Abstract

This paper embarks on a comprehensive study of the entire peace initiatives adopted to resolve the Niger Delta conflict in Nigeria with a view to uncover the relationship between the character of the Nigerian State, the emergence and the continual nature of the crisis. With the aid of fragmented organizational structure theory, the paper discovered that there is a strong relationship between the character of Nigerian state and the emergence of the conflict. The paper also discovered that the character of the state has a causal effect on the pattern of conflict resolution adopted together with the emergence of an ‘economy of conflict’, and that these were responsible for the persistence of the conflict. It therefore recommends the democratization of both the production and consumption process in the oil economy and the peace processes as a panacea.

Key words: Political economy, conflict resolution, natural resource economy, Niger Delta, economy of conflict.