Resources, Conflict and Human Insecurity in African Context

: An insight from experiences of Nigeria

By

Katsuya Mochizuki

(Institute of Developing Economies)

 

INTRODUCTION

 

Sequential deterioration of macro economy seriously affected human security in African society since the 1980s. Economic structural adjustment was advocated to be a panacea for declining economy by multilateral financial institutions. In Nigeria economic growth of the early 1990s show comparatively better performance than the previous decade. Domestic financial sector enjoyed a short-lived boom in 1990 and 1991. However such economic gains as excessive liquidities had not trickled down to the life of ordinary people. Their substantial income further declined as devaluation of national currency and hyperinflation sequenced in this period. A common phrase among people to describe their situation was �eSAP (Structural Adjustment Program) saps us.�f The adjustment effort resulted in further income gaps and social insecurity.

 

A sense of insecurity often leads people to struggle for resources. Most of African governments failed to show their own roadmaps to economic recovery. They made failures even in securing posts and earnings of their public servants. Immediate dismissals and the delay of payment were ordinary matters in Nigerian public sector. Also shrinking private sector had no capacity to absorb those labor forces. Unemployment rate rose further, and workers could not compensate their loss of earnings. Ordinary people tried to find alternative source of income and economic space. Nigeria witnessed evolution of people�fs survival strategies, from begging to self-help style petit trades. In negative aspect of these businesses, however, criminal acts spread all over the society. And they sometimes crossed national boarder. Various extensive swindles got fame as a typical transnational organized crime of Nigerian. Strong desire for resource let people try all kinds of venture. These adventures sometimes resulted in violent dispute, communal clash and so on.

 

Conflict in Nigeria has started to show its violent aspects since early 1990s. One of epoch-making incidents was opposition movement of Ogoni people in oil producing area of the country (so-called Niger Delta). In spite of peaceful character of this movement its appearance had great impacts on other similar movements in the area. The leadership of the movement behaved tactically, and their bargaining with the Nigerian military government appeared as an effective strategy. Thereafter many similar movements rose in various part of the Niger Delta. Among all youth movements have been most radical in their demands and actions. Even women were involved and began to take active part of those oppositions. On the other hand, old disputes and antagonism among communities revived and brutalized all around the area.

 

Fundamental character of these conflicts has been a challenge for the status quo. Under distressing economic conditions in post-adjustment era, ordinary people wished to bypass the mechanism of resource distribution sustained by governments and ruling people. They even made direct access to the source itself. In cases of the Niger Delta main targets of youth movements were oil companies. Activists were reported to occupy production facilities and took personnel as hostages. Those actions, however, symbolized their movements. As a matter of fact the youths did challenge both governments and elders of their own communities to re-distribute oil wealth produced in their living space. Because rule and order of the society could not assure rights of those young residents in the area. It is indispensable to understand that their opposition also leveled against fellow people. Movement of the Survival of Ogoni People (MOSOP) show this fact vividly even after the decease of Ken(-ule) Saro-Wiwa, their leader.

 

Identity politics is also throwing a shadow across those communities. Under economic liberalization and so-called democratization, there seemed a keen decline in the capacity of traditional rulers to cope with demands of the community population. Elders of the community could not provide enough financial resources to meet community development, because governmental grant reduced substantially following the devaluation of national currency. Traditional titles were also short for meeting increased number of candidate in the community which has been keeping a high rate of population growth. As a result, untitled and financially dissatisfied youths became majority among their generation. They were eager to extend political space and  mobilized by old and new politicians who could control scarce resources. The youths were easily manipulated by those politicians in the election and other political rallies.

They became namely organized under political symbols of their fellowship.

 

The first question is concerning measures to secure human security in such a society. What kind of social system do ordinary people utilize to mitigate human insecurity under such political situation? On community level the youths and women are challenging elders for no other reason than that resource distribution is unfair for them. On national level, however, people including young generation expected some political benefits from existing system controlled by politicians. This contradiction needs to be analyzed in the context of African politics.

 

The second question to be answered is concerning principles or rules to manage conflicts. How and with what mechanism can ordinary people resolve their dispute and conflict? Declining social institutions and changing social relation used to be major constraints for settlement process of conflicts. To seek for alternative mechanism is urgent matter for both people and their government. Manner of outsider�fs intervention is also examined in this analysis.

