using the frustration agressioin theory to explain the conflict of niger delta and the federal government of Nigeria

Abstract
For years, the people of the Niger Delta were at logger-head with the Nigerian government. The objective of this study is to examine the reasons for this situation. The study will specifically assess the failure of the Nigerian government to address the grievances of the Niger Delta people which played a major role in causing and escalating the crisis in the region. Data used here is obtained from secondary sources and content analysis done. The analysis revealed that the frustration of the people of the Niger Delta resulting from the failure of the Nigerian government to satisfy their socio-economic needs led them into and escalated the orgy of violence witnessed in the region. Specifically, the frustration was caused by the devastation of the environment of the region, pervasive poverty and underdevelopment, legislations of disempowerment and subjugation, inability to control the crude oil resource and suppression of the people by the machinery of the state. A conclusion was reached to the effect that Nigerian government is largely responsible for the orgy of violence in the region. In this sense, some recommendations were made to find lasting solution to peace in the region and prevent future re-occurrence.

Introduction
Oil is a unique and invaluable natural and non renewable resource. Its discovery in Oloibiri, present Bayelsa State in Nigeria in 1956 has been a mix blessing. It is a major source of wealth with which the Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN), its constituent state and local governments execute various developmental programs and projects in their respective domains; and a curse to the communities and region, Niger Delta where the oil was discovered. Oil Exploration and Production (E&P) in the region has caused unquantifiable and inhuman devastation to the people of the region, their lands, water and the air they breathe in. Beginning from 1965, the people of the region began a peaceful agitation to draw the attention of the government to their plight and sought remediation, first through legal actions to compel the beneficiary Multinational Oil Companies (MNOCs) to pay compensation to the host communities. The failure of these legal actions led to several peaceful protests, which later metamorphosed to widespread and violent militancy, including attacking of oil facilities and installations, pipeline vandalism, hostage-taking of expatriates and local oil workers, killing of their victims, oil bunkering and a host of other heinous crime. The consequence was that the region became a hot bed of violence leading to frequent disruptions in and stoppage of oil E&P by the MNOCs and loss of billions of Naira in revenue by both MNOCs and the FGN.
The crisis in the region was caused by a number of factors, which include environmental pollution and despoliation in the region, pervasive poverty and underdevelopment in the region, legislations of disempowerment and subjugation of the people of the region, desire for resource control and self-determination by the people of the region, and repression of the people and militarization of the region by the government. In all these, the FGN has a larger share of the blame. For example, several years of oil E&P in the region by the Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) and other MNOCs such as Mobil Producing Nigeria Unlimited (MPNU), Chevron Nigeria Limited (CNL), Nigerian Agip Oil Company Limited (NAOC), Elf Petroleum Nigeria Limited (EPNL), and Texaco Overseas Petroleum Company of Nigeria Unlimited (TOPCON) have devastated the oil communities in the region and led to environmental pollution and despoliation. The government abdicated its constitutional responsibility to look after the welfare of the people of the region by failing to stop the holocaust perpetrated by the MNOCs under the guise of doing business. This is in contrast to the global best practice; for example, the US government compelled the British Petroleum (BP) to clean up the spill in the Gulf of Mexico (the exercise it supervised) and to compensate its victims because it has the constitutional power to do so. Similarly, pervasive poverty and underdevelopment in the region, in the midst of plenty can also be attributed to the failure of governments, especially the FGN to execute programs and projects that will empower the people and improve their standard of living. Prior studies have estimated the colossal amount of money the FGN has realized from the proceeds of oil sales since E&P of oil began in the region, ranging from $300 to $600 billion in oil revenue after more than a half century (Douglas et al., 2004; Gilbert, 2012; International Crisis Group, 2006; Long, 2007; Ofehe, 2005). However, this colossal revenue has been frittered away by a few, privilege Nigerian government officials, and paradoxically led to the impoverishment of majority of people in the region. It was reported that between 1960 and now as much as $300-400 billion of the country’s oil revenue has either been stolen or misappropriated by Nigerian officials (Bober, 2007).
This paper will be centered on explaining the insurgence of the Niger-Delta Militants, using the frustration aggression theory to analysis the atrocities committed in that region.

Conceptual Framework
The three concepts of militancy, Niger Delta and government failure are briefly explained below.

