FEMINISATION OF OIL-RESOURCE CRISIS IN NIGER DELTA IN NIGERIA

Oil resource crisis in the Niger Delta has taken on different dimensions which are of serious concern both to the Nigerian rental state, the Transnational Oil Corporations operating in the region, and the international system as a whole occasioned by global political economy ramifications. The question of development has been in the front burner of every state in the international system. Oil extraction and processing as a development means for the Nigerian rental state produce a lot of genuine untoward externalities and costs socially, economically, and environmentally. Apart from the children, the most vulnerable are no doubt the womenfolk. This paper relies on social constructivism to provide explanation for the feminisation of oil-resource crisis in the Niger Delta, as this may not be adequately captured within the theoretical framework of any of the typical liberal and neo-liberal approaches. Even though the paper acknowledges that the women struggle for an equitable and distributive resource governance to bail the region out of resource curse contradiction has for the most part being peaceful, it raises concern over the long lifespan of their vulnerability as they are still much at the receiving end of the oil-crisis left-over, as well as the renewed post-amnesty conflicts in the region. With little or nothing to show by the Transnational Oil Companies (TOCs) in the form of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) as a social construct to mitigate oil resource governance crisis and its attendant negative socio-economic and environmental consequences with a view to restoring resource equity, and engender peace in the region, the feminisation of oil crisis in the region will continue without any end in sight at least in the foreseeable future. To avoid the likelihood that the feminisation takes the form of women employing their most powerful weaponry, it is required that the Nigerian rental state and its colluding TOCs should as a matter of urgency prioritise intervening actions. These should be such that are geared towards good oil resource governance with genuine concern for gender equality, popular participation, and resource distributive justice as regards oil extraction and processing in the region. In particular, the TOCs should refocus and reenergise their CSRs towards facilitating real economic activities for the local women to effectively draw their attention away from the oil struggle in the region.