 

I.  YOUTH MOVEMENTS

 

GENESES OF MOVEMENTS

 

In this section, youth movements in the Niger Delta are examined critically. It is also an analysis of the role of youth in the identity politics spread over Nigeria�fs oil-producing areas. Various factors are discussed to explain the (re-)emergence of radical youth activism as the main social force agitating for change in the Niger Delta. Furthermore, the structure, politics, and leadership of youth movements shall be examined from different points of view. This emergence cannot be separated from the convergence of other global and domestic factors. It also became clear that these movements were reacting to worsening socio-economic environment in the Niger Delta.

 

It is, however, indispensable to capture implications of the ascendancy of youth as a radical social force in the Niger Delta, both for the balance of power in the area, and the internal politics and cleavages within the youth movements themselves. An interesting dimension of those youth movements is the way they interrogate local power structures constructed around the authority of elders and traditional rulers. This has direct implications for volatile politics in the area. It has upturned the local politics hitherto exercised by the elders and people in power that have close connection with oil companies and governments. This has resulted in the push and pull between generational social forces, and the escalation of tensions among communities. While the youths broadly recognize the leadership of the elders they now hold them accountable, and sometime impose their own sanctions in the form of criticism, or neglect of elders suspected to have sold out their communities to the oil companies.

 

It is also important to note that youth movements in the Niger Delta have not been limited to being local actors. Since the 1990s, they have been becoming global actors, and linking themselves to international networks against the violation of human and environmental rights.

 

Finally, the youth of the Niger Delta have historically been a potent force in Nigeria�fs political economy. This role has been further reinforced by the centrality of oil to government revenues since the mid-1960s, and dialectically became more significant in the national question in politics over oil wealth. Thus, the youths have found themselves representing popular interests in a marginalized, ethnically minor, but oil-rich area, in a context where the people in the area lack access to the oil wealth produced in their land. With the radicalization of politics in the Niger Delta as a result of repression by the military government, the youths have been transformed into a social force of local resistance and protests.

 

CONTEXT OF YOUTH MOVEMENT

 

The youths had been the most vibrant actors in the African colonial politics. Especially in West African countries the youth movement lead political independence from colonies. They did account for the student body and sections of the intelligentsia, who act as catalysts of social change and development. As the backbone of the labor force that drove economic developments, the youths also played an important role in African economies. Along this direction, the youths became important political actors in the opposition movements in the post-independent era.

 

In the 1940�fs and 1950�fs Nigerian youths had been the vanguard of anti-colonial movement, as they were main reserves for labor, student�fs and people�fs movements. Thereafter they joined forces with the nationalist movements that lead the national struggles for independence. At the end of World War II, they were to be followed by the nationalist parties that succeeded the struggle. The youths were mobilizing forces and the catalysts of the political movement for Nigeria�fs independence. They were partly driven by the ideals of freedom and the concrete gains that the fruits of independence would bring.

 

While Nigerian youths played the critical role of energizing the political wave for independence, they were systematically demobilized after political independence as the post-colonial government settled down fully to exercise state power. After the `decade of independence�f in the 1960s, many African states lapsed into one-party or military rule. It had been under such condition as multi-party democracy brought ethnic division and disunity. In some cases the military ruler was indeed youth, acting in the context of powerful socio-economic forces that committed to the preservation of the status quo. What this shows is that the youths cannot be free from their socio-economic context, and the balance of power among forces in the society.

 

When the youths find that their presence stands at bay, and the present status does not offer much in terms of access to resources, they are prone to organize protests, and mobilize people for change. It is clear that when the youths fail to secure their positions in the community as a result of economic and political transformation, they had no option, but to start the struggle for survival. These struggles supposed to be directed at the expansion of political space, and defending their gains that were eroded by harsh policies adopted by governments.

 

The youths mobilized themselves in order to protest their marginalization, and resist the erosion of their rights. As a result of the structural adjustment programs, not only the youths but also their parents and relations lost their jobs, while unemployment and social misery worsened. This provided a social basis for mobilization and organization within the community and popular movements, for the youths to struggle for political and economic change. At the heart of their struggles was the quest for an alternative based on peoples�f power in order to guarantee their standard of living.

