1.1 Introduction
Exploration and extraction of natural resources have been known to always affect and after the geographical environment of the areas where they are carried on. The environmental impact of oil exploration in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria has contributed in no-small measures to the destruction of the fragile ecosystem, thus making the region “One of the world’s most severely petroleum impacted ecosystems and one of the 5 most petroleum–polluted environment in the World (Niger Delta Natural Resources Damage Assessment and Restoration Project, 2006). To neglect utterly environmental and human rights issues of the people in exploration of resources is known to bring issues about crises and catastrophes as witnessed in the Niger Delta.
As a prelude to other parts of this study, this chapter will discuss the background upon which this study was initiated, the statement of problems that led to this study, the Aim and Objectives of the study. Others are Significance of the study, Scope of work, Research hypothesis and questions, Limitations of the Study and Definition of technical terms.
1.2 Background of Study
Niger Delta region is 70,000 square kilometers region located at the southern part of Nigeria. Its inhabitants live in the Nigeria’s present day River, Bayelsa, Delta, Cross River, AkwaIbom, Abia, Imo, Edo and Ondo States. These states are made up of 40 different ethnic communities with 250 languages and dialects with the Ijaws being the most populous .These people are held together and identified as Niger Delta people, a name commonly used to identify oil producing ethnic communities in Nigeria.1
This region contains a large quantity of oil which makes Nigeria the highest oil producing country in Africa and 6th in the world. In 2007 for example, the oil in this region was estimated at 36.2 billion barrel and it is expected to grow to 40 billion barrels by 2011. The region does not only contain large deposit of oil but its oil is referred to as ‘sweet crude’ because of its high quality. It has low hydrogen sulphide and carbon dioxide which makes it yield high quality distillates, liquefied petroleum gas, gasoline and naphtha. 2
The crisis in the Niger Delta is not complex by itself. But the approach to resolving it makes it complex and dangerous. The people are not asking for anything out of the ordinary. The region that is home to Nigeria’s oil wealth remains the most impoverished community in the nation. What a paradox! Reports note that they lack basic infrastructure -good network of roads, health care facilities, good schools and portable water. The recent sad images of the poor quality of life in the creeks shown to the world on CNN (and in the newspapers) show that the oil wealth is not being used to develop the area. The successive governments have collected billions of dollars from the land over the decades, but little (if any) has been invested in the area to improve the people’s living conditions.
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1.3 Statement of Problems
With the relative peace enjoyed by the oil region since the announcement and implementation of the “Federal Government Amnesty programme” policy, many Nigerians as well as international agencies applaud the policy as a success. Even though the policy seems to be a success, no attempt has however been made to interrogate the feasibility of the policy engendering genuine and lasting peace in the region since the policy has no potentiality of attending to the root cause of the crisis but instead focused only on disarming, rehabilitating and reintegrating the militants into the Nigerian state.
1.4 Aim and Objectives of Study
The aim of the study is to evaluate the Management of the Amnesty Option in Niger Delta Crisis. In achieving this aim, the following specific objectives were laid out as follows:
- To determine the factors that prompted Nigerian Government to propose the Amnesty policy as a way of resolving Niger Delta Crisis
- To examine the level of success in the implementation of the Amnesty program by the government since inception
- To find out whether the amnesty policy of the Nigerian Government will bring about a genuine and lasting peace despite the seeming success.
- To investigate the issue of human rights whose absence caused the crisis and whose provision has always been the demands and aspirations of the people.
- To identify human right issues in a more concrete, practical and persuasive way since the notion can be general and most times illusive.
1.5 Research Questions
The study came up with research questions so as to be able to ascertain the above stated objectives. The specific research questions for the study are stated below as follows:
- Has the introduction of the Amnesty option helped in solving the Niger-Delta crisis?
- What are the factors that prompted Nigerian Government to propose the Amnesty policy as a way of resolving Niger Delta Crisis?
- What is the level of success in the implementation of the Amnesty program by the government since inception?
1.6 Research Hypothesis
In order to pursue the objective of this study, the following generalized statements have been designed to guide and aids in obtaining the result for the experiment to be conducted. For this work, the null hypothesis will be represented with H0 while the alternative hypothesis will be represented with hypothesis H1.
- H0: There are no significant factors that prompted Nigerian Government to propose the Amnesty policy as a way of resolving Niger Delta Crisis
- H1: There are significant factors that prompted Nigerian Government to propose the Amnesty policy as a way of resolving Niger Delta Crisis
1.7 Significance of Study
The Amnesty programme was conceived during the era of late President late Umatu Musa Yar’Adua. However, as a step towards resolving the protracted insecurity in the Niger Delta, Amnesty was offered to the militants in 2009 while 20,193 militants accepted the offer and started the disarmament process which took place on October 4th, 2009.
This study seeks to determine and find out whether the purpose for which the Amnesty programme was conceived is achieving its goals. Therefore, the significance of the study is to highlight whether after about three years the Amnesty policy kicked off, what is the state of affairs in the Niger Delta region, the journey so far and the current status of the Amnesty programme.
This study will be of immense benefit to other researchers who intend to know more on this study and can also be used by non-researchers to build more on their research work. This study contributes to knowledge and could serve as a guide for other study.
1.8 Scope of Study
The study focuses on the Evaluation of the Management of the Amnesty Option in Niger Delta Crisis.
1.9 Limitations of the Study
During the course of this study, many things militated against its completion, some of which are:
- Time Constraint: The time frame given to accomplish this project was very short due to school academic calendar and it was carried out under pressure which made the researcher not to implement some necessary features.
- Research material: availability of research material is a major setback to the scope of the study.
- Frequent power failure: This made the researcher append more money on fuel to ensure sustainable power.
- Financial Constraint: Insufficient fund tends to impede the efficiency of the researcher in sourcing for the relevant materials, literature or information and in the process of data collection (internet, questionnaire and interview).
1.10 Definition of Terms
In this project, the key words used are; Amnesty policy, Niger-Delta, Nigerian Government, Nigerian State, social movement, violent repression.
Niger-Delta: The Niger Delta is the delta of the Niger River sitting directly on the Gulf of Guinea on the Atlantic Ocean in Nigeria.
Nigerian Government: Nigerian government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive, and judiciary.
Nigerian State: Nigeria is a federation of 36 states and 1 federal capital territory. Each of the 36 states is a semi-autonomous political unit that shares powers with the Federal Government as enumerated under the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Social movement: A social movement is a loosely organized effort by a large group of people to achieve a particular goal, typically a social or political one. This may be to carry out, resist or undo a social change.
Violent repression: Violent repression is the use of force to restrict and control a society or other group of people.
