期刊名称：The Journal of Sustainable Development in Africa (JSDA)
电子版ISSN：1520-5509
出版年度：2013
卷号：15
期号：3
出版社：Institute of Sustainable Development in Africa
摘要：The pheno menon of oil exploitation and the pervasive deprivation in the Nigeria Niger Delta are eloquent demo nstrations o f the link between environmental problems and social injustices. Conflicts, sometimes of a significant proportion and criminal dimension, have erupted in a bid to protest the observed level of deprivation and poverty. This paper examines the relationship between oil exploitation in the Niger-Delta vis-à-vis the deprivation and poverty suffered by its people. It adopts a spatio-temporal review of oil resource exploitation in juxtaposition with the quality of life of people in the area. The paper is structured to examine the political economy of resource exploitation and utilization in an oil rich country like Nigeria. It posits that more than anything else, the causes (remote and immediate) of conflicts and strife in Nigeria revolve around what the land contains. It had turned an otherwise peaceful people into communities of violence and thus making the Nigerian nation to loose mo st of its adhesives of co hesion and integration. The structure of the paper includes an introduction and the background of Nigeria as containing groups of autono mous people brought together during colonialism through a geographical marriage of inco nvenience. The section also examines the rich ecological resources of the country. The second section is an overview of environmental resource exploitation and distribution as well as the principles underlying these. In the third section, the paper examines the phenomena of poverty and deprivation in the country particularly in the oil bearing Niger Delta. Using a welfarist perspective, the paper reveals a lopsided resource distribution that suggests an inversion of benefits the higher the level of environmental resource avail able to a region thus establishing the inevitability of conflict and violence among the deprived communities. As a way forward, the paper canvasses for a shift in the paradigm of resource distribution for the adoption of social and environmental justice. The benefits of this paradigm are overwhelming but the challenge for the country is the taming of the bourgeoning capitalism and its class structure. To achieve justice-social and environmental- orientation of leaders and followers must change. This shift is urgently required as a reconciliatory paradigm in Nigeria