 

As noted earlier, not all youth movements are in favor of social change. Indeed, some of them are organized by the government, and depend heavily on its patronage for their relevance. They exist either as youth wings of ruling political parties, or as pressure groups with connections with powerful politicians. For example, so-called Youths Earnestly Ask for Abacha (YEAA) was established to campaign for the General Sani Abacha�fs self-succession plan as the President that was teminated by the General�fs sudden death in June 1998.

 

The focus will be on the popular movements that are at the vanguard of social change in Nigeria. This is borne of the realization, that the progressive youth hold the potential power of transformation over political and economic processes. They are also key actors in the politics based on their important political role as labor forces. It is a very role that they have played historically, and for which they have demonstrated a capacity of social mobilization at the community level. It is also for this, and other related reasons, that it can be argued that the youths are the key to understand popular conflicts.

 

In this context, discussion of youth movements of the Niger Delta as vibrant actor of change would be undertaken. Beyond the identification of the evolution of these movements and their transformation of identity politics in the area, lies the need to capture, and understand their strong social mobilization capacity, and the implications they have for Nigerian politics and economy.

 

IDENTITY POLITICS AND THE YOUTH

 

In order to understand the roots, and evolution of youth movements in the Niger Delta, it is important to analyze the connections with ethnic identity politics. This is because it is through the medium of ethnic minority politics that the youth movement has constructed its struggles. In order to connect with the grassroots, and popularize its agenda, the youths have had to speak in the language of the people, empower and organize them in waging social struggles for the transformation of political and economic relations in the Niger Delta.

 

A lot has been written on ethnicity and ethnic politics in Nigeria. What is most relevant in this context is the linkage between the youths and ethnic minority politics. This explains the immersion of youth movements in the Niger Delta in the competitive and conflictive relations between ethnic minorities and majorities over access to political space, power and resources. The youths can be directly connected to the construction of ethnic minority identity as a political instrument for solidarity, empowerment, and the staking of claims. Beyond this, it adopted identity as a tool of mobilization of ethnic minority groups for the struggle of power, or as the basis for negotiation with other groups either for coalition building, or the reaching of a pact for sharing power and resources.

 

The bringing together of people with diverse cultures, political forms and economies under the umbrella of a new statehood set the scene for ethnicity and ethnic identity in Nigeria. By this logic, ethnic minorities were the outcome of a process that provided political leverage to ethnic groups on the basis of the size of the population. Thus, Nigerian ethnic minorities were at a disadvantageous position in the distribution of spoils under British colonial rule, vis-a-vis dominant ethnic groups like Hausa-Fulani, Yoruba and Igbo.

 

Among all ethnic minorities around the Niger Delta were of special note. These minorities reflected the strong linkages between ecology, economics and politics. Since the 17^th century, the Niger Delta had been a trading outpost connected to world market, first for forest products and spices, and then, slaves. With the abolition of the slave trade early in the 19^th century, came the palm oil trade. So-called village states and kingdoms of the Niger Delta benefited from the trans-Atlantic trade, by acting as middlemen, collecting tolls on the trade, and providing labor and other services to foreign traders. As a result of initial disagreements with those African middlemen, European traders began to seek for the control over sources of palm products in the hinterland. The Niger Delta soon fell under British colonial rule and was formally incorporated into the protectorate.

 

It was therefore within this context of colonial interventionism and the creation of Nigeria that competition among ethnic groups emerged. Thorough this competition, ethnic minorities of the Niger Delta stood out, first for their early integration into the trans- Atlantic trade, and the peculiar demands of their swampy terrain. They also suffered marginalization by their more preponderant neighbors, which made them begin to agitate very early for their own autonomous regions.

 

After political independence, ethnic minorities continued with their struggles against the government. In 1963, a new state was created by central government in a bid to split the votes in the opposition stronghold in the western part of the country, while assuaging the minorities in the region. As international prices for cash crops declined in the mid 1960s, interests in oil reserves in the Niger Delta had grown. This was more so when oil revenues began to rise in the 1970s. In the midst of growing importance of the oil-producing area, there appeared the youths who attempted to secede themselves from the Nigerian federation. Through their organization, the Niger Delta Volunteer Force (NDVF), the armed youths seized a couple of government installations until they were surrounded and defeated. This might be the first incident the youth desired to end the marginalization of ethnic minorities in the Niger Delta.

