OIL ENCLAVE ECONOMY AND SEXUAL LIAISONS IN NIGERIA’S NIGER DELTA REGION A Thesis Submitted in Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY of RHODES UNIVERSITY By YOHANNA KAGORO GANDU FEBRUARY 2011 Oil enclave economy and sexual liaisons in Nigeria’s Niger Delta region ABSTRACT This thesis examines the intersection of oil enclave economy and the phenomenon of sexual liaisons in Nigeria’s Niger Delta region. The particular focus of this thesis is on the extent to which oil enclavity contributes to the emergence of sexual liaisons between local women and expatriate oil workers. Despite the fact that the Nigerian oil industry has been subjected to considerable scholarly debate for over five decades, this aspect of the social dimension of oil has not received adequate scholarly attention. Gender-specific discourse has tended to focus more on women protest. Other aspects, such as gender-specific violence that women in the region have had to live with, are either ignored or poorly articulated. Picketing of oil platforms by protesting women is celebrated as signs that women are active in the struggle against oil Transnational Companies (TNCs). While women protest is a significant struggle against oil TNCs, it has the potential of blurring our intellectual focus on the specific challenges confronting women in the Niger Delta. This study shows that since the inauguration of the Willink Commission in 1957, national palliatives meant to alleviate poverty in the Niger Delta region have not been gender sensitive. A review of the 1957 Willink Commission and others that came after it shows that the Nigerian state is yet to address the peculiar problems that the oil industry has brought to the women folk in the region. The paradox is that while oil provides enormous wealth and means of patronage to the Nigerian state elite, the oil TNCs, and better paid expatriate oil workers, a large section of the local Oil Bearing Communities (OBCs), especially women and unemployed youth, are not only dispossessed but survive in an environment characterised by anxiety and misery. With limited survival alternatives, youths resort to violent protest including oil thefts and bunkering. Local women are also immersed in this debacle because some of them resort to sexual liaisons with economically empowered expatriate oil workers as an alternative means of survival. This study therefore shifts the focus to women by exploring the extent to which sexual liaison reflects the contradictions in the enclave oil economy. The study employed an enclave economy conceptual framework to demonstrate that oil extractive activities compromise and distort the local economies of OBCs. This situation compels local women to seek for alternative means of survival by entering into sexual liaisons with more financially privileged expatriate oil workers. Yohanna Gandu ii Oil enclave economy and sexual liaisons in Nigeria’s Niger Delta region The study reviewed relevant secondary documentary sources of data. Further, it employed primary data collection techniques which include in-depth interviews/life histories, ethnographic observations, focus group discussions, and visual sociology. Besides obtaining the social profile and challenges facing the women involved in sexual liaisons with expatriate oil workers, the study provides an outline of participants’ narratives on the different social and economic dimensions of the intersection of oil enclave economy and sexual liaisons. The study found that some of the women involved in sexual liaisons with expatriate oil workers have been abandoned with ‘fatherless’ children. Some of them have also been rejected by their immediate family members and, in some cases, by their community. The study also found that the phenomenon of sexual liaisons and the incidents of abandoned ‘fatherless’ children that result from the practice, has over the years been played out through local resentment against oil TNCs and their expatriate employees. This finding helps to fill the gap in narratives and to make sense of the civic revolt and deepening instability in the Niger Delta region. Yohanna Gandu iii Oil enclave economy and sexual liaisons in Nigeria’s Niger Delta region SUPERVISOR’S STATEMENT I confirm that the thesis of the following candidate has been submitted with my approval. Name of candidate: Yohanna Kagoro GANDU Student number: 607g3882 Department: Sociology Professor Jimi O. Adesina 20 April 2011 _____________________ ____________________ SUPERVISOR DATE Yohanna Gandu iv Oil enclave economy and sexual liaisons in Nigeria’s Niger Delta region DEDICATION To the ever-green loving Memory of my Father and Mother: Chief Simon Gandu Agang Yawuan Mrs. Zinariya Aboliyat Gandu Who despite all odds had the foresight to send me