The exploration of oil in Nigeria began on June 5 1956 after Shell-BP struck ‘black gold’ during a drilling expedition in Oloibiri, Bayelsa State in the Niger Delta region. Over the years, the Nigerian economy has become highly dependent on the exportation of oil as its main source of foreign exchange. Between 1972 and 2013, oil rents were averaged to account for 25 percent of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) (World Development Indicators). Fuel exports as a percentage of Nigeria’s merchandise exports has risen from 10.3 percent in 1962 to 90.9 percent in 2014 (World Development Indicators). According to the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), the value of these petroleum exports to the Nigerian economy
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In his essay, Does Oil Hinder Democracy?, Ross writes “The oil-impedes-democracy claim is both valid and statistically robust; in other words oil does hurts democracy.” (Ross 356). Ross’ argument focuses on poor governance and mismanagement of profits accrued from natural resource wealth. His writings seem to state that poor governance is typical of authoritarian rule and in authoritarianism is in turn a typical result of excess resource wealth. Ross expands on three causal mechanisms that possibly tie oil exports to authoritarian rule. The first mechanism Ross alludes to is the rentier effect which he states comes from the work of Middle East scholars. This causal mechanism occurs in three different ways and the first is the taxation effect. The sense behind this is that governments tax citizens leniently because of the sufficient revenues obtained from oil sales. The flipside of this effect is that the public becomes less interested in accountability from the government (Ross …show more content…
In this case, resource wealth allows governments to spend significantly on internal security and prevent any democratic aspirations. Ross argues that resource wealth leads to larger military forces as a response to ethnic or regional conflicts that are typically associated with resource-rich countries (Ross 335). This has been the case in Nigeria in two different periods, the civil war of 1967-1970 and the conflicts with the people of the Niger Delta over the past 40 years. Chibuike Uche claims that the Nigerian Civil War was essentially a mission to keep the oil-rich Eastern region within the borders of the Nigerian state (Uche
In his essay, Does Oil Hinder Democracy?, Ross writes “The oil-impedes-democracy claim is both valid and statistically robust; in other words oil does hurts democracy.” (Ross 356). Ross’ argument focuses on poor governance and mismanagement of profits accrued from natural resource wealth. His writings seem to state that poor governance is typical of authoritarian rule and in authoritarianism is in turn a typical result of excess resource wealth. Ross expands on three causal mechanisms that possibly tie oil exports to authoritarian rule. The first mechanism Ross alludes to is the rentier effect which he states comes from the work of Middle East scholars. This causal mechanism occurs in three different ways and the first is the taxation effect. The sense behind this is that governments tax citizens leniently because of the sufficient revenues obtained from oil sales. The flipside of this effect is that the public becomes less interested in accountability from the government (Ross …show more content…
In this case, resource wealth allows governments to spend significantly on internal security and prevent any democratic aspirations. Ross argues that resource wealth leads to larger military forces as a response to ethnic or regional conflicts that are typically associated with resource-rich countries (Ross 335). This has been the case in Nigeria in two different periods, the civil war of 1967-1970 and the conflicts with the people of the Niger Delta over the past 40 years. Chibuike Uche claims that the Nigerian Civil War was essentially a mission to keep the oil-rich Eastern region within the borders of the Nigerian state (Uche