 

No doubt, the youths in the Niger Delta were to some extent pleased, when two new states were created in the area in 1967, the eve of civil war. By the end of this Biafran war, the ethnic minorities had fully emerged as the �ghosts�h of new source of national wealth – oil. Yet, it also became obvious that their expectations of total control of the oil wealth in the Niger Delta, as leverage for accessing power at federal level were not realized. The central government progressively vested itself in the control of oil. This resulted in the exclusion of ethnic minorities of the Niger Delta. Fiscal centralization of oil revenues was largely effected through the abandonment of the allocation principle of derivation, in favor of equality among whole population of the country. This worsened relationship between ethnic minorities of the Niger Delta and dominant ethnic groups.

 

These tensions were further exacerbated with military rule, shrinking oil revenues, and worsening economic situation after the 1970s. It was under these circumstances that youth movements (re-)emerged to protest the neglect of minority groups in the Niger Delta. This also resulted in their being dispossessed of the oil wealth produced in their living space. Worse still, the political transition program of the military administration of General Ibrahim Babangida (1985-1993), did not provide any political space for the popular forces of the Niger Delta to express their grievances, or participate in the political process. Thus, they resorted to ethnic identity movements that mobilized the people towards the struggle for rights to enjoy better living standard. In this regard, they criticized the centralization of Nigerian fiscal system, and demanded the control of resources by local population. These claims and demands received the international supports, and gradually recognized as the struggle for the protection of human and minority rights after the cold war.

 

STRATEGIES OF YOUTH MOVEMENTS

 

What is most important here was the youth-driven transformation of such ethnic minority movements within the context of economic and political transitions. The youths faced with grim prospects of continued unemployment and neglect by oil companies operating in the Niger Delta. They insisted themselves being the main victims of environmental degradation, and bleak prospects in the region. Thus they confronted the government and oil companies for access to resources, social welfare services and infrastructure, and compensation. In many instances, the youths either became victims, or victimizers, but in the context of popular movements in the Niger Delta, they sought to resist further exploitation and pollution of their lands and waters, while seeking compensation for the harm already done by oil companies.

 

In order to achieve their own agenda, youth movements either mainstreamed themselves within umbrella organization like the National Youth Council of Ogoni People (NYCOP) that played a central role in the politics of the Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People (MOSOP), or operated as distinct entities such as the Ijaw Youth Council (IYC), or as human rights organization such as the Environmental Rights Action (ERA). These groups not only drew up the agenda for change either in the form of Bill of Rights, Charters of Demands, or in the form of Declarations, which were endorsed at the grassroots or mass rallies before being disseminated widely, and acted upon through mass action, and international campaigns.

 

It is also important to point out that youth movements had a noticeable gender-bias. This facilitated focusing of attention on the violation of gender rights, acts of violence against women, especially by state security forces, and the vulnerability, and marginalization and suffering of women as a result of the contradictions spawned by the politics of oil. Examples of such female youth groups that played a prominent role in the mobilization of people in the Niger Delta, the provision of care to displaced persons and refugees, as well as the local and international campaign against the violation of rights in the delta by the government and oil companies were groups like Niger Delta Women for Justice (NDWJ), Egi Women�fs Movement and the Federation of Ogoni Women Associations (FOWA).

 

The surge of youth activism was also linked to the wide perception that elders in the community were colluding with oil companies, and central government in shortchanging the Niger Delta and its people. A lot of youths were well educated with university degrees or polytechnic diplomas, and had evolved a radical outlook, which fed into anger when upon graduation they were faced with grim prospect of their own employment and grinding poverty in the riches, but underdeveloped region in Nigeria. The predatory character of people of the Niger Delta, and the fear that the oil would one day run out, and the region would be abandoned along with its people to a harsh fate, fed into the desperation of the youths.

 

From the foregoing, it is clear that the youths have become a most potent force in the popularization of opposition movements in the Niger Delta, and in raising the effectiveness of protests of minority groups and their blocking power. In pursuit of their political goals, some of them have sought to build popular alliances across ethnic and gender lines in the Niger delta. Indeed, they have transcended the locale of the area to connect global spaces and causes in empowering their claims and grievances.

