The Lower Niger River dredging and indigenous wetlandlivelihoods in Nigeria: the Anam communities in Ugbolu,Delta State, as a case study

Amaechi D. Okonkwo

Received: 10 November 2011 / Accepted: 16 March 2012 / Published online: 29 March 2012� Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2012

Abstract The article explored systemic tendencies for state-led development projects in

Nigeria, such as the recently concluded Lower Niger River dredging, to compromise

indigenous livelihoods. Development research methods were sensitized with James Fer-

guson’s antipolitics machine critique and used to elicit participants’ perspectives of the

structuring role of the Niger River on their livelihoods, their evaluation of the participatory

content of the project and potential project effects on their livelihoods. Participants claimed

the Niger River system singularly structures their livelihoods by facilitating recession

farming and fishing. In relation to the participatory content and (un)anticipated effects of

the dredging project, key informants insisted that it was undemocratically conceived and

executed; that the project will reduce the annual Niger River flood, opportunities for

recession farming and fishing, impoverish them, induce involuntary migration, and inter-

community conflict. Consequently, an inverse relationship was inferred between technicist

development programmes or projects conceived and managed by agents of the Nigerian

State and the alleged beneficiaries’ versions and experience of structural change. The

author also found that the project was exploited by Nigerian development elites to redefine

complex regional underdevelopment challenges as infrastructural deficit and relocate

discursive blame for underdevelopment from the state and multinational corporations to

riverside communities, their cultures and wet ecologies.

Keywords Niger River wetlands � Autocratic channel dredging � Riverside communities’

livelihoods � Sustainable development

1 Introduction

Quite often in Nigeria (West Africa), the exigencies of economic or market-oriented

growth tend to hinder an institutionalized predictive analysis (Sen 1999) of the effects,

especially the unintended effects, of development projects on citizens and the environment.

A. D. Okonkwo (&)Behaviour Change Group, 5719 Ivanhoe Ct, Fayetteville, NC 28314, USAe-mail: amaechiokonkwo@hotmail.com

123

Environ Dev Sustain (2012) 14:667–689DOI 10.1007/s10668-012-9347-7

This is the case with the recently concluded Lower Niger River dredging project in

Nigeria, which commenced on September 17, 2009. The project directly affects 8 of the 36

Nigerian states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). These states are Niger, Kogi,

Anambra, Delta, Edo, Imo, Rivers and Bayelsa (see Fig. 1). Conceived more than 40 years

ago, the project’s justification was essentially technicist. That is, ‘‘the ends sought were

primarily material, strategy was derived from Western economic theory, and the meansconsisted of Western capital combined with Western technology and know-how. Progress,

of course, would be measured in economic terms…’’ to the detriment of indigenous

livelihoods and well-being (Nolan 2002: 45—original emphasis).

In particular, the project exemplifies Nigerian development elites’ unfounded convic-

tion that technology-infused projects would surmount the conflated sociopolitical and

economic problems coproduced by the Nigerian state and licensed extractive multinational

corporations, which nurtured widespread poverty and violence associated with the Nige-

rian Niger Delta region today (see Watts 2004). Moreover, the Lower Niger River dredging

project was autocratic in its conception and execution. For example, indigenous commu-

nities, such as the Anam, claim they were not consulted at any phase of the project. Neither

did the Nigerian state publish the environmental impact assessment study, unanticipated

outcome mitigation measures, and project contractors’ conditioning guidelines.

Expectedly, riverine communities protested the project, especially the non-publication

of the environmental impact assessment study (EIA) and the lack of unanticipated outcome

mitigation measures (see Wolf et al. 2005; Salu 2000; Bray et al. 1988). The project’s

success consequently depended on the deployment of military gunboats to protect con-

tractors and enforce indigenous communities’ compliance (Report of the Technical

Committee on the Niger Delta (RTCND) 2008). Paradoxically, indigenous communities’

historic agitation against failed development projects in Nigeria (see Salu 2000; Arsel

2009; interview of Michael Watts) may explain previous failed attempts by the Nigerian

Fig. 1 Distance earmarked for dredging in Nigeria. Reproduced with permission from Prof YemiAkegbejo-Samsons University of Agriculture Dept of Aquaculture and Fisheries Management PMB 2240,Abeokuta, Nigeria

668 A. D. Okonkwo

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state to dredge the river channel in the last 40 years, and the recent state opacity and

autocracy in executing the project.

The above anomalies have resulted in widespread development failure in Nigeria,

indigenous communities’ perennial neglect, citizens’ distrust of the Nigerian state, her

representative politicians, bureaucrats, development projects and programmes. Concur-

rently, Nigerians have rising expectations about the transformational and emancipatory

powers of development projects and programmes. As Edelman and Haugerud remind us,

‘‘development remains a legitimate aspiration in many parts of the world, a hope, despite

the loss of faith in the ethnocentric and sometimes destructive policies’’ (2005: 51; see also

Ake 2000; Huntington 1991).

Probably as a consequence of the state’s secretive conception and autocratic imple-

mentation of the project, unofficial variants of the Niger River dredging objectives cir-

culated in Nigeria. One version alleges the project was intended to promote the economic

development of a section of the country, particularly Northern Nigeria (Wolf et al. 2005).

