The Politics of Youth Violence in Rumuekpe and its Impact on Rumuekpe Community Development, 2004-2010

Abstract

2004 - 2010. Rumuekpe is one of the oil producing communities in Niger Delta region of Nigeria and is noted for their peaceful coexisted and friendly relationship with their guests and neighbours. Suddenly, the communities were thrown into violence due to the inability of the community youth leadership to ensure the accountability of their government and operate all inclusive government, and insincerity in activities of the oil companies operating in Rumuekpe to effectively enforce community development programme in Rumuekpe. The unsatisfactory activities of the youth leadership resulted to agitation by some factions of the youths for a change of the youth leadership, coupled with the ill activities of the oil multinationals, the aggrieved youths were left with no option than to embark on intensive agitation for a change of youth leadership, and community development by oil multinationals. Unfortunately, the agitation graduated to youth violence in Rumuekpe. To that effect, the study is aimed at identifying the causes and effects of the violence on Rumuekpe people and community development. Secondary and primary data were used to achieve the objectives of the study. Our findings proved that the violence was caused by agitation for change in youth leadership and poor activities of Shell in Rumuekpe community. The study showed that the violence had negative impact on Rumuekpe people, community development, oil multinationals and Nigerian state. Based on that, the study made some recommendations on the modalities to avoid future youth violence and achieve community development in Rumuekpe in particular, and Niger Delta Region at large.

DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2013.v4n6p73