The Concept of Militancy
Militancy involves multi-pronged violent tendency and action. Militancy involves taking violent and rebellious actions against the constituted authorities. According to Abraham (2011) militancy and youth restiveness in Nigeria manifest in the forms of disruption of activities of multinational oil corporations, vandalization of oil pipelines, illegal bunkering and more recently, hostage taking of both expatriates and Nigerians alike, and destruction of oil installations. In the opinion of Ebienfa (2010) Nigeria is the Jewel in the African oil crown, but oil and militancy in the Niger Delta has become a subject of discussion just like the British weather. Previous studies indicated that whereas the oil produced in the Niger Delta, is the life blood of the Nigerian economy, oil has failed to translate to regional prosperity and development in the Niger Delta. The area has become a hot bed of violence, insurgency, kidnapping, hostage-taking, oil pipeline sabotage, crude oil theft, gang wars, internecine struggles and so much else by way of anarchy and chaos (Afinotan & Ojakorotu, 2009; Ogundiya, 2009; Watts, 2008). Obviously, the agitation by the people of the Niger Delta for the fair share of the wealth generated in the region and the deprivation and neglect of the region by the government had caused and fuelled the militancy. The literature is littered with a long list of the militant groups unleashing the orgy of violence in the region. Some of the notable militant groups are: Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP), the Ijaw National Congress (INC), the Niger Delta Force (NDF), the Niger Delta Peoples Volunteer Force (NDPVF), and the Egbesu Boys of Africa (EBA), the Niger Delta Liberation Army (NDLA), Coalition for Militant Action (COMA), Joint Revolution Council (JRC) which is a coalition of three militant groups namely; the Martyrs Brigade, MEND and NDPVF. Others are the Niger Delta Vigilante Force (NDVF) led by Ateke Tom, the Movement for the Survival of the Ijaw Ethnic Nationality in the Niger Delta (MOSIEND), the Ijaw Youth Council (IYC), the Urhobo Union, etc. (Egwemi, 2009; International Crisis Group, 2006). The violent activities of these groups have led to several shut-ins of oil facilities by the MNOCs and caused disruption in the production of oil.

The Concept of Niger Delta
The Niger Delta is one of the world’s largest wetlands, and Africa’s largest delta, covering some 70 000 km2 (Badmus, 2010; Eyinla & Ukpo, 2006; Okaba, 2007; World Bank 1995). The region is rich in both renewable and non renewable natural resources such as oil, gas, bitumen, non timber forest products and timber forest products, wildlife, etc. 95 per cent of the total revenue for the Nigerian government is generated from oil and gas exploration (Brisibe, 2001). A geo-political definition of the region include those states of Nigeria that border the coastal waters of the Atlantic. They are the oil producing states of Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Delta, Edo, Ondo, Rivers, Cross Rivers, Abia and Imo. The region is heterogeneous, multicultural, and ethnically diverse (Ogundiya, 2009). Some of the ethnics in the region are the Izons (Ijaws), Isokos, Urhobos, Itsekiris, Ilajes, Ogonis, Andonis, Ibibios, Orons, Efiks, Anangs, Bekwaras, Ejaghams, Ekpeyes, Ikwerres, and many other splinter groups, spawning the eight littoral states of Nigeria (Long, 2007). These ethnic nationalities are referred to as minorities in relation to the three major ethnic groups in the Nigerian Federation (Obi-Ani, 2004). The Ijaws are one of the largest ethnic minorities in the Delta but stand at the heart of the oil fields (Watts, 2008). The region is home to over 30 million people who live in about 13, 400 aboriginal communities, mainly farmers and coastal fishermen, and belong to over 40 ethnic groups (Egwemi, 2009). There is no doubt that the region is richly endowed and blessed and remains the wealth basket of Nigeria. However, despite these enormous natural resources available in the region, the good people of the region have not benefited from these resources and are rather wallowing in abject poverty and squalor. Following the failure of peaceful protests and agitations, they eventually took to arms against the Nigerian state to redress this ugly situation.