Another version attributes the project to demands made by powerful multinational and

local corporations, such as Shell Petroleum Company and Delta Steel Company, to

mention a few (Okereke 2009). Furthermore, another version of the project’s provenance

attributes it to the demands of the powerful Nigerian mercantile class who consider the

Lower Niger River an underexploited resource or to elites of mainland communities who

view the Lower Niger River (flooding) as a hazard to lives and properties (for different

perspectives of river systems, see Okereke 2009; Jeb and Aggarwal 2008; IPCC 2007;

Wolf et al. 2005).

However, a careful reading of government functionaries’ speeches and writings

revealed six evolving project objectives, mostly in response to critics, which corroborates

the author’s technicist supposition. First, the project is intended to deepen the Lower Niger

River channel to increase commercial shipping navigational efficiency from Warri to Baro

(573 km) and facilitate interstate commerce. Second, the dredging project is anticipated to

reduce overall transportation costs for commercial goods across major Nigerian ports and

commercial cities, such as Warri, Port Harcourt, Onitsha, Ajaokuta, and Lokoja, and to

decongest the existing Lagos port. Third, the project is intended to promote the durability

of existing Nigerian highways and bridges by easing commercial haulage of goods on the

roads and bridges. Fourth, the project will create employment opportunities for riverside

and adjoining inland communities and improve civil relations among various Nigerian

cultures.

Fifth, the project would instigate and increase regional tourism. Finally, the dredging

project is expected to increase the amount of cultivatable land annually lost to flooding and

improve the overall Lower Niger River fish yield (see BBC News 2009; Okereke 2009;

FGN (FGN) 2007; World Bank 2005; Wolf et al. 2005; Aroh 2000). It is important to note

that official project rhetoric failed to outline how the dredging project will achieve these

primarily material and lofty objectives. In the official haste to execute the project, little

attention was paid to the fact that riverside communities desire and anticipate the annual

Lower Niger River flood, which inundates the cultivatable plains for their livelihoods and

well-being.

The market-oriented benefits of increased shipping and commercial activities are

anticipated to trickle down (Todaro 1997) and transform rural riverside communities (Wolf

et al. 2005; Okereke 2009). Trickle-down development expectations thrive in a country

fractured by ethnicity, failed development experience, primordial loyalties, pervasive

corruption, and actual and perceived regional and ethnic imbalances in the distribution of

oil resources primarily derived from the Niger Delta (UNDP 2006a; Concannon and Croft

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2006; UNDP 2002; Watts 2004; Ake 2000; Ekeh 1975). Moreover, commercial devel-

opment in the Niger Delta since the 1950s has been about natural resource extraction,

which produced the extensive ecological damage and worsening socio-economic well-

being of riverside Niger Delta groups (see Watts 2004; Ake 2000). Paradoxically, the

recently concluded dredging project is intended to rectify the unintended outcomes of

previous state and corporate developments projects, industrialization and natural resource

extraction from the Niger Delta.

Three important questions arise from the presentation so far. First, to what extent does

ethnically, culturally and geographically diverse indigenous communities, such as the

Anam communities, depend on the Lower Niger River for sustainable livelihoods and

small income? Second, what does the Lower Niger River dredging project planning and

management culture suggest about Nigerian elites’ development worldviews and project

management practices; in contrast with their daily rhetoric? Alternatively rephrased, why

do ‘‘reasonable men adopt public policies that have harmful consequences for the societies

they govern?’’ (Bates 1981: 3). Third, what are the impacts of Nigerian development elites’

worldviews and practices on their constituents’ livelihoods, the environment and orthodox

development ideals? These questions will be answered by referencing the available

development literature: key informants’ narratives about their livelihood dependencies on

the Lower Niger River or otherwise and their verbal gestures towards the Nigerian state

and her development agents.

Before presenting the study site ecology, research methods, findings and conclusion, it

is pertinent to discuss the origins of official and riverside communities’ development

ideologies, practices, contestations and project precedents in Nigeria. The objective is to

promote readers’ appreciation of the historical, governance, material and normative basis

of seemingly contradictory development worldviews and conducts of powerful and vul-

nerable stakeholders. The selective focus on vulnerable communities as case studies is

justified by the routine neglect of their perspectives of programmes and projects in

development literature, which privileges powerful neoliberal rhetoric and practices of

development elites, states, agencies and corporations. The author suggests that literature

over-emphasis of elitist development agencies, nation-states and managers’ worldviews

and practices unintentionally nurture the culture of ‘‘opaque and secretive’’ programme/

project planning and management (Edelman and Haugerud 2005: 20). The study is a

hopeful attempt to instigate a more balanced development narrative in literature.

