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Oil Exploration and Poverty in the Niger Delta Region of Nigeria: A Critical Analysis

In the ongoing debates about the Niger Delta region of Nigeria, significant emphasis has been placed on the devastation of the environment by oil and gas exploration which has resulted to excruciating poverty. Oil exploration in the region and its attendant abuse on the environment has been more conspicuous in recent time. It has been argued that the oil producing areas of this region suffer from grave damages as a result of this oil exploration. It is argued in this paper that the ecologically unfriendly activities of the multinational corporations in the region lead to environmental degradation, and environmental degradation in turn leads to poverty. It is the dynamics of this interconnectedness that we wish to explore in this paper. In other words, the paper examines the correlation between oil exploration and environmental degradation in the Niger Delta region; the relationship between social and economic underdevelopment in the region and environmental degradation; and examine to what extent oil exploration is responsible for poverty in the region.