The Concept of Government Failure in the Niger Delta
Government failure in the context of our discourse refers to the inability of Nigerian government, who controls the vast resources abound in Nigeria, to provide for the socio-economic needs of its citizenry, stop the further devastation of the region by MNOCS and make them to provide remediation for the people of the region. In all modern countries of the world, sovereignty belongs to the people, who periodically grant a few elected groups of people, called government the right to rule and govern them in such a way that their socio-economic needs are satisfied by the government. Scholars have argued that there is a social contract between a government and its people, and that this contract collapses when government fails to meet the basic needs of the people, which may lead to a situation of conflict between the government and the governed (Badmus, 2010). The Nigerian government has failed woefully to keep faith with the social contract between it and the people of the Niger Delta. This is because the several billions of oil revenues the government has generated from the backyard of the people for the past 55 years have not impacted positively on the region and its people. Rather, the story has been tales of woes. The people of the region had been vociferous in their complaints to the government, and violent in their agitation against their continued neglect and marginalization but every successive government has unfortunately, done little or nothing to address these complaints and grievances. Rather their violent agitation has been matched with the State repressive, superior military force. This is corroborated by Ayoade (2011) who posits that the Niger Delta has been complaining about environmental damages from oil exploration and rising unemployment and poverty in the region, but the successive government and the multi-national oil corporations have been insensitive to the plight of the people. It has been reported that the State, with its monopoly, of force has assumed repressive tendency in its attempt to control the oil resource and subjugate the people of the area. Also, the political actors who have been presiding over the affairs of the Nigerian state have succeeded in looting and pilfering the collective wealth generated by the region thereby keeping the people and indeed the entire masses of Nigeria in perpetual poverty while the State itself bears the unmistakably the features of a failed state (Okafor, 2010). Scholars have attributed the government failure to meet the basic needs of the people of the region to the structural nature of the Nigerian state and the depredations of the political leaders (Obi, 2009). Some have attributed it to the result of oppressive, exploitative and discriminative policies of the FGN aimed at marginalizing and rendering irrelevant, the people of the Niger Delta (Oloya & Ugbeyavwighren, 2009).

Theoretical Framework
There are different theories that have been developed by scholars in the fields of psychology and social psychology to explain a conflict situation. Some of these theories include: the frustration-aggression theory (Dollard, Miller, Doob, Mowrer, & Sears, 1939); the theory of rebellion (Marxist, 1887); and relative deprivation theory (Davies, 1962). The study adopts Frustration-Aggression theory to explain the conflict in the region.
The Frustration-Aggression Theory of Conflict
The frustration-aggression theory has its root in the works of Dollard et al. (1939). Dollard led a research group at the Yale Institute of Human Relations and published a monograph that is useful in explaining human conflict behavior. It is based on a simple and straight forward hypothesis that human frustration may lead to aggressive behavior. Since the development of the theory, several scholars have analyzed it. For example, it was observed that frustration ultimately leads to aggression and aggression always implies that frustration has occurred at some previous time (Lawson, 1965). The theory suggests that individuals become aggressive when there are obstacles (perceived and real) to their success in life (van de Goor et al., 1996). The theory indicates that aggressive behavior is not motivated by genuine hostility, but by frustration (Malici, 2007). All the discussions on the theory imply that “there is no smoke without fire” and that “an angry man is a hungry man”. At this stage let us look at the duo concepts of frustration and aggression. Frustration can be defined as (a) an individual‟s perception of a hostile environment, coupled with (b) his pessimism about the realization of goals and (c) the perception that the fate of these goals is in the hands of others (Malici, 2007). Aggression is any behavior intended to harm another person who does not want to be harmed (Bushman & Huesmann, 2010). The frustration-aggression theory is a perfect theory to explain why the youths of the Niger Delta took to arms against the Nigerian state and unleashed unprecedented mayhem and violence in the history of ethno-religious crisis in Nigeria. The frustration of the youth, occasioned by the deprivation (by the government and MNOCs) from benefiting from the natural endowment of crude oil, had led to the aggression and the resultant orgy of violence in the region. This viewpoint is echoed by Afinotan & Ojakorotu (2009) who stated that the quest for emancipation which lies at the heart of the Niger Delta struggle, is not as yet directed towards secession or excision from the Nigerian State but merely a protest against criminal neglect, marginalization, oppression and environmental degradation as well as economic and socio-political hopelessness, and in one word, frustration, in the Niger Delta.

The Niger Delta Militancy and the Failure of the Nigerian Government
There is a plethora of evidences in the literature that link the aggression and violence in the Niger Delta to the series of unaddressed grievances by the people of the region and the neglects of the region by the government. The literature documented the disappointment and frustration of the people of the region, which led them to take to violence. Several factors have been identified and discussed in the extant literature as the causes of the frustration, thus leading to the militancy in the region. Some of these factors are reviewed below.