2 The origins of Nigerian political and bureaucratic elites’ development attitudesand practices

The origins of Nigerian political and bureaucratic elites’ development attitudes and

practices are traceable to the colonial administration of Nigeria by manipulating pre-

existing governance systems and ethnic rivalries for natural resource extraction and

associated law and order (see Obi 2007; Ake 2000; Ekeh 1975). Under colonialism,

hierarchical development models served the narrow purpose of economic and political

expansion, which is enforced with state violence wherever dissent arose (see Nolan 2002;

Ake 2000; Ekeh 1975). In Nigeria, the instrumentality of development for resource

extraction and government expansion is historically cloaked as economic progress, which:

entails revoking the autonomy of communities and subjecting them to alien ru-

lership within a bigger political order, laying claim to the resources of the

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subordinated territory including claims over the lives of those who live there. To

effect these claims, the state must appropriate and monopolize the means of vio-

lence. (Ake 1997: 2)

As can be seen from the above quote, the development normativities of Nigerian elites

are inherently evolutionary, autocratic and violent. These normativities are stable enough

and discernible from state policies, bureaucratic writings, speeches and conducts to the

extent that they have been variously called development truths (Escobar 1995) and dis-

cursive normativities (Ferguson 1997). These orthodox development worldviews facilitate

political and bureaucratic elites’ concurrent depoliticization and authorization of pro-

grammes and projects despite popular and evidence-based dissent. For example, how could

one protest the late Nigerian President, Musa Yar’Adua, and other senior bureaucrats’

claim that the Lower Niger River dredging would ensure an:

all-year-round navigability… It will provide an attractive, cheaper and safer means

of haulage of goods, while engendering linkages and promoting trading activities

between adjoining communities. (the late President Musa Yar’Adua, cited by BBC

News online, 2009; see also Okereke 2009)

Even though the described Nigerian elites’ development materialist normativities were

originally nurtured by colonial experience, which set the initial conditions for Nigerian

underdevelopment, they have been complicated lately by repeated military incursion into

governance and path dependencies (neoliberal ideologies and institutional patterns) pro-

moted by bilateral and multilateral organizations, such as the United States Agency for

International Development (USAID), the Department For International Development

(DFID), the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The World Bank, for

example, considers the Niger River as in ‘‘need for development and investment,’’ with

under-exploited potentials and opportunities, ‘‘such as communication investments,

increased trade, enhanced flows of labour and ideas’’ (World Bank 2005: 58). The insti-

tution glaringly omitted considerations about hunger, homelessness, disease, inequality,

freedom and well-being of impoverished riverside communities.

Employing technicist and materialist development worldviews, powerful development

institutions and elites minimize their policy, project and programme roles in the Nigerian

Niger Delta underdevelopment. International development institutions additionally utilize

their aid policies and grants to influence local elites’ choice and management of projects

and programmes. However, while international institutions are still wedded to their con-

victions about the emancipatory powers of ‘‘free markets’’ and trickle-down development,

which are allied to the technological mastery of traditional ecologies and cultures, local

development elites seem more motivated by the rent-seeking and corruption opportunities

programmes and projects present. According to the IMF, Nigerian elites exploit devel-

opment projects and programmes as ‘‘instruments for instant acquisition of wealth’’ (IMF

2005: 11; see also Concannon and Croft 2006; Ribadu 2004; Stiglitz 2002; Ake 2000;

Buchanan 1980).

With the outlined evolutionary and materialist development truths (recall the late

President Yar’ Adua’s statement), Nigerian development elites depoliticized the Niger

Delta’s historic underdevelopment and re-wrote constituents’ negative experience of

development and neoliberal industrialization as ‘‘strongly linked to the absence of physical

development and the inadequate access to resources’’ (RTCND 2008: 76), which a tech-

nology-infused Lower Niger River dredging project would reverse. Excluded from this

technicist analysis is the fact that riverside and other indigenous communities produce the

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bulk of freshwater fish and yam crop consumed in Nigeria without the Nigerian state’s

assistance (see Manyong et al. 2001; FAO 2005). The yam crop is a critical source of

carbohydrate for Nigerian and West African people (Adelusi and Lawanson 1987).

Although information is unavailable about sectored (riverside vs. mainland) yam pro-

duction in Nigeria, it is plausible that riverside communities, dependent on the Lower

Niger River flood, produce a significant percentage of the annual yam and fish production

consumed in and exported from Nigeria.

Furthermore, the Nigerian development elites always fail to consider local development

politics. In Nigeria, development is routinely exploited to advance, accommodate, and/or

exclude personal, ethnic, and other competing sociopolitical and economic interests (see

Watts 2004; Ekeh 1975, 1994). Ferguson made similar observations about the World Bank/

CIDA project in Lesotho, where project planners and managers failed to consider ‘‘the

political character of the state and its class basis, the uses of official positions and state

power by the bureaucratic elite and other individuals, cliques and factions, and the

advantages to them of bureaucratic ‘inefficiency’ and corruption’’ (Ferguson 1994: 178). In

this vein, other observers have noted that the bourgeois class in Nigeria have systematically

reduced development thought and conduct to ‘‘egotism, interests in conflict, and no

common interest’’ (Ake 2000: 25; see also Gavin 1977).