 

II. WOMEN MOVEMENTS

 

FUNDAMENTAL NATURE OF WOMEN MOVEMENT

 

While the recent literature and discourse on gender and popular struggles in Nigeria have largely focused on marginalization of women under the influence of state power. It is important to draw attention to the emergence of women�fs movement, not merely to contest �gmale power�h, but to struggle for power against exploitation and oppression. In this regard, women are defined as actors and partners in the process of social struggle and transformation. Thus, rather than being passive victims of a male-dominated society, and suppressed under layers of socially constructed exploitation, oppression and discrimination, women actively start to struggle against marginalization by acting as agents of change. And they consciously confront the social force and structure that seek to marginalize them.

 

It is therefore possible to locate women movements, as an often neglected or downplayed, but nonetheless, very important players in unfolding social change. The reference to women movements here is better situated within the tradition of social movement in the community. Such popular movements are the bearers of the pains, hopes and aspirations of the poor, the victimized and the voiceless who constitute the silent majority, but when mobilized, becomes a potent force for social change. In this regard, such popular movements come up against the existing political and economic order. As a result, it also has to construct its own power, first at the level of counter-hegemony, then as an identity and a basis of staking claims and engaging in negotiations, or as a last resort, confrontation. Thus, movements may construct their identities and power along the lines of gender, class, ethnicity, religion or ideology. In this context, the focus is on women movements in the Niger Delta, which symbolize emergent female power and women�fs political agency  within the flowering of social movements in Nigeria and the struggles for democracy from bottom in the 1980�fs and 1990�fs.

 

Women�fs organizations and protest movements are historically embedded within Nigeria, appearing in pre-colonial times and expanding throughout colonialism, military regimes, and democratic transitions. In this regard, there were significant expressions of female power throughout Nigeria�fs history. The watershed in the colonial period was the Women�fs War of 1929 in South Eastern Nigeria in which women protested against taxation without representation, and the actions of male chiefs who collaborated with the colonial authorities to exploit women. The women attacked government buildings and markets, and waged a sophisticated struggle, until most of their demands were met. It is significant that Ogoni women participated in the 1929 Women's war.

 

Since 1929, other women protests had taken place in the 1930�fs and 1940�fs. The struggles of the Abeokuta Women�fs Union (AWU), and the Abeokuta Ladies Club (ALC) led by Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti, against discriminatory colonial laws and policies that threatened women�fs socio-economic interest, eventually forced the traditional ruler – a collaborator of the colonial authorities to abdicate the throne in 1949. Since then, women�fs protests continued into the 1950�fs, early 1980�fs and the 1990�fs. The most recent phase of female power emerged from the context of the harsh social consequences and economic contradiction, emanating from structural adjustment and military authoritarianism.

 

While a lot has been written on popular movements in the Niger Delta led by men, the same amount of attention has not been paid to those led by women. There must be a gender-blind shortfall in the analysis of the social struggles in the Niger Delta. At another level, it must be discussed the social context of the emergence of women�fs activism in the areas of rights, survival and networking for the advancement of female power. This is also because historically, the Niger Delta provides a vital site for capturing the trajectory, initiatives and strategies of the women�fs movement in Nigeria Within the context of the volatile Niger Delta, and the intersections of local, and global transnational power, the struggle of the women�fs movement is located in the context of the politics of local resistance. In this regard, the women�fs movements were reacting to the deepening tensions in the Niger Delta, which were also the outcome of worsening exploitation, underdevelopment, and repression in the Niger Delta.

 

In seeking to emancipate themselves from the yoke of oppression and the devastation of the ecological basis of their survival and reproduction by the operations of the oil industry, women in the Niger Delta have organized themselves into a potent social force. These movements are distinct not merely because they connect gender with the social, but also because they have tapped into local cultures and energies to mobilize women at the grassroots, while also connecting global civil society and international rights platforms and discourses to empower their local claims and protests. It is in the sense of the latter that the post-adjustment women movements as a symbol of emergent female power differ from the earlier movements in the colonial period.

