APCJ_1528_Win2010_00i_122_4 12/30/10 3:22 PM Page 37 Oil, Politics, and Conflict in the Niger Delta 37 such actions negatively affect production, which in turn decreases the revenue that the state depends on for foreign exchange and expenditures. Some consider state violence a legitimate and proper response to these threats, in order to sustain extraction and production. Government commandos have on several occasions descended upon unarmed communities and people protesting oil-related damage to their environment. Such was the case with the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP) under the leadership of the late Kenule Saro-Wiwa. The government exhibits a lack of nonkilling vision in the nature of its management and governance of the oil sector, failure to protect the environment through the enforcement of oil-related policies and laws, use of force against resistance or threats to the oil industry and oil revenue, and failure to develop the Niger Delta. The oil companies display it in their environmental practices, weak corporate social responsibility, and role in intra- and inter-community violent conflicts. In addition, oil-rich communities are also guilty of lacking visions of nonkilling politics and interactions with the state, oil companies, and other communities. They fail to incorporate visions of nonkilling into their activities and demands for justice and development, which translate into intra- and inter-community violence, armed attacks on oil company facilities, kidnappings of oil company workers, killing of government security personnel and oil workers, and violent local politics and struggle for control of the illegal trade in oil. Management of the oil sector to attain sustainable development was never envisaged or adopted within the government in the early stages of developing the oil industry.22 Yet, poor and irresponsible management of natural resources is a critical element in conflict in natural resource–rich nations. The ensuing conflict is incubated in the social, economic, and political conditions that result from management of natural resources devoid of sustainable development, protection of the environment, and improvement in the living conditions of residents near the resource and respect for their human rights. More often than not, a contributing factor is government’s failure to sufficiently involve local communities in the policy process. Violent conflicts that spring from the above conditions could possibly be avoided if policy makers gave expression to nonkilling considerations. A number of scholars have attempted to explain this phenomenon in the context of the ‘resource curse’ theory. In the case of Nigeria, the Niger Delta is the anchorage of the country’s oil wealth, but paradoxically, the region bears a huge burden of unemployment, poverty, and underdevelopment that make nonsense of the oil resource, which if managed properly could be a blessing to the region.23 The government’s approach regarding the management of the country’s oil was nonparticipatory and exclusionary in regard to citizens in the delta. Most Nigerian oil and environmental policies formulated years ago were done so without due regard to and contributions from relevant stake- 22. Indeed, it would have been surprising had the colonial government taken the interests of Nigerians into consideration during policy making at that time. This situation, however, did not change upon political independence. 23. See P. Collier, Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries Are Failing and What Can Be Done About It (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2007), quoted in Helen Collinson and Rod Macleod, ‘Striking oil: Blessing or curse’, Praxis Note, no. 52, June 2010.