This paper explores the impact of oil production by oil corporations on the Niger Delta region environment over time, with particular attention paid to the case of Ijaw oil-producing community. It focuses on the environmental impacts of oil production and associated pollution in the Ijaw area, and discusses the increasing internal contradictions involving the Ijaw youth and their elites in perpetuating environmental problems on their own land. It traces the controversy that surrounds the allegations from the local people whether oil was the only factor responsible for environmental pollution. By using scientific reports and statistical data, this paper further argues that the environmental problems facing the Niger Delta people were many, whilst oil and gas were mere contributory factors with attendant effect on water and land degradation. Using the Ijaw's case the paper have identified that lack of complaint with environmental laws and institutional structure for enforcing them in the Niger Delta oil-producing region have continued to undermine their desire for a clean environment, particularly toward a sustainable development of the Niger Delta and Nigeria at large. It concludes that there is urgent need for the Federal government to establish new oil and gas regulation that should have a statutory body for proper implementation of those laws. This would ensure peace and stability, a safe, clean and habitable environment for the inhabitant of the Niger Delta to benefit from the profit accruing to the oil corporations and the Nigerian government.

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This paper explores the nature of resource allocation in Nigeria with specific emphasis on the responses of Niger Delta Region to the politics of resource control as it affects oil fields in their territories. It investigates the factors responsible for persistent agitation for resource control by the local people, particularly the oil producing states, as well as the contradictions of resource control and the non oil-producing states in Nigeria. While the study notes that the region has enjoyed 50 percent allocation of revenue based on derivation, it also discovers that the military regime cancelled this which was adopted by successive government in Nigeria. The very important issue this paper addresses is why the abrogation of resource control took place in the first instance? The environmental despoliation of the region by the oil operators with little allocation that trickle down to the oil-producing area informed the massive protests and intense struggle for oil-resource control especially in the period 1990s and 2010. This paper further point out the fact that though the Niger Delta people's struggle was mainly environmental, in a wider perspective, it is political because of long neglect from economic benefits that come from oil production. The authors argues that the Delta wanted adequate electricity, good roads, pipeborne water, employment, good and functional health care centres, and access to quality education. It concludes that though the structure of the nation's political economy would never permit the federal government to relinquish or share the control of oil resources with the oilproducing states and communities, its failing promises to appropriate the revenue accrued from the region toward a sustainable development explain the basis for persistent demand and endless crisis in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria.

There existed within the Yoruba country several states during the pre-colonial period. Each of these states or kingdoms had centralized political and social organization with wide geographical limits. At the centre of such elaborate socio-political structure in pre-colonial Yorubaland was a strong economic base. It provided sustenance for the administration and the citizenry. The proper coordination of the varied economic processes or practices in pre-colonial Yorubaland was the direct responsibility of the guild system. It functioned as a legitimate regulatory body that guaranteed efficiency, quality service delivery and best practices in production relations. This study evaluates the guild system in pre-colonial Southwestern Nigeria with emphasis on its forms, operational guidelines, features, activities and membership criteria in different parts of Yorubaland. The study which employs primary and secondary sources for its analysis, argues that the guild system played a very unique role in the process of stimulating change and development in the economy of pre-colonial Yoruba states. The women folk, the study observes, dominated the activities of several guilds. The dominant religious beliefs and practices also had considerable influence on the economic role of most guilds in pre-colonial Yorubaland. Although the nineteenth century wars in Yorubaland fraught the effective conduct of the economic activities of most guilds, the study submits that the guild system remained relevant to the Yoruba economy up to the era of British rule and the post-colonial period.

The attempt by Biafra to secede from the federation provoked the Nigerian Civil War that raged for almost three years. Oil was one of its major causes. Shell-BP was a British multinational company that had dominated the exploration process of the Nigerian oil industry since the 1950s. This study focuses on Shell BP's dilemma in Nigeria during the civil war era (1967-1970). By using relevant primary and secondary sources, the paper explores the complexities that surround Shell-BP's position either on the side of Federal government in Lagos through which it got its operating license or the Biafra government in the East that was desperate to secede from the federation. The paper further highlights the economic value of Shell-BP's investment in oil exploration, its position during the civil war barely eleven years of oil production in eastern and mid-western Nigeria, problem of royalties' payment in the face of dreadful threat to installations by Biafran troops, and the involvement of British government. The major findings of the paper show that despite Shell-BP's claim of non-partisanship, its exploration activities went on almost smoothly for the larger part of the war period. This feat could have been achieved by Shell-BP only with payment of adequate royalties to the federal government, and at the same time payment of certain undisclosed token to the Biafran leaders to avoid severe damage to its installations. This study contributes to the existing knowledge on oil and war, particularly the conflict of interests associated with oil companies, the government and other stakeholders. It also contends that it is difficult for any oil company to be completely non-partisan in the conduct of its business activities in a country like Nigeria. The paper concludes that the circumstances of war era compelled Shell-BP to adopt the strategy of constructive negotiation with the Biafran leaders without undermining the Federal Government.