Oil and the Production of Competing Subjectivities in Nigeria: “Platforms of Possibilities” and “Pipelines of Conflict”

Abstract

<jats:title>Abstract:</jats:title><jats:p>This article examines how multinational corporations, recognizing the symbolic value of oil pipelines, flow stations, and platforms as ancestral promises of wealth to subject populations, work with NGOs and communities (sometimes in collaboration with the latter, but sometimes in a more adversarial manner) in setting up governance structures that often compete with, and sometimes oppose, the state in struggles over territorial control and resource extraction. These forms of contestations, it argues, create new sites of power in which NGOs aid multinational oil corporations in negotiating new sites of governance that in themselves create new structures of power.</jats:p>

Mythic Oil: Resources, Belonging and the Politics of Claim Making Among the Ìlàjẹ Yorùbá of Nigeria

“…This collaboration challenges the prevailing view that chiefs and elders and youths are often in opposition when it comes to dealing with oil corporations because of the divide-and-rule tactics of the corporations (Watts 2003; Smith 2007). The Ìlàjẹ's ability to embed their narrative of belonging and ownership of land and oil resources when making claims against corporations and the Nigerian state echo similar claim-making processes among oil-rich Niger Delta communities (Adunbi 2011).…”

“…The core problem is that the oil economy is structured in such a way that communities located in resource exploitation areas do not derive any of the benefits. Communities are denied access to their land and experience high unemployment, and revenues from oil are beyond the reach of most community members (Barber 1982; Renne 1995; Apter 2005; Smith 2007; Okonta 2008; Mitchell 2009; Adunbi 2011; Medani 2011). This discrepancy between regional belonging and national resource control, and the related contestations, took me to the Ìlàjẹ area of Western Niger Delta, first in 2005 and later in 2007 for fieldwork that lasted more than two years 2 .…”

The Facebook President: Oil, Citizenship, and the Social Mediation of Politics in Nigeria

“…His subsequent victory in the 2011 presidential election transformed him from an accidental president into an elected president, whose youthfulness and education endeared him to many young Nigerians. 8 As noted above, this youthfulness was shown in his launching and active use of Facebook as a form of engagement with the Nigerian public (Adunbi 2011).…”

Leadership and Natural Resource Management: Linkages to the Persistence of Oil-related Conflicts in Nigeria’s Niger Delta

“…67 In several oil-producing communities, for example, youth have accused traditional leaders for collaborating with multinational oil companies and local political elites to deprive them of the opportunities to benefit from oil proceeds as equal stakeholders in their communities. 68 This is because some chiefs are not only on payrolls of oil companies, but they are also entitled to community development contracts, employment and scholarship opportunities. Given these privileges, chiefs in oil-producing communities, most often, resist protestations by youths against the oil companies.…”