The Problem of “Oil Theft’ in Nigeria’s Niger Delta: A Psycho-Philosophical Analysis

Abstract:

The non-legal appropriation of crude oil from pipelines in Nigeria’s Niger Delta has resulted in severe socioeconomic and ecological consequences. This paper examines the problem drawing from the psychoanalytical philosophy of Frantz Fanon and the ecofeminist critique of Western dualism. Using a diagnostic, conceptual, and interpretative analytic methodology, it charts why global energy politics reproduces a structure of resource colonialism wherein international and national interests form a toxic synergy. This alliance intensified by global energy demands, generates environmental racism and slow violence. Oil theft represents a counter-violent trauma response to this violence embedded within the anthropocentric logic of contemporary resource governance. Therefore is symptomatic of an ontological crisis created by the colonial imposition of a dualistic schema. Militant factions and criminalized intermediaries emerge as reactive agents within this necro-political economy, which explains the ineffectiveness of top-down measures like the militarization of the Niger Delta. This paper advocates for the decolonization of resource governance through non-anthropocentric approaches informed by indigenous African (e.g., Ijo/Ijaw) non-dual relationality that emphasize care and ecological stewardship, repositioning nature as sacred kin.