Nigerian elites’ development normativities and project depoliticization are additionally

layered upon their associated belief that indigenous livelihoods and associated cultures are

impediments to modernization, liberalization and privatization. In Ake’s (2000) opinion,

and this author concurs, viewing indigenous people and cultures as anachronistic is also

colonial in origin. This conceptualization of indigenous people and cultures facilitates the

operational separation of economic development from its political or emancipatory

counterpart (Ake 2000) while according primacy to trickle-down economic growth policies

that are yet to materialize in Nigeria after more than 50 years of development and state

failure (see Yakubu and Aderonmu 2010; Olayiwola and Adeleye 2005; Obadan 2001).

Today, more than half of the Nigerian people live in poverty and are heavily dependent

on small-scale agriculture for their livelihoods (IMF 2005)—not the modern marine

transport systems and associated commerce that the Lower Niger dredging project is

anticipated to promote. It is worth quoting an IMF document about Nigerians’ paradoxical

dependence on small-scale farming for food and arrested development despite vast human

and oil wealth. According to the IMF, in Nigeria:

agriculture, predominantly small farmers with low and declining productivity,

accounts for 41% of the real sector, while crude oil accounts for 13%. The secondary

sector, especially manufacturing, has been stagnating at about 5–7% of GDP, making

Nigeria one of the least industrialized countries in Africa. (IMF 2005: 7)

3 The origins of beneficiary communities’ development contestations

Riverside communities’ development normativities arise from their continued neglect by

successive Nigerian governments and their negative experience of development and

industrialization projects as ‘‘dashed hopes and expectations and unfulfilled promises,’’

especially projects that produce widespread environmental pollution, which constrain

traditional livelihoods (RTCND 2008: 59; Smith 2006; FGN 2007). Their negative

development worldviews are reinforced by the state and corporate structural violence in

silencing dissent and protest against development and industrial extraction of natural

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resources in the Niger Delta, which extensively damaged the eco-system and truncated

subsistent farming and aquaculture (see Watts 2004; Ake 2000; Galtung 1969). Drawing

on their consistently negative development and industrialization experiences in Nigeria,

Niger Delta communities disbelieved official project ends, especially promises of trickle-

down development, and focused instead on (un)anticipated project outcomes. Interestingly,

available literature corroborates riverside communities’ project concerns. According to

Ohimain (2004):

Dredging in sensitive environments is often accompanied by ecological impacts

including damage to flora and fauna, alteration of coastal topography and hydrology,

impairment of water quality etc.… Dredging may disrupt the dynamic interrela-

tionship between environmental components and socio-economic functions of these

coastal areas, thus creating an imbalance in the ecosystem. (Ohimain 2004: 10; see

also FGN Federal Republic of Nigeria (FGN) 2007; UNDP 2006a; Bray et al. 1988)

Indigenous communities contested the project and its alleged benefits with protests,

editorial opinions and litigation (Wolf et al. 2005; Okereke 2009). In fact, a riverside

community pressure group, the Ijaw National Council, sought injunctions from the

Nigerian High Court to prevent the project’s commencement until an environmental

impact assessment (EIA) study was conducted (Okereke 2009). The Nigerian government

seemingly relented and commissioned an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) study

(Okereke 2009; Aroh 2000) but has withheld1 the EIA report and contractor conditioning

documents from public scrutiny, debate and comments to date (Wolf et al. 2005). The

withholding of the EIA report reinforced the commonly held belief among activists and

riverside communities that the dredging project would ruin the environment and their

livelihoods. Notwithstanding these valid project concerns, the Nigerian state commissioned

and enforced the dredging project with a joint task force (JTF) of soldiers on gunboats

(Okereke 2009). Corroborating the undemocratic conception and implementation of the

dredging project, the Commissioner for Transport in Rivers State, a senior bureaucrat in

one of the affected states, complained that:

the dredging of the River Niger has been in the pipeline for some time now, but if the

Federal Government wants to do it now, we have no choice than to support it even ifit will have some negative effect on our communities [author’s emphasis] since the

gains will far outweigh the disadvantages. But we want to know if the dredging will

include the removal of wrecks from the waterway. (cited in Okereke 2009)

4 Project precedents in Nigeria and the author’s foundational argument

Although empirical information about the negative impacts of the recently concluded

Lower Niger dredging project on rural livelihoods is currently unavailable, other examples

of state and corporate development initiatives in the Niger Delta suggest that the cultures

of opacity and autocracy are well-entrenched development planning and management tools

despite their categorical contravention of Nigerian laws (Salu 2000; Ake 2000). To date,

for example, coastal communities along the Imo River in Eastern Nigeria are still litigating

the dredging of the Imo River for the sole purpose of improving navigable access to the

1 This author unsuccessfully applied for the documents three times—from the National Inland WaterwaysAuthority (NIWA) Lokoja, and from three Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) offices:including their Port Harcourt headquarters.

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aluminium smelting plant at Ikot-Abasi. In this instance also, the Nigerian government

ignored the unfavourable EIA report and commissioned the project (Anago 2002).

Similarly, an evaluation report of the Komadugu Yobe River Basin development in

north-eastern Nigeria and south-eastern Niger Republic detail systemic failure to supply

downstream floodplain-dependent communities with water, high economic loss, commu-

nity tensions and conflict over perceived or actual inequitable water access, among other

project challenges (Jibrin 2007). Furthermore, endemic poverty thrives among indigenous

communities in the greater Niger Delta region despite over half a century of oil extraction

and development projects, which continue to ruin the environment and compromise

livelihoods to this day (see Watts 2004; Jike 2004; Ekeh 1994).

