Oil Exploration in Eastern Obolo Environment, 1996 – 2021 (Published)
Eastern Obolo is richly endowed with abundant natural resources especially crude oil and gas. Oil exploration has impacted disastrously on the people and their environment. Despite its immense contribution to the up-keep of the state, the area has suffered monumental neglect and deprivation in addition to the destruction of the ecosystem. The fauna and flora are under threat. The exploration of crude oil apart from causing damages to the ecosystem has been one of the major sources of communal conflicts and crime in the area. This vexed situation has in recent years encouraged youth restiveness, violent protests, pipeline vandalisation and kidnapping. Against this backdrop, the paper argues that unless there is a paradigm shift in the manner the oil multinationals as well as the state and federal government respond to these ugly situations, violent crisis will continue to prevail.
Israel U.E and Mbikan M.D. (2023) Oil Exploration in Eastern Obolo Environment, 1996 – 2021, International Journal of History and Philosophical Research, Vol.11, No.2, pp.1-7
Keywords: Agip, Eastern Obolo, Environment, Exxon-Mobil, Niger-Delta, littoral multinationals, oil exploration, pipeline
King Jaja and Christianity in Opobo Kingdom of the Eastern Niger Delta (Published)
King Jaja and Christianity in Opobo Kingdom of the Eastern Niger Delta is part of our reaction to the notion that King Jaja was opposed to Christianity. The article traces the activities of missionaries in Bonny before the Bonny Civil War in 1869 which led to King Jaja’s founding of Opobo kingdom. In Opobo, King Jaja supported Chief Epelle, an evangelist, to return to Opobo to continue the work of evangelism. This paper specifically looks at the missionary activities of Bishop Crowther and King Jaja who felt he was biased, favoured the Manilla Pepple faction of the royal family against the Annie Pepple group. The paper opines that it was for this reason that King Jaja turned his back against Bishop Crowther and his version of Christianity. This paper uses both oral history and published works in Christianity in Bonny and other parts of the Niger Delta to support the argument that King Jaja was a Christian.
Keywords: Christianity, Eastern, King Jaja, Niger-Delta, Opobo Kingdom
The Niger Delta Crisis in Nigeria: Some Moral Lessons (Published)
The Niger Delta region of Nigeria is richly endowed with enormous and abundant oil and gas resources contributing to ninety percent of Nigeria’s annual income. The Niger Delta region however, is severely exploited after being explored of her natural resources. This has led to widespread agitation, protest and militancy by her citizens. The crisis this has engendered has very significant moral undertone that one can learn from. Thus this work, apart from its historical insight, attempts to highlights these moral lessons with the thesis that “injustice” always leads to consequences that are not desirable.
Keywords: Crisis, Injustice, Militancy, Morality, Niger-Delta, Nigeria