Putting Oil First? Some Ethnographic Aspects of Petroleum-Related Land Use Controversies in Nigeria

Akpan, Wilson

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Title:	Putting Oil First? Some Ethnographic Aspects of Petroleum-Related Land Use Controversies in Nigeria
Author:	Akpan, Wilson
Year:	2005
Periodical:	African Sociological Review (ISSN 1027-4332)
Volume:	9
Issue:	2
Pages:	134-152
Language:	English
Notes:	biblio. refs.
Geographic terms:	Nigeria West Africa
Subjects:	land conflicts land law oil companies Agriculture, Natural Resources and the Environment Development and Technology Politics and Government Ethnic and Race Relations Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups) Economics, Commerce land use Petroleum industry and trade Eminent domain Nigeria--Social conditions
External link:	https://www.jstor.org/stable/afrisocirevi.9.2.134
Abstract:	This article examines one of the lesser known processes through which petroleum operations sustain social conflict in Nigeria. Focusing on what has come te be termed 'eminent domain abuse' by the international environmental justice community, the article reveals the character of petroleum operations in a number of communities in Nigeria's oil-producing region. The article relates the practices of the transnational oil companies, the disposition of the regulatory authorities, and the oppositional discourses of ordinary people in the oil communities to the laws governing land use and mineral ownership in the country. Assuming that the Nigerian State is not abusing its power of eminent domain with particular regard to petroleum operations, the exercise of such power leaves ordinary people in the study communities with the strong impression that it is. The legal and institutional framework for petroleum operations in Nigeria does not harmonize with local sociocultural and ecologic sensibilities and, therefore, might be said to be counterdevelopmental. The article is based on ethnographic data obtained in rural communities - Oloiburi, Ebubu and Iko (in Bayelsa, Rivers and Akwa Ibom States, respectively) - in the Niger Delta region in 2003. Bibliogr., sum. [Journal abstract, edited]

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