 

It is important to note that in seeking to advance their cause, the women have not alienated the men. It might be possible to discern levels of cross-gender collaboration, mutual support. Yet, they have drawn upon the fact that women have been the greatest victims of the contradictions emanating from oil production in the Niger Delta and governmental repression, to present a distinct slate of women�fs demands articulated and pursued by women�fs movements, and supported locally by their class allies, particularly the youth. Indeed, it could be argued that the combination of women and youth power has been the most explosive force behind the struggles in the Niger Delta.

 

Even though, the women�fs movement seemed to have been less visible than the broad popular movements in the 1990�fs, there is a sense in which it was an organic part of the latter. Apart from providing a balanced gendered basis for the struggles of the social movements in the Niger Delta, the women movements worked both at the barricades and behind the lines, filling in the humanitarian gaps in the struggles, and suffering from the combined violence of the state and the oil multinationals. Indeed, women have played prominent roles as victims and resisters of victimization. It is therefore not possible to implement an analysis of the social movements in the Niger Delta without paying attention to the central role of women in the politics of local resistance. Apart from being victims of violence, environmental degradation, poverty and the politics of oil, they have risen above victimization to mobilize women to struggle for their rights and the reproduction of their lives.

 

Emergent female power in the Niger Delta has not only been confronted by the might of the Nigerian government, acting through its security forces which have routinely subjected women protesters to intimidation, harassment and brutal forms of physical abuse, women have been excluded from the oil companies which expropriate their lands, and destroys their farms, either as a result of the construction of oil installations, or canals, or pollution and environmental degradation. In resisting expropriation and protesting pollution, the women movements have successfully networked with other rights groups in the Niger Delta, and donor organizations within Nigeria, and around the world. At the local level, women�fs protest have taken the form of songs, dance and the use of the threat of nakedness – believed to be a taboo or curse, to strengthen their cause and political agency.

 

Two of the major women movements in the Niger Delta were introduced below. These are the Federation of Ogoni Women�fs Associations (FOWA), an affiliate organization of MOSOP, and the Niger Delta Women for Justice (NDWJ). Both groups have consistently remained at the forefront of the struggles for women�fs rights in the Niger Delta, by drawing on local and international support. They are therefore emblematic of the trends in the most recent emergent female power in popular struggles in Nigeria, and underscore the linkages between gender and the quest for economic, political, socio-cultural and environmental rights. This also facilitates a proper understanding of the participation of these movements in the social struggles in the Niger Delta, the challenges they face, and their prospects.

 

WOMEN AND ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES

 

In order to properly locate women in the Niger Delta, the social context is defined more by resource insecurity for the majority. It is important to examine the links between women and the environment. Just as women seek freedom from patriarchy, exploitation and poverty, the environment is best sustained when it is protected from wanton destruction and degradation. Yet, this does not preclude the existence of other views that contradict the �gliberationist commonality�h between women and the environment, or difficulties that may arise when gender is intersected by class. A study of gender and environment should look at the gender relations as a set of power relations operating at the level of the household, the economy, society and its links with the outside world.

 

It must be noted that even though people are part of the environment, they alienate and exploit the environment in the course of production, either as a source of raw materials, or for the discharge of waste. In the same manner, the environment is a source for subsistence needs, livelihoods, habitat, and the daily reproduction of life. Thus, in the course of the daily reproduction of their lives, people exercise power over the environment. Yet, there is another sense in which the social and the environment interact and sometimes, merge. This has to do with how issues of access, ownership and power over the environment are socially organized. It is in this way that gender as a social construction tends marginalize women in terms of access to environmental resources even though, they tend to carry more burden in relation to the more difficult labor, household and reproductive roles for little, or next to nothing.

 

There are some discourses that intentionally blame women for destruction of the environment in their quest for survival, and food for their families. Women are blamed for depletion of forests by cutting trees for fuel-wood, polluting rivers by dumping household wastes in them, or washing in them, and the unsustainable exploitation of non-timber forest products which are sold to supplement incomes, or act as a source of food, and medicine. Yet, it is obvious that this position is basing on misunderstandings, and only blames the victim, while neglecting to identify the real perpetrators of environmental degradation in quest for industrial raw materials and huge profits.

