Governance, Resource Extraction, and Local Development in the Niger Delta: An Original Political Ecology Framework

This dissertation develops an original political ecology framework for understanding the relationships among oil resource extraction governance, local government institutional capacity, and community development outcomes in the Niger Delta, drawing empirical evidence from Rivers, Delta, and Bayelsa States. Despite the Niger Delta's enormous petroleum resource wealth, local government areas in the region experience profound development deficits in health, education, infrastructure, and environmental quality, a paradox that existing theories of the resource curse inadequately explain at the sub-national local governance level. Employing Political Ecology Theory, the Resource Governance Framework, and the Environmental Justice Model, this study conducts extended fieldwork across nine oil-producing local government areas, gathering data from 120 key informants including community leaders, local government officials, oil company community relations officers, environmental activists, academic political ecologists, and federal environmental agency representatives. Participatory mapping of environmental degradation and development deficits is combined with analysis of Derivation Fund allocation records, Ecology Fund expenditure accounts, and Niger Delta Development Commission project databases. The dissertation introduces the Extractive Periphery Local Governance Model as an original theoretical contribution, theorizing how the political economy of oil extraction systematically marginalizes local government institutions in resource-producing communities while concentrating resource control at federal and state levels. Findings are expected to reveal structural mechanisms through which resource abundance produces local governance impoverishment and propose redistributive governance reforms. Keywords: Resource extraction, Niger Delta, local government, political ecology, development governance, oil.