Abstract

Many decades of uncontrolledexploration and exploitation of petroleum resources have adversely affected the host communities in the Niger Delta. Living conditions have remained poor with devastated and polluted environments, destroyed livelihood, unemployement, and lost of lives among others and this constitutes what is generally referred to as Niger Delta Question.With these formidable odds that threaten their survival. The Niger Delta people, have agitated severally through peaceful and violent confrontations for the Niger Delta question to be answered. The Amnesty Initiative was a most recent approach designed for the militants to give up their arms and renounce militancy and also to answer the Niger Delta question. The paper examines theorertically the efficacy of the Amnesty Initiative in answering the Niger Delta question. Situating the discourse within economic integration theoretical framework, the paper argues succintly that, the amnesty initiative though a unique appraoch does not have what it takes to answer the Niger delta question. The paper therefore recommends among others that the Nigerian state and the oil companies must develop a holistic framework that can provide sustainable solutions to the unabated damage done to the Niger Delta environment.

Keywords: Host communities, Niger Delta question,Oil exploration, Environmental degradation, Militants, Agitation, Amnesty initiative.

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