thus drawing much from secondary data establishes that a series of political solutions, including support for zoning of Nigerian Presidency to the Niger Delta, and policy initiatives such as the amnesty programme for militants have helped to subdue the crisis. However, oil and environmental politics remains militarised for the state and resistant groups in the Niger Delta. Consequently, this article seeks to examine the nature and context of the socio-political crisis in the Niger Delta and the challenges and prospects for sustainable peace in the region. Â