Based on the development precedence in Nigeria, it is unlikely that rendering the Lower

Niger River commercially navigable will draw the Nigerian rural and mainland poor out of

endemic poverty, move them into modern market economies, increase their productivities

and modernize their communities (for the anticipated project effects, see Wolf et al. 2005;

Okereke 2009; World Bank 2005). In fact, this author projects that the recently concluded

Lower Niger River dredging will produce opposite and adverse effects on riverside

communities, in addition to its doubtful national economic growth benefits (see Ohimain

2004; Nolan 2002).

The removal of silt deposits from the river will deepen its channel, reduce or terminate

the flooding of surrounding plains, dredging chemicals and silt will pollute the soil and

reduce its fertility, decrease available wetlands used for recession agriculture, reduce crop

and fish harvests and increase poverty among the riverside communities dependent on the

Niger River annual flood for their livelihoods. The dredging project will also reduce the

biodiversity of associated ecosystems that will be deprived of the annual floods (see

Ohimain 2004; Jike 2004). In the subsequent sections, the author’s conjectures will be

tested among case-study communities, contrasted with official project objectives and local

development precedents and cross-referenced with development literature.

4.1 Study site geography and ecology

According to Oguagha (1988), the Igbo stock inhabit the territorial stretch lying between

latitudes 5� and 7� North and longitudes 6� and 8� East of present-day Nigeria. The Anam

belong to this stock and are mostly from the Anambra East and West local government

areas of Anambra State, south-eastern Nigeria. They hail mainly from such towns as

Umuenwelem, Oroma, Umudora, Umuiku, Umu-Oba, Iyi-Ora, Otuocha and Nmiata.

In the historic past, the Anam people were attracted to the River Niger floodplains in

Ugbolu, Delta State, a mid-western Nigerian Igbo town, which they have exploited for

generations for recession agriculture and fishing. They reside in five main farming camps:

Ezi-Ugbolu, Ndi-Ewu, Ejesiem, Achala and Ogwari camps. The Anam sojourn in Ugbolu,

Delta State, according to the study participants, is a result of a mutual agreement reached

between the elders of both communities in antiquity. This ritualistic agreement permit the

Anam to cultivate the floodplains located in Ugbolu, Delta State, and require them to pay

rent in the form of farm produce to the host community annually in an event that re-enacts

and renews the original farming and fishing agreement, which is dependent on the Lower

Niger River flood.

The Lower Niger River flood (from Lokoja to the Gulf of Guinea in Nigeria) sustains

‘‘the largest wetland in Africa and is one of the largest wetlands in the world, the Niger

Delta consists of 25,900 square kilometres of mangrove forest, fresh water swamp, coastal

ridges, forest and fertile dry land’’ (RTCND 2008: 6). The river is subject to two annual

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hydrological fluctuations of varying intensities (Durotoye 2000). The hydrological fluc-

tuations are related to heavy rainfall, which induces the Niger River alluvial-laden whiteflood that annually discharge onto surrounding wetlands in September. The second

hydrological fluctuation is called the black flood, which emanates from the Niger River’s

headwaters in Guinea and peak annually in January. The Nigerian stretch of the Lower

Niger River wetlands annually receives over 40 million tons of sediments (Milliman and

Syvitski 1992).

The sediments are instrumental to the Lower Niger Delta food productivity, which have

been compared to that of the Nile and Euphrates River wetlands (see Tockner and Stanford

2002). The Nile and Euphrates River cultures utilized their adaptive hydrological

knowledge to sustainably exploit associated rivers and surrounding wetlands for their

livelihoods and to build their civilizations (see also Turner et al. 2000). A similar indig-

enous knowledge about wetlands, in relation to livelihood systems, is projected for the

case-study communities dependent on the Lower Niger River.

4.2 Study methods

It is prudent at this point to declare the author’s conceptual infrastructure (Jonsson and

Macintosh 1997: 378). Information was collected with critical ethnography (see Agar

1986), sustainable livelihoods (see Brundtland Report 1987) and adaptation constructs.

These constructs were sensitized with James Ferguson (1997) antipolitics machine

development critique. Combined, the study methods emphasize the interdependencies of

systems and facilitated the author’s critical engagement with observations, key informants’

livelihood narratives, their verbal gestures towards the Nigerian state and her development

elites. Multiple data collection methods facilitated the author’s examination of the ‘‘larger

political, social, and economic issues that focus on oppression, conflict, struggle, power,

and praxis’’ in Nigeria, with special emphasis on the Lower Niger River dredging project

(Schwandt 1997: 22).