Environmental Pollution and Despoliation in the Niger Delta
Several years of oil E&P in the Niger Delta by the Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) and other MNOCs have devastated the oil communities in the region and led to environmental pollution and despoliation. There is a large body of evidence in the literature that documented the relationship between oil exploration and environmental pollution (United Nation Environmental Program [UNEP], 2011; World Bank, 1995). In all these it has been shown how several years of oil E&P have caused environmental degradation and pollution in the oil-bearing communities through oil spillage and gas flaring. For example, Eyinla & Ukpo (2006) demonstrated that oil prospecting activities are associated with the destruction of vegetation, farmlands and human settlements, thus leading to the environmental hazards such as destruction of fish and some other forms of aquatic life. There is also the problem of noise pollution and vibration from seismographic blasting. Similarly, UNEP (2011) carried out an independent environmental assessment of Ogoniland and found the extent of environmental contamination and threats to human health resulting from several years of E&P activities of SPDS in the place. Specifically, it found that people at Nissioken Ogale community drink water from wells that are contaminated with benzene. Can the Nigerian government prevent the holocaust in the oil communities? Yes, it can but it has woefully failed to do so. Scholars have blamed the FGN and MNOCs for the devastation of the oil communities. According to a study, the major culprits in these ugly situations (environmental pollution) are the oil multinationals and the insensitivity of successive governments at the centre (Azigbo, 2008). Another study noted that when the environmental impact of oil E&P occurs, as has become routine in the Niger Delta, there is usually no attempt to rectify the damages done to the environment, health and social well-being of the people and ecosystem. No compensation whatsoever is considered (Eyinla & Ukpo, 2006). The Niger Delta has been complaining about environmental damages from oil exploration and rising unemployment and poverty in the region, but the successive government and the multi-national oil corporations have been insensitive to the plight of the people (Ayoade, 2011). This situation is further compounded by the unwillingness of the FGN and its foreign joint venture partners to sincerely integrate environmental concerns into national development projects (Aka, 2003). It is worrisome that in spite of the environmental impact of E&P, there is no any extant law in the country that regulates oil pollution and that imposes penalty for oil pollution and compensations for the victims of oil contamination. Little wonder that Shell recently challenged the power of the Nigerian government to fine it (Shell) a sum of $5 billion for oil spill in Bonga, Niger Delta, claiming that it lacks such power. This is contrary to the international best standard, where stiff penalty is awarded against oil companies polluting the environment, involving huge compensations. A very good example is the US Pollution Act of 1990 (Schoenbaum, 2012), under which BP incurred a huge liability and made to provide compensations to the victims of 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spillage, involving about 4.9 million barrel spills and spanning over three months. The US government compelled the British Petroleum (BP) to clean up the spill in the Gulf of Mexico (the exercise it supervised) and to compensate its victims. Similarly, a court in Netherland ruled that Shell was responsible for oil spillage and pollution in Akwa Ibom and ordered Shell to pay undisclosed compensation to one of the farmer who instituted the legal action. These two examples show that MNOCs can be held responsible for their irresponsible and unethical business conduct in the country.

