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The political economy of
conflict resolution in a natural resource economy: The case
of Nigeria’s Niger Delta
Eze, Malachy Chukwuemeka
Department of Political Science, Nnamdi Azikiwe University,
Awka, Anambra State, Nigeria.
E-mail: ceze32@yahoo.com,
ezeprinceemeka@yahoo.com.
Tel: +2348038711951, +2348088188339.
Accepted 17 February, 2011 |
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This paper embarks on a comprehensive study of the entire
peace initiatives adopted to resolve the Niger Delta
conflict in Nigeria with a view to uncover the relationship
between the character of the Nigerian State, the emergence
and the continual nature of the crisis. With the aid of
fragmented organizational structure theory, the paper
discovered that there is a strong relationship between the
character of Nigerian state and the emergence of the
conflict. The paper also discovered that the character of
the state has a causal effect on the pattern of conflict
resolution adopted together with the emergence of an
‘economy of conflict’, and that these were responsible for
the persistence of the conflict. It therefore recommends the
democratization of both the production and consumption
process in the oil economy and the peace processes as a
panacea.
Key words:
Political economy, conflict resolution, natural resource
economy, Niger Delta, economy of conflict. |
