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Title: The Changing Forms Of Identity Politics In Nigeria Under Economic Adjustment: The Case of the Oil Minorities Movement of the Niger Delta.
Author: Cyril I. Obi
Publisher: Nordiska Africa Institute, Uppsala.
Year of Publication: 2001
ISSN 1104-8425.
Pages: 125
The Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) in Nigeria was introduced by the military regime of General Ibrahim Babangida in 1986. It was an IMF-imposed policy which, among other things, emphasized deregulation by placing sever restrictions on state expenditure, while increasing the power of market forces in the economy. The goal, according to IMF officals, was to increase productivity and efficiency. However, the implementation of SAP occurred against the backdrop of a sever economic crisis which was caused, among otiier things, by the structural weakness in the neo-colonial economy, the crisis in the global oil market on which the state was heavily dependent, fiscal mismanagement, corruption, and authoritarianism.
Given its emphasis on the reduction of government expenditure and removal of subsides, structural adjustment with its attendant contradictions, spawned further dislocations in the Nigerian political economy. Vulnerable groups such as women, children, the physically challenged and aged, as well as marginalized ethnic minorities were more adversely affected than any other group. Thus, with its assault on the people's welfare and general living standards, SAP created an objective condition not only for transnational control and domination of Nigerian economy, but also the resurgence of ethnic politics as the only viable option in the growing contest among the diverse ethnic groups in the federation over scarce (and depleting) resources.
The deepening of the national economic crisis produced two diametrically opposed outcomes. In the first place, the citizenry, long-suffering and beleaguered, became more restive in their demands for broader political space, self-determination and a radical restructuring of the federal system, all of which inextricably constituted fundamental issues for discussion in a proposed Sovereign National Conference. Secondly, the authoritarian Nigerian state reinvigorated its repressive and coercive capabilities in a desperate bid to eliminate popular opposition to the adjustment programme.
Against the foregoing, ethno-regional pressure groups sprang up r.cross the federation: the Eastern Mandate Union, the Northern Consultative Group, the Committee of Western Elders, the Middlebelt Elders, the Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People (MOSOP), the Ijaw National Congress, the Anioma Movement,...