Pervasive Poverty and Underdevelopment in the Niger Delta
In spite of the several billions of dollars of revenue the FGN has accumulated from oil prospecting in the Niger Delta, it has not translated into good meals, decent accommodation and development for the people of oil-bearing communities. The availability of oil in these communities has virtually been a curse rather than a blessing, causing impoverishment of the people and gross underdevelopment of these communities in the region. The literature is awash with the evidence of the negative impact of the oil on the host communities. For example, a scholar indicated that irrespective of Nigeria’s huge oil wealth, the country has remained one of the poorest in the world (Ekeatte, 2009). Specifically, it is believed that in spite of the abundant wealth that the region is blessed with, the people live in a state of chronic squalor and abject poverty. Despite the huge foreign exchange earnings, poverty, unemployment, decay infrastructure, corruption at high level, misery, lack of basic human needs etc, seems to be the lot of the people (Ejibunu, 2007). Oil rather than being a blessing to the people is now being regarded as a curse (Paki & Ebienfa, 2011).
Egwemi (2010) considered Niger Delta as the proverbial goose that lays the golden egg, arguing that the grouse of the people of the region seems to be that the goose is treated with disdain and may even be faced with.  .  the risk of death. Ayoade (2011) opined that in spite of the belief held by the Niger Delta communities that the regions are producing abundant oil wealth for the entire federation; ironically, there is unimaginable mass poverty and negligible development and most importantly environmental concern in their region. Ekpu (2004) explained that the story of the Niger delta is the story of a paradox, grinding poverty in the midst of vulgar opulence. It is the case of a man.  who lives on the bank of a river and washes his hands with spittle. It is the case of people who live on the farm and die of hunger. Okonta (2005) painted a graphic and gloomy situation in the region, noting that in the oil rich states of Bayelsa and Delta there is one doctor for every 150,000 inhabitants. Oil has wrought only poverty, state violence and a dying ecosystem. Finally, United Nation Development Program [UNDP] (2006) noted that Niger Delta has suffered decades of neglect, characterized not only by marginalization in relation to oil revenues, but also with regard to quality of infrastructure, rising unemployment rates (among its predominantly youthful population), high levels of HIV/AIDS infection rates and high levels of poverty estimated at an average of 69 percent.
From the above, the failure of the FGN to provide jobs that could economically empower the people; to provide basic infrastructure such as paved road and amenities such as electricity and clean water that could enhance their wellbeing has caused pervasive poverty, hunger and underdevelopment in the region. Scholars and researchers have also fingered the FGN in the impoverishment and underdevelopment of the people and the communities in the region. For example, Amaraegbu (2010) vehemently believed that the poverty and hopelessness in the Niger Delta are direct consequences of government’s monumental acts of neglect of the region (Amaraegbu, 2010). The failure of successive Nigerian governments to protect the land and people of the Niger Delta from the hazards of hydrocarbon activities such as oil spillages and seepages, human rights violations and poverty seemed to have convinced the people that the oil-military-governmental troika is not good for them and the Country (Douglas, et al., 2004). It is paradoxical that rather than guarantee social and economic security, oil has become a source of insecurity to the aborigines, and rather than a guarantor of human security in the delta, the state has become its major violator (Sampson, n.d.). The nature of Nigerian federalism as defined by ethnic based political domination, which is used to expropriate the resources of the oil communities for the dominant groups and which restricts the minorities access to the modern and more rewarding sectors of the economy (Ibaba, 2001) is also responsible for the squalor state of the communities in the Niger Delta. The Niger-Delta conflicts are mainly as a result of poverty rooted in continued criminal neglect of the region over the years by the FGN and the MNOCs (Oviasuyi & Uwadiae, 2010). Obviously, the FGN has done little to put food on the table of the people of the region through economic empowerment and developmental projects. For example, in the area of job provision (economic empowerment), the petrol chemical components of the crude oil refinery presents a huge opportunity for companies producing petrol chemical products (e.g. rubber, paints, plastics, fertilizers, adhesive, cosmetics, fabrics, carpets, and so forth) to thrive in the region and provide employment for a large number of jobless and qualified Niger Deltans. Unfortunately, successive Nigerian governments have lacked the vision to provide policy direction that could attract different investors in the colossal petrol chemical industry. Similarly, in the area of developmental projects, the people have not felt the impact of the establishment of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) and Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs. The annual huge budgetary allocations to these agencies are frittered away with impunity by their senior officials. For example, the construction of the popular, major and controversial East-West road in the region, stared in 1999 by the Obasanjo’s regime, has been abandoned with billions of Naira allocated to it unaccounted for.

