Revue des sciences politiques et des affaires publiques
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Nigeria's Niger Delta Conflict, Cameroon's Bakassi Peninsula and Insecurity in The Gulf of Guinea: Assessing the Role of Multinational Oil Corporations in Africa's Incessant Conflicts

Masumbe PS

This article exposes the possibilities of a spillover of Nigeria’s Niger Delta obdurate conflict into Cameroon’s Bakassi Peninsula, given the zones’ proximity and the behaviour of actors in Africa’s conflicts. Currently, the Nigerian Government, multi-national oil corporations and Niger Delta indigenes fight over resources in the Niger Delta. While the indigenes accuse Nigeria's successive regimes for insensitively conniving with multi-national oil corporations to nefariously swindle oil resources from their indigenous environment, without addressing their socioeconomic plights; the Nigerian Government accuses the indigenes of gratuitous rebellion. This argument appears plausible for neighbouring Bakassi indigenes to raise similar grievances against Cameroon and its oil extracting partners. Using John Burton’s Human Needs Theory, we argue that, only an equitably institutionalized resource allocation formula, can forestall a resource-based conflict in Cameroon; where such a formula manifests massive human and infrastructural development emanating from indigenously friendly public and foreign policies.