Why has sustained attention on developing Niger Delta by successive Nigerian governments failed to translate into sustainable development for he oil-rich region? Why has the Niger Delta region become ’almost a permanent theatre of conflict’, in spite of various efforts at resolving the conflict by the Nigerian state and increased spending on Corporate Social Responsibility by oil transnationals? These and more are the questions that engaged the attention of the contributors to this book. In nine chapters, eight contributors with a multi-disciplnary background and robust scholarly interest in the Niger Delta critically review the extant strategies for development intervention and conflict resolution in the troubled region. Though the contributors address a variety of themes, they are in fact, making one argument, namely, that the extant development intervention and conflict resolution strategies in the Niger Delta are cosmetic and hardly go deep enough to address the issues at the root of the crisis of development and endemic conflict in the region. As placebos, and not medicine, the adopted strategies create the false impression that something is being done about the Niger Delta, whereas in actual sense, what is on offer is grossly inadequate to provide a solution to the twin problems of lack of development and conflict.