4.3 Participant selection

The author leveraged his membership in the host community (Ugbolu) to gain access to the

Anam farming camps. Purposive sampling was used to select key informants due to the

urgency occasioned by the advanced stage of the Niger River dredging project and the

associated need to document an indigenous system under irrevocable change. The author’s

limited resource to cover the entire study area was also a critical influence on the sample

size and selection method. In essence, the author relied on his judgment to select infor-

mants who are at least 30 years old, are married or widowed, reside in the case-study areas,

engage in one or more of the two main complementary livelihood options in the area

(farming and fishing), are willing and consent to participate in the study. Participants were

also selected for their presumed knowledge and exploitation of the Lower River Niger

flood, especially their capacities to communicate their adaptive wetland knowledge and

practices to a third party (Lewis and Sheppard 2006).

At least nine (9) individuals were recruited from each of the five camps surveyed: Ezi-

Ugbolu, Ndi-Ewu, Ejesiem, Achala, and Ogwari camps). Overall, forty-five (45) indi-

viduals participated in the study: twenty-five (25) married or widowed women and twenty

(20) married men. The author utilized marital status to select participants with firmer roots

in the study communities. The participant selection method facilitated a collaborative

livelihood ‘‘construction cast in the theory and language of the describer [the author] and

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his or her audience [the Anam people]’’ (Rosen 1991: 2). All participants were adults and

understood the informed consent document the author read to them, which was developed

with the APA ethics code. The APA ethical standard was adhered to in the conduct of the

study.

4.4 Study procedure

Ethnography facilitated the author’s speedy immersion in the Anam case-study commu-

nities for data collection and validation. Data were collected by means of participant

observation: semi-structured interviews, system diagram, seasonal activity mapping, plant/

animal photograph identification and focus group interviews. The critical research ques-

tions pursued included: (1) What is the principal livelihood asset of the communities? (for

discussions about sustainable livelihood assets, see International Institute for Sustainable

Development (IISD) 2003; Carney 1998). (2) What are the communities’ livelihood

strategies and how are they related to the principal asset? (3) How sustainable are their

livelihoods in relation to the purposive alteration of the communities’ principal asset? (4)

What are the communities’ inputs to the structural change of their principal asset? (5) What

are the effects of the purposive alteration of the communities’ principal asset on their

livelihoods and well-being? (6) How will the community respond to the envisaged effects?

The author and participants exploited systems diagramming to collaboratively illustrate

the interaction between the Anam community livelihoods and the Lower Niger River flood.

In relation to seasonal activity mapping, the author took photographs of the major plant/fish

products produced by the Anam and acquired twelve bowls and trays from the nearby

Ugbolu market. Participants were asked to represent the Lower Niger River water levels

each month by subjectively filling each bowl with water and displacing water from the

bowl onto associated trays to portray the relative inundation of surrounding wetlands for

that month.

Subsequently, participants were invited to select one or a cluster of farm/fishing product

photograph(s) and to place them beneath the appropriate bowl/tray or a cluster of bowl/

trays, depicting and explaining the Niger River flood levels and the associated seasonal and

livelihood activities (see Table 1). To generate discussions about the probable effects of

the recently concluded dredging exercise, the author consecutively emptied and/or reduced

the water content in each bowl/tray and then asked the participants to discuss the effects of

lower water levels in the bowl/trough and emptied trays on associated livelihood activities,

products and their well-being.

Additionally, the author participated in a few farming and fishing tasks to nurture

rapport. Participant observation eased off the remaining vestiges of the participants’ dis-

comfort with the researcher, an outsider. Five focus group interviews were subsequently

held at the end of the study to challenge and/or corroborate individual narratives and

establish key informant consensus (see Agar 1986; Carspecken 1996). The interviews were

conducted in the local Anam dialect and simultaneously translated into field notes by the

author.

Data analyses were guided by Carspecken’s (1996) analytical technique of producing

truth via the participants’ consensus. That is, the participants’ opinions, claims and

worldviews relating to the annual River Niger flood and their livelihood were considered

valid if there was an aggregate consensus about the issues under discussion. The aim of the

data collection, analysis and synthesis methods was to unpack, corroborate and present a

hermeneutic understanding and interpretation (both the researcher’s and the participants’)

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Table 1 Annual River Niger flood and Anam fishing cycle, developed with key informants and input fromMoses (1992: 39)

Late dry season (January–March) Beginnings of rainand flooding (April–August)

Flood peak(September–November)

Dry season(November–March)

Late dryseason(January–March)

Flood recedesto main RiverNigerchannel. Lowwater oxygenregime

Local rain anddischarge from theNiger Riverheadwaters raiseschannel water level.Inundation ofsurrounding plaincommences. Wateroxygen regimeimprove

Inundation ofsurrounding plains,forests andsavannah: floodingis at peak. Richoxygen regime infloodwaters

Floodwaters recedeto river channel;increasedevaporation offlood plains. Wateroxygen diminishes

Beginnings ofrain andflood(April–August)

Some waterisolated inponds,depressions,valleys in theflood plain

Fish populationundertake upstream/downstreammigration in and outof flood plains

Increased migration offish population tosurrounding forests,mangroves, lakesand so forth, wherethere are a richharvest of food,such as insects,eggs, larvae, seedsand so forth.Accelerated fishgrowth and increasein biomass

Isolated water poolsand deoxygenationof watercommences

Fish populationisolated inpools, ponds,lakes andswamps

Fish populationrelatively static.Beginnings ofspawning

Conclusion ofspawning.Fingerlingsmigration tosurround pools,lakes etc.

