Who controls Warri? How ethnicity became volatile in the Western Niger Delta (1928-52)

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Periodical article

Title:	Who controls Warri? How ethnicity became volatile in the Western Niger Delta (1928-52)
Author:	Okoh, Oghenetoja
Year:	2016
Periodical:	The Journal of African History (ISSN 0021-8537)
Volume:	57
Issue:	2
Pages:	209-230
Language:	English
Geographic term:	Nigeria
Subjects:	colonial administration ethnicity taxation conflict violence
External link:	https://doi.org/10.1017/S0021853716000074
Abstract:	The battle over who controls Warri has been underway for several generations. The most violent eruption of this struggle occurred between 1997 and 1999. This article traces the history of this struggle to the colonial period, during a time of administrative restructuring called reorganization, which began in 1928. Contrary to the recent popular and scholarly understanding of the Warri crisis as an outcome of crude oil politics, I argue that British colonial state intervention set in motion a deadly, ethnicized struggle over political and material resources, which has only been exacerbated by the zero-sum politics of the crude oil economy. Notes, ref., sum. [Journal abstract]