 

It can be argued that so-called business elite, their partners in resource mining and the government do not only damage the environment, deepening resource scarcities, and denying women the very basis of their survival, but also deploy violence as a modality of defending their monopoly of environmental resources, in their bid to crush women�fs protests and resistance. This illustrates the multiple-layered suffering of women, firstly in terms of resource insecurity and denial of subsistence rights, and then, as victims of violence. This situation best captures the state of women in the Niger Delta, where for decades they have been at the receiving end of exploitation, environmental insecurity, and violence from the oil companies-government alliance. This also explains the context of the emergence of women movements in the Niger Delta as one framed by the logic of liberation and resistance.

 

WOMEN AND THE OIL

 

Any discourse on women and the politics of oil is deeply rooted in Nigerian society. For better understanding of the topic, it is necessary to grapple first with the oil economy. The oil economy of Nigeria rests upon its centrality as the most viable form of energy for the industrial production. Indeed, it is impossible to talk about modern society without refers to hydrocarbons. Thus, beyond being a commodity of immense economic value, oil is of critical strategic and political commodity. For ultimately those who control oil, control the modern world.

 

The oil economy in its drive for expansion and profit tends to concentrate wealth and energy in industrial countries, while dispossessing, exploiting and polluting oil producing regions in the developing world. Since the oil is a reflection of power, its social relations of production often tend to alienate local people in the oil producing region. For example, Shell (one of the largest oil company in the world, and the biggest producer in Nigeria�fs oil industry) need not attend to either (local) labor needs or local ecological propriety. In this context, it is a politics that defines women as victims. The alienation of local people, the expropriation of their lands and the destruction of their environment by the oil industry have fuelled the politics of local resistance. It takes a form of collective action against further alienation, expropriation and environmental degradation, and forcing through a mass action of restitution and self-determination. By its very nature the local protest is a social movement shaped and influenced by the host community.

 

The interaction between oil companies and the local oil-rich environment breeds a host of contradictions which also reflect geography of power that enriches the global and impoverishes the local, thus feeding into local resistance, through which the local blocks global extraction until it attends to demands for restitution, justice and equity. In the case of Nigeria, the politics of local resistance in the prolific oil region of the Niger Delta, first of all targeted Shell, the oldest MNOC operator in the region. In its well-known campaign, MOSOP took on Shell, Nigeria�fs largest on-shore oil producer which had operated in the region for over fifty years, and successfully brought global attention to focus on the Ogoni and the Niger Delta. In 1993 MOSOP was able to block Shell operations in Ogoniland, and the company is yet to return there ever since. More recently, women groups have targeted Chevron-Texaco as the politics of local resistance in the Niger Delta continues in its bid to struggle for restitution and respect for the rights of the people of the oil producing communities, who are ironically being impoverished as hosts of one of the world�fs most powerful and wealthiest industries.

 

The Oil is so important in Nigerian economy because her oil exports account for over 90 % of the country's foreign exchange earnings, and over 80 % of all the revenue of the central government. In real terms, Nigerian economy is wholly dependent on oil, which is inextricably intertwined with governmental power. In a context where oil production is dominated by foreign oil companies, the Nigerian government is hard pressed to promote oil production as a way of increasing its own power, and continued access of the politicians to providential oil wealth. In the power relations spawned by the politics of oil, women are subject to relations of exclusion and domination, which is also reflected in the environment of the Niger Delta.

 

At this point, it would be apposite to draw attention to the linkage of women to the oil economy. Women are defined by their alienation by the social relations of oil production. The acquisition (or expropriation) of land by oil companies and the attendant environmental degradation hits women the hardest. As farmers, fishers and traders, the expansion of oil industry with its monopolistic manner provides no economic space for women, who already suffer with oppression from men. Moreover the politics of oil with its pervasive commoditization of the oil-rich ecology also excludes local women from its labor needs. Such marginalized women are forced into acts of desperation, either to fight back, or in varying degrees insert themselves into the fringe economies around oil locations, petty trading, contract labor, and closet, or open prostitution with its attendant risks.

 

The politics of oil in the way it subordinates so-called oil economy that is heavily dependent on and influenced by oil companies, and industrial countries often implies the subordination of local people. Thus, when the people protest, or seek to interrupt, or block oil production in order to call attention to their demands, the oil economy like Nigeria (which heavily depends on oil companies) reacts by a carrot and stick policy. While the �gcarrot�h goes to local collaborators, politicians and authorities, in most cases, the �gstick�h, usually state violence through the deployment of armed police and soldiers is wielded against ordinary people. In this case again women become the main victim of state – oil companies sponsored violences.