Reversed migrationof fish back to themain river channel;some are trapped inpools, ponds etc.

Flood peak(September–earlyNovember)

Growth in sizeand increasein mass at aminimum

Extensive fishspawning insurrounding pools,lakes, mangrovesetc.

Reduced fish harvestrelated to fishdispersion andincreased waterlevels

Reduction in fishbiomass andincreased mortalitydue to human andwildlife predation.Waterdeoxygenation, andreduced foodsupply

Dry season(November–March)

Fishingactivities attheir peak inisolatedponds, pools,valleys and soforth

Harvestbetween goodand modest

Increased fishingactivities; the Anamtake advantage ofthe migratory fishmovement to trapfish, especially catfish

Fish harvest good

Low fishing activitiesPoor harvest

Increased fishingactivities by theAnam.

Very good harvestthat often extendsto the beginning ofthe rainy season

The Lower Niger River 677

123

of system relationships between the annual Niger River flood and the case-study com-

munities’ livelihood and well-being (see Carspecken 1996; Agah 1986).

The study methods were additionally designed to allow readers’ implicit understanding

of the projected adverse effects of the recently concluded Lower Niger River dredging

project on the study communities and, possibly, similar others. Critically, the author does

not ‘‘seek causal explanations’’ (Jonsson and Macintosh 1997) but aims to describe how the

annual Lower River Niger flood structures (perhaps determines) the riverside communities’

livelihoods. It is important to note that the presented livelihood modalities are not distinct

or isolated activities. According to the respondents, their livelihood options (recession

farming and fishing) are complementary and influenced by individual/group requirements

and variable flood intensities. The discrete presentation of findings is purely academic.

The next presentational blocks will discuss key informants’ opinions about the struc-

turing role of the Lower Niger River on riverside communities’ livelihoods, outline their

versions of the project’s (un)intended effects and analyse the implications of their verbal

gestures towards the dredging project in particular and development planning and man-

agement in general.

4.5 Findings

4.5.1 Participants’ narratives about the project, processes and (un)anticipated outcomes

There was consensus among the key informants that the Lower Niger River flood, locally

differentiated into Uji-ocha (white flood) and Uji-Oji (black flood), conveys alluvial/

organic sediments that enrich the wetlands and enhance crop and fish harvests. Jacobson

et al. (2000) made a similar assertion about the Namibian River. Drawing on their sus-

tainable hydrological and wetland knowledge (see Briggs 2005; Turner et al. 2000), the

participants were able to describe the annual Lower Niger River flood cycle in a manner

that validated the official inundation records (see Fig. 2).

In conjunction with the author, the key informants were also able to construct a seasonal

calendar of the Lower Niger River flood cycle and their livelihood activities—recession

farming and fishing (see Fig. 3). Critically, the key informants speculated that the devel-

opment bureaucrats who conceived and supervised the just concluded project did not

consider the system linkages between the Lower Niger River and their agricultural and fish

productivities (for river systems productivities, see Ogbodo 2010; see also FAO 2005;

Manyong et al. 2001; Adelusi and Lawanson 1987). In fact, in the five communities

surveyed, no key informant recalled participating in or had knowledge of participatory

consultations over the Niger River dredging project.

There was consensus among the key informants that the Lower Niger River channel

dredging would interfere with the river’s hydrological cycle, reduce or terminate the

annual flood, irrevocably damage the wetland ecosystems, reduce farming/fishing grounds,

impoverish the communities and instigate involuntary migration (see Wolf et al. 2005;

Okereke 2009). The logic for their project analysis is that excavating silt deposits from the

Niger River to increase commercial navigation will deepen its primary channel. This will

drastically reduce the likelihood of floods, their intensities and the volume and scope of

alluvium and organic matter deposits on surrounding flood plains and pools. The study

participants were convinced that the scope and volume of alluvium/organic matter deposits

on surrounding plains, pools, ponds and streams determines the farm/fish culture and high

productivity. In development parlance, the riverside communities’ assessment of the

project suggested that it does not meet their present needs and would compromise ‘‘…the

678 A. D. Okonkwo

123

ability of future generations to meet their own needs’’ (Brundtland Report 1987: 24). That

is, the project was unsustainable.

Furthermore, the participants specified that the project would expose them to food

insecurities, increase the risk of malnutrition, induce involuntary migration and promote

intercommunity conflicts. They claim involuntary migration and intercommunity conflicts

would arise because riverside communities would attempt to relocate in response to the

loss of their traditional farming and fishing grounds to the commercialist Lower Niger

River dredging project. Ohimain (2004) outlined the scientific basis for the key informants’

Fig. 2 Typical annual Lower Niger River flood in Nigeria. Source: Inland Waterways Division. HeadBridge, Onitsha, Anambra State, Nigeria

AprilMarchFebJanAugJulyJuneMay Sept Oct Nov Dec

Wet season; rain intensification and beginning of flooding

Flood peak. Alluvialrich white flood peak, and total inundation of surrounding plains

