Abstract

Studies in resource control in Nigeria are like going to the hearts of the crisis of under-development in the country. Yet, it is difficult to understand and master it easily. It is so diffused that to have a starting threshold is slippery. Legalism and constitutionalism appear to be the winning instruments of construction. But federalism and good governance are also imperative planks. This study which adopts the doctrinal method tries to focus at the fact that the tiny minority places where oil has been found in Nigeria have grown the worst rebels in the history of the country and have had the worst treatments from its governments, and have had the worst neglect of their environment and agitations in rebellion. Attempts made to discover why it is that only a stream of resources (oil) is being used to run the state craft did not yield much result as the literature on the matter subscribes to emotional, psychological and political sentiments and conclusions. Where legislative and legal instruments stating the position of facts and law are available attempts at going round them are uphill tasks and are dubbed ‘academic exercise’ by the court. There has been a government in place in Nigeria since colonial times that has been built on fraud and deceit. It maintains its sovereignty on the hunger to control the enormous resources of a tiny minority region while fixing a blind gaze on the huge reserves of similar species of resources in the majority regions. The tiny region refuses to let go and continues to cry foul in production of rebels while the government of the majority regions collude with outsider-mechanisms to rob and use the resources of the rebels to fight, defeat and destroy them.