to school And to my Wife and Children: Mrs Maryam Gandu Ms. Zinariya-Sarafina Gandu Mr. Yohanna Gandu (Jr.) Mr. Chris-Abba Gandu Ms. Aboliyat-Sarauniya Gandu For their prayers, perseverance and enduring my long years of absence from home. Yohanna Gandu v Oil enclave economy and sexual liaisons in Nigeria’s Niger Delta region ACKNOWLEDGMENTS First of all, I wish to express my sincere appreciation, thanks and gratitude for the spiritual support and guidance I received during the course of my studies from the Almighty God, and the grace, good health, strength and protection given to me throughout my long stay at Rhodes University. I could not have overcome all the odds and human obstacles placed on my way during my sojourn in South Africa without the support and protection from my God. I would like to thank my Thesis Supervisor Prof. Jimi Adesina for his tireless support and advice throughout this project. I thank you for teaching me that critical views combined with human kindness, hard work, perseverance and encouragement are the genuine qualities of an academic supervisor. Without your erudite kindness, patience and support, this thesis would not have come this far. I treasure your supervision and critical advice at all stages of the Thesis writing. I and my family are grateful and indeed indebted to you. I am grateful to Professor Mahmood Mamdani, Professor Paul Martins and Professor Marcia Wright for their initial academic guidance and tutelage while a Fulbright Fellow at Columbia University in New York. The 2009 Andrew Mellon thesis writing funding received from Rhodes University Prestigious Scholarship is hereby acknowledged. Opinions expressed, and conclusions arrived at, are those of the author and not necessarily to be attributed to Rhodes University or the donor. To Mrs. Denise Wisch (former administrator, Sociology Department) who processed my application and admission into Sociology, Rhodes University, you taught me in practical terms the dynamics of strategic international university administration. Thank you. I am grateful to my editorial colleagues at the International Sociological Association Journal (New Cultural Frontiers) for all their support and understanding in combining my PhD thesis writing and the editorial duties of this prestigious Journal. I gratefully appreciate the contributions of Mr. Oghenekaro Nelson Odume and Ms. Cossie Rasana. To my Ugandan and Ghanaian family in Grahamstown, I say a big thank you. To Steven Arrojo, Bill and Rita Nakayinga, you are indeed great Africans. To Engineer Buchi, Abah Adejo, Mr. Asobinuanwu Womeodu, Mr. John Umoren (procurement officer, Akwa Ibom State Action Committee against AIDS), Mr. Kingsley Chijioke, Mr. Ferdinard N. Yohanna Gandu vi Oil enclave economy and sexual liaisons in Nigeria’s Niger Delta region Amachi, Sister Angela Sullivan, and all associates of Asari Dokubor, I thank you for your kind support and understanding. I thank the following: Mrs Musale Banda (Rhodes University Business School), Dr. (Mrs.) Nthalivi Silo (Primary Education Unit of the Department of Education, University of Botswana), Ms. Zanele Silala (IT Thesis Lab Administrator, Rhodes University), and Mrs. Dianne Amos (Senior Software Support Consultant, Rhodes University ), for their support and understanding. To Vanessa Fourie of the Rhodes University Transit Housing Unit, thank you for putting such effort into the allocation of the Rhodes University Flats to me for the period of my studies. I wish to send a big thank you to Mrs. Liezel Strydom of the Rhodes University Research Division, for her kind efforts in facilitating and disbursement of the Andrew Mellon Fellowship grant. She says always: The Lord will never give you more than you can handle!! To the late Professor Thomas Kudi who died the very week of my Thesis submission, I am grateful for all you did for me. To my sisters: Veronica, Ladi, Lami, Agnes and brothers: Samuel, Emmanuel, Lucius, I thank you all. To Felix Tachio and my childhood friend Daniel Duniyo, I am indebted to you guys. I am grateful to my father in-law Mr. Simon Kahu and mother in-law Mrs. Laraba Kahu for their support and understanding during the period of my absence at home. To my beautiful wife, I owe so much to you for your constant prayers, fasting sessions and sacrifice. To my two girls (Zinariya-Sarafina and Aboliyat-Sarauniya) and the two boys (Yohanna Jr. and Chris-Abba), thank you for your patience during my long period of absence. By the grace of God, I will make up for the long absence. I wish to thank and show appreciation for the critical contributions and support of many other people whose names are not mentioned here. I am grateful to my Pastor in Grahamstown, Pastor A. I. Okewole of the Redeemed Christian Church of God