NATIONAL SECURITY AND PRESIDENT YAR’ADUA’S AMNESTY PROGRAMME IN THE NIGER DELTA: A POLITICAL ECONOMY OF PEACE MAKING PROCESS

Ezeibe Christian and Nnamani Desmond Okechukwu

Department of Political Science, University of Nigeria, Nsukka

Department of Public Administration and Local Government, University of Nigeria, Nsukka

 E-mail: titikris2003@yahoo.com

ABSTRACT

The nature of production and distribution in post- colonial Nigeria have given rise to severe inter and intra eth no-regional conflicts in Nigeria.Since the end of cold war, conflict between the oil producing communities and petro-dollar businesses became intensive such that Nigerian state is listed among the most unsafe environment for business in Africa as the Niger Delta region metamorphosized into a deadly war zone. This paper examines how President Yar’adua’s Amnesty programme in Niger Delta contributed in the peace making process in the region. We employed intractable conflict theory as our framework of analysis. We argued that the administration of President Umar Musa Yar’adua appears to appreciate the huge lost to Nigeria arising from such black listing and consequently announced the Amnesty Programme for militants in the region on 24th June 2009. We read meaning from second hand information obtained from books, journals, newspapers, magazines and conference paper dealing on national security and amnesty programme in the Niger Delta.

Keywords: National Security, Amnesty, Peacemaking, Peacekeeping and intractable