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From Colonialism to Internal Colonialism and Crude Socioenvironmental Injustice

Anatomy of Violent Conflicts in the Niger Delta of Nigeria

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Environmental Justice in the New Millennium

Abstract

The Niger Delta of Nigeria has been described as economic powerhouse endowed with abundant crude oil and natural gas reserves systematically being fed to the national and global economies.1 Paradoxically, the region has not benefited much from its own resource endowment and remains the most impoverished oil-bearing communities in the world. In most part, the Niger Delta has been a volatile environment plagued by violent resource-induced conflicts between various factions over several decades. Conflicts of various intensities ranging from separatist or secessionist movement, the Biafra war (1967–70), intermittent interethnic and intra-ethnic clashes, the struggle for state creation, agitation for local autonomy and resource control, the Ogoni uprising of the 1990s for socioenvironmental justice and self-determination, civil litigation, and the recent growth and proliferation of armed militant groups of various identities, ideologies, and motives, have been well documented.2

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© 2009 Filomina Chioma Steady

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Adeola, F.O. (2009). From Colonialism to Internal Colonialism and Crude Socioenvironmental Injustice. In: Steady, F.C. (eds) Environmental Justice in the New Millennium. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230622531_7

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