The Changing Forms of Identity Politics in Nigeria Under Economic Adjustment: The Case of the Oil Minorities Movement of the Niger Delta (review)

This work is one of the most recent of the Nordic Africa Institute’s research report series which dates back to 1967. It offers a detailed descriptive account of the ongoing conflict between the minority ethnic communities spread across the oil-rich Niger Delta and the Nigerian state. Cyril Obi here locates the origin and development of the conflict in the centralist fiscal federalism upon which the Nigerian elite is built and reproduced. According to him, three other developments—the intensification of poverty resulting from the adoption of neoliberal economic reforms; minorities’ lack of access to power; and the absence of political space for legitimate expression of grievances—all combined to fuel violent protest for self-determination and the right to resources. These arguments are persuasive, but the connection between structural adjustment and identity politics is weakly made (pp. 46 and 49). Concrete evidence is required to establish this connection.

Obi’s use of the label oil minorities to refer to ethnic communities of the Niger delta is problematic, for it would assume that there are “oil majorities,” which is not the case. Since the three major groups do not produce much oil, it is technically inaccurate to refer to minorities of the Niger Delta as oil minorities. The author briefly examined the label, noting that it has been “hotly contested” (p. 9), but he endorses its usage by deploying it throughout the work.

The author’s account of the character of contemporary politics of identity in the Niger Delta is refreshing. He shows that the movement for local resistance is not homogeneous and that it has a bottom-up orientation that is hostile to local elites who have been clients of the centralizing federal state or agents of the oil companies. Using primary sources, he documents how various movements that emerged gained grassroots support and community legitimacy by constructing indigenous collective idioms and symbols and idolizing individuals who had contributed to the emancipation or development of their communities. This portion of the work (pp. 71–86) makes good reading, and would be of interest to those researching the social construction of identity.

Also interesting is the balanced presentation of issues. The penetration of movements into the global arena to connect with Western-based NGOs is given good attention. Factionalism, leadership feuds, and conflicts within the movements are equally discussed, and so are intercommunal conflicts that are sometimes instigated by the state and oil companies to preempt the movements from forming a united pandelta front. But flamboyant phrases, like “the superstructure of adjustment and authoritarianism,” “the deepening crisis of legitimacy linked to authoritarianism,” and “deepening of contradictions,” degrade the quality of presentation (pp. 46 and 49).

An insightful lesson that readers will draw from this work is the dilemma of Nigerian federalism. While Nigerians regard a federal system as the most appropriate for the multinational makeup of the country and have sought to maintain it at all costs, a territorially diversified economy requisite for the sustenance of such a system is lacking. Reconciling a multistate federal structure with an economy dependent on oil derived from a few states in the Niger Delta is one of the biggest problems confronting Nigerians. Ideally, the economy would best sustain a unitary system in which a central government distributes the oil wealth in the delta across the entire country. But the geographic size and multinational makeup of the country are strongly at odds with the unitarian pull of the economy. How then can the federal principle of states having rights to resources within their domains be respected without compromising the survival or continued operation of the entire federal structure? This is a question that Nigerian constitutional engineers have to address.

On balance...