Assessment of Militants’ Willingness to accept for an Environmental Improvement in the Niger Delta Region of Nigeria

Abstract

Niger delta region is severely polluted due to oil pipeline vandalism. This has resulted to severe economic loses, land and water pollution which impacted negatively on the environment and the socioeconomic lives of the Niger Delta people. In an effort to bring an end to the problem, government signed an amnesty programme with the militants and embarked on formal training and integrating of ex-militants in to the formal system. Thus the cost of the compensation package provided under the amnesty programme is an estimate for vandalism related pollution. However, there are concerns that the current amnesty compensation package may not have been properly designed and thus many of the militants could not benefit from the programme. The study is the first to use choice experiment models to evaluate relationship between pipeline vandalism and militancy in the Niger delta region of Nigeria. Three hundred (300) respondents were employed, data were collected through the use of questionnaire method and analysed using choice experiment (CE) models. The findings from the study includes: respondents willingness to accept lower compensation in addition to institutional reform and better environmental management; reduction in land and water pollution levels; also improvements in government spending to provide better infrastructure.              

Keywords: Environment, Militancy, Amnesty, Niger-Delta region