The problem with the Niger Delta

Modern Ghana

24 May 2011

The problem with the Niger Delta

By Babatunde Rafiu
It is easy, convenient and fashionable to blame the Federal government for the underdevelopment in the Niger Delta region. This is the position of the editors of www.xclusivenigeria.com, Nigeria's internet newspaper.

Indeed, this tendency is the recourse of Niger Delta politicians and so-called activists when they are held liable by their own people for the under-development in the region. Many an educated indigene of this troubled, oil-rich region, which lays the nation's golden eggs, is quick to point fingers at the federal authorities, and so far for that matter, are the ordinary folk. Local politicians and traditional rulers from the region have built and honed their careers on this profitable enterprise.

Blaming the federal government is an effective tactic too.

And for good reason. By Nigeria's peculiar federal system, the government controls the purse strings of the region's vast oil resources, and indeed of all the mineral resources in the land. Using such parameters as population, geography, needs and other debatable indices, the authorities fund the states annually by allocating monies from the Federation Account...