Edward Azar's Theory and Niger-Delta Conflict

The following research paper will focus on the contemporary Niger-Delta conflict in Nigeria; however this conflict will be described and explained through Mr. Edward Azar theory, Protracted Social Conflict. The Protracted Social conflict theory by Mr. Edward Azar, he defined it as “prolonged/violent struggle by communal groups for such basic needs as security. Recognition, and acceptance, fair access to political institutions and economic participations”. Briefly these conflicts occur when communities within a state are deprived from their basic needs, such as equality, health care, development, political rights..etc., depends on the needs of each community. The result of the deprivation of needs is due to complex events involve the role of the state or the government and the international linkage. The Niger-Delta conflict relies on several factors or roots that initiated this violent conflict, such as “the inequitable power relations embedded in the production of oil and the highly skewed distribution of its benefits and pernicious liabilities” (Akpan & Umejesi, 2013), as well as the exclusion of the masses of the people of Niger-Delta from the distribution of the oil revenues, and the violence that the people experienced, who they are forcibly dispossess of their owned land, and suffered from the bad effects of oil pollution in the region without adequate compensation or social protection. The conflict shed light on the three parties that are components of the conflicts, the Multinational oil companies, the Nigerian federal government and the host Nigerian communities.
Thesis: How Azar’s theory could explain and analyze Niger-Delta conflicts? And does this analysis could be a platform for developing a framework for conflict management in the region?