 

The bulk of pressure falls back on resident women. Women in the Niger Delta also have suffered with adverse effects of soil degradation, pollution, and health hazards associated with toxic wastes. But they were forced to bear the burden much more than men. For instance, women source for firewood in an ecologically degraded environment. They source for potable water in a situation in which pollution has rendered communal ponds and stream water undrinkable. The risk of ill health is also disproportionately borne by women especially when there is an outbreak of an epidemic due to environmental pollution.

 

It is also noted that other consequences of the oil industry such as expropriation of farmlands leaving women with less, or no lands to farm. However, what comes forcefully in the nexus of women�fs victimization and the oil can be gleaned from the violence they have suffered in the Niger Delta. The international coordinator of the NDWJ, brings out in sharp relief, the acts of violence committed against women by the security forces of Nigerian government. Those were nothing but sexual violence such as rape and prostitution, physical violence such as beatings, maiming and murder, violence against property.

 

What is important at this point is to locate acts of violence against women within the infrastructure of force that backs oil extraction and the expropriation of local people and intends to maintain oil-based accumulation by breaking the will of the people to organize protests or seek to block oil production that is so central to global capital. Acts of violence, even in terms of governement-oil companies sponsored violence takes the form of men in uniform �gpunishing�h women for engaging in the politics of local resistance. Clearly in such circumstances of gendered violence, women suffer the most.

 

From the foregoing, the relationship between women and the political economy of oil is one in which the power relations subordinate women, and victimizes them. However it must be noted that such �gvictimization�h is not synonymous with surrender or defeat, as it is dialectically transformed into agency for women to organize and protest the inequities of oil companies whose activities directly deepen resource scarcities and threaten the ecological basis of the survival of local women (and men).

 

SUMMERY AND TEBTATIVE CONCLUSIONS

 

The youths and women have been recognized as critical social forces in post-adjustment Nigeria. Democratization in the political arena of Nigerian society accelerated (re-)emergence of them as active stakeholders in the social struggle. As the case of the Niger Delta show vividly, the youths and women appeared to initiate the opposition against the government and oil companies that held vested interests and rights in the area. Their demands for resources were basing on their own needs, and they performed in their respective manners. However both the youths and women seemed to approach the issue from the same direction. Their common issue was nothing but securing resources endowed in their living space.

 

Youth movements in the Niger Delta are described within the context of community in this paper. Review of Nigerian youth movement show similarities and differences between movements in the independence era and those in the 1990s. Experiences in the Niger Delta suggest that present youth movements have strong inclination to control resources on their community level. The youths can expect benefits on national level through, for example, political representation. But such a political maneuver is out of their scope. Rather it may increase the risk of manipulation by the politician closely connected to the government. From the strategic consideration, the youths tend to skip national benefits and make an access to international ones utilizing their organizational networks.

 

Women movements are described differently from conflict-tone movement of the youths in this paper. Part of the reason is that the youth movement itself has a strong gender-bias and both movements have not necessarily gone hand in hand. In spite of similar goals and common circumstances of movements, women movements in the Niger Delta are developed mainly on national level sustained by nation-wide organizations. On the other hand, main actions on local level were limited in formal protests and symbolic performances. As a result, women movements were comparatively invisible for outsider�fs eye. Accordingly they didn�ft attract international attentions as radical movements of the youths did in the 1990s. However scene changed after 1999 when political transition to civil rule completed. New organizations emerged on community level and demonstrated their oppositions and demands in the form of direct action. Now women movement becomes one of main actors in the oil politics of the Niger Delta.

 

Finally two questions raised earlier in the paper shall be answered here tentatively. Resource allocation mechanism on community level is not functioning recently as it worked fully under elders and traditional rulers. The youths and women are openly challenging authority of traditional system. Their movements require alternative social mechanism for mitigating their insecurities. However their approaches also contradict between community and national levels. Behaviors of the same people are often different in two levels. Conflict resolution manners successful on community level are not necessarily applicable to national disputes. It is expected for international community and its actors to bridge or fill up this gap with their resources.