Does Amnesty Programme in Niger Delta have Economic Benefit to Nigeria?

Abstract

The Niger Delta is said to be the world’s largest wetland and the fourth largest ethnic group in Nigeria. The oil and gas in that region represents 97% of Nigeria’s foreign exchange earnings and this accounts for a major chunk of the wealth of the country. The region has for some years been the site of major confrontations between the people and the Nigerian government’s security forces, resulting in extrajudicial executions, arbitrary detentions, and draconian restrictions on the rights to freedom of expression, association, and assembly. To proffer solution, Federal government came up with Post-amnesty Programme. Based on this, the study sought to: (i) determine the economic benefits of Post-amnesty Progromme to Nigeria. (ii) Determine the level of effectiveness of the implementation of the Post Amnesty Progrmme since its inception in 2009. The research design was descriptive survey method. The population of the study was 4,798,519 million youths [15-39years][last Census2006] in Delta State, Bayelsa State and Rivers State. The study made use of qualitative and quantitative data analyses. The sample size was 400 using Taro Yamane formula. Purposive sampling technique was used to select the respondents in each of the states. A pilot study was conducted using split-half method and tested with Spearman Brown. Validity of instruments was measured using content validity .The One-Sample Kolmogorv-Smirnov (Z) test is used in testing the hypothesis: Amnesty programme does not have economic benefits to the Nigeria. (Zcal = 4.930 > Zcritical = 1.96, p < 0.05). This result is significant as p-value of 0.00 < 0.05. Thus, the null hypothesis is rejected and the alternative hypothesis accepted accordingly. Hence, Amnesty programme does have economic benefits to Nigeria. It concluded that is only in peaceful regions that meaningful collaboration and developments can take place, as well as investment and development. Where its recommendation is for the Federal government to engage in equitable distribution of resources in the country and elimination of bureaucracy such as: corruption, dehumanization, marginalization, and underdevelopment and deprivation.