Legislations of Disempowerment and Subjugation of the People of the Niger Delta
The promulgation of laws by the FGN, which dispossessed the people of the Niger Delta of their God-given black gold, was seen by the people of the region as a deliberate attempt by the government to alienate and subjugate them and this further incensed them and made them to take to violence. It is believed that state legislation on the oil industry is seen as the legal and fundamental basis for the disempowerment of the Niger Delta (Nna, 2001). A study expatiated further stating that at the centre of most of these conflicts is what the agitators consider as the obnoxious, archaic laws/Decrees which put the oil producing communities at a disadvantaged position. Such laws prevent the oil communities from total control of the resource generated from their land (Ogundiya, 2009). Three prominent legislations by which the government dispossessed the people of the region of the ownership and control of crude oil, according to (Ogundiya, 2009; Ojakorotu & Gilbert, 2010) are: (1) Decree No. 51 of 1969, which was used to transfer the ownership of the totality of petroleum products in the region to the FGN; (2) Offshore Oil Revenue Act (9), 1971, which vests the FGN exclusive rights over the continental shelf of the coastal areas; and (3) the Land Use Decree of 1978, which also vested land ownership in Nigeria in the FGN and its accredited agents.
Expectedly, the people were not satisfied with what we refer to as “the day light robbery” by the same government who was supposed to be the custodian of these resources and this also combined to trigger the violence that was eventually unleashed by the militants. They fought almost endlessly against the above mentioned obnoxious, repressive and anti-people legislations that are designed to exclude the people from the ownership and control of their resources. In a true and ideal federalism, the constitution guarantees the federating units access to, ownership and control of their resources and the freedom to grow at a desired pace. We witnessed this in Nigeria during the first republic when the late sage, Chief Awolowo developed the western region from the proceeds of the sales of cocoa, which was the major export crop in the region then. In realization of its failure in the region and to apply some corrective measures capable of pacifying the militant people of the region, the FGN during Obasanjo regime initiated and passed the NDDC Bill into law in 2000 and established the Ministry of Niger Delta. The NDDC Act debuted with a mission to right the wrongs of the past and to facilitate the swift, equal and sustainable development of the Niger Delta into a region that is prosperous, stable, regenerative and peaceful. Again, it is disturbing and paradoxical that FGN could promulgate laws that dispossessed people of their lands and resources but failed to enact laws that would protect same people from the damaging environmental impact of oil E&P, and that would guarantee them appropriate compensations.

Desire for Resource Control and Self-determination by the People of the Niger Delta
The resultant frustration and disappointment of the people of the region from the combined effects of the factors discussed above has led the youths and women in the region to begin to clamor and agitate for resource control and self-determination. They demand for the adoption of true federalism in Nigeria, where each of the federating units will have control of the resources found and located in its boundary and use them for the benefits of its people. This endless agitation for resource control and self-determination by the people of the region has also been responsible for the violent face-off with the Nigerian state in the region. This is perhaps the earliest demand of the people of the Niger Delta, dating back to the London Constitutional Conference of 1958 convened as part of the preparation for Nigerian independence in 1960. The long and endless struggle for resource control by the Delta people is poignantly captured by Ako & Okonmah (2009) who noted that the history of the Niger Delta is characterized by agitation for resource control. Iduh (2011) believed that agitation for resource control by the people of the region has given birth to various militia groups. There is a number scholarly perspective on how the clamor for resource control has caused and aggravated the crisis in the region. Resource control is the term used to describe the desire and determination of the communities and people - whose resources and or sources of survival have been taken away violently and undemocratically and therefore unjustly – to have control over these resources (Douglas et al., 2004). The crisis has been exacerbated by emergent issues of a gross distortion of Nigerian federalism in respect to resource control; citizenship rights and environmental degradation (Ejibunu, 2007). The rise of the resource control movement over the last fifteen years, the rise of the oil minority, and the complex mix of ethno-nationalism and insurgent politics across the Delta are the reactive to Imperial Oil (Watts, 2008). Also critical is a long-festering sense of grievance and marginalization by the ethnic minorities of the Niger Delta region which has continued to fuel agitation for self-determination and control of the resources of the region (Obi, 2009). The youths of the Niger Delta began an armed campaign and demand for greater control of the oil resources from their land (Adeyemo & Olu-Adeyemi, 2010). Iduh (2011) concluded that poverty, unemployment, and underdevelopment had increased the struggle for resource control in the states of the Niger Delta, accelerating the activities of youth gangs and numerous pressures groups. In this regard, the people of the region have been agitating for fair share of the country‟s wealth (Ebegbulem, 2011). At this point, it becomes pertinent to highlight the failure of the FGN in festering the crisis over the agitation for control of resources by the people of the region. The expropriation of the Niger Delta lands and the resources beneath them via legislations in a federation that is supposed to promote fiscal federalism is a manifestation of the inadequacy of the government. Iduh (2011) extended this thesis further by stating that in the developed countries resources are meant for the common good of all. But such will not be said of Nigeria where misguided state policies, gross abuse of office, privileges and misapplication of public funds at all tiers of government has impoverished Nigerians in the midst of plenty. The communities complain about government attitude of treating the region as a colonial enclave, whose resources they plunder with impunity. They decry the use by political elites, of their oil resources to develop other regions of the country, to the total exclusion of the lands of the oil producing ethnic minorities (Afinotan & Ojakorotu, 2009).