Dry season.White flood recession, and intensification of the black flood

Beginning of wet season

Crop harvest& some fishing Rest; rituals and ceremonies, such as marriages, burials, and so forth

Reccession agriculture; cultivation of yams, vegetables, casava, and so forth on erstwhile innundated plains

Complementary intensification of fishing activities and vegetable crops harvest

Intensification of fishing activities

Fig. 3 Seasonal calendar of the Lower Niger flood, activities and livelihood product flows

The Lower Niger River 679

123

analysis of negative project outcomes. According to Ohimain, the broad negative effects of

river dredging on the environment and livelihoods include ‘‘altered topography and

hydrology, acidification and water contamination, which has resulted in vegetation damage

and fish kills’’ (Ohimain 2004: 9). In addition, the participants were not aware of com-

pensation schemes or mitigation measures to cushion the impending negative effects of the

project. Key informants additionally claimed the project was a guise by the Nigerian state

to open up their communities to commercial exploitation and unrepresentative taxation.

For example, their narratives indicated that oil corporations’ survey of the area recently

intensified.

Overall, the study participants’ narratives strongly indicated that the dredging project

will compromise riverside communities’ capacities to sustainable healthy and fulfilling

lives (for a human development perspective of structural change, see UNDP 2006b; Sen

1999). In the words of a local community representative: ‘‘the dredging will definitely

affect our fishing activities since our livelihood depends on fishing. The water will be

polluted and we drink from the river. How are we going to be getting drinking water?’’

(Anonymous; cited in Okereke 2009: 8).

4.5.2 Participants’ narratives about recession farming and the Lower Niger River system

The annual flood recession in late November marks the beginning of a new year for the

Anam people. Farming activities are initiated by scouting for fertile, alluvial-rich plots

following the flood recession and/or by preparing the previous year’s plots for cultivation.

Selected fields are subsequently cleared of grasses and shrubs. Manual labour is used in

land preparation for cultivation, with tools such as cutlasses, short-bladed hoes, axes and so

forth. Fire, fertilizers and pesticides are rarely used. The key informants claimed that

pesticides and fertilizers are expensive, are difficult to obtain, and alter the natural con-

stitution and taste of crop and fish harvest.

Crop cultivation utilizes household labour, which includes a man and his wife/wives,

children, dependants and relatives. An alternative source of labour is from children and

dependants age groups who take turns to assist members’ parents on the fields. Males

undertake ground tillage with a large metal-bladed hoe with a wooden handle (Ogu-Uku).

Soil tillage is meant to ensure even mixture of the topsoil humus and alluvial deposited

onto the plains by the receding Niger River flood. The participants claimed that humus and

alluvial deposits are imperative for a bumper harvest and that their planting and harvest

activities are governed by the rising and receding Niger River flood system.

The primary crops cultivated are yams (Dioscorea species). Generally, men source the

seedlings, and plant, maintain and harvest the yam crop. The cultivated yams are collec-

tively called jii, with sub specie names such as Adaka, Ekpe, Abi, Abana, Jii Oku, etc. The

seedlings cultivated are sourced from the previous year’s stock, obtained from neighbours

or relatives on a sharecropping basis and/or purchased from the neighbouring Ugbolu and

Onitsha markets. The yams cultivated are of two primary categories. These are large white

yams cultivated for consumption and sale, and seedling cutlets that are cultivated for sale

and re-planting.

Before planting, seedlings are cut into sizes relative to the anticipated yield and pruned

of rootlets and residual vines. The cut and pruned marks are subsequently left to dry before

planting to delay decay. Large yam cutlets and seedlings are planted in mounds, while the

small seedlings and cutlets are cultivated in ridge rows parallel to each other. Sprouting

yam plants are supported with bamboo stakes or wild saplings derived from surrounding

swamp and forest. Wild vines from the surrounding swamp and forests are usually tied in

680 A. D. Okonkwo

123

crisscross between stakes to evenly distribute the weight of maturing yam vines, provide

shade for the vegetable crops planted underneath and conserve soil moisture before the

next flood. Weeding is done with a curved cutlass with a wooden handle; the curved sharp

edge makes weeding muddy terrains easier. All members of the household carry out this

activity.

About 3–4 months after planting, yam crops (mostly Dioscorea rotundata) are tun-

nelled to manually remove pests, such as moles, and to loosen the earth to facilitate longer

and more rounded tubers. Most yam crops mature 6–8 months after planting and are

invariably harvested between May and July, depending on the time of planting and the

Anam people’s experience and estimate of the impending Lower Niger River flood

intensity. Under ideal circumstances, the males harvest the yams because the activity is

labour intensive. When the community perceives the imminence of the Lower Niger River

flood, the whole household, friends and relatives assist in salvaging crops and conveying

the produce manually and/or by boats to more upland storage barns or markets.

The women cultivate vegetable crops, such as spinach, garden eggs, peppers, okra,

pumpkin, sweet potatoes, maize (Zea Mays), peanuts and so forth. These crops are planted

either in more upland fields or planted after the receding Lower Niger River flood. The

vegetable crops are harvested as they mature before the next inundation of the farming

plains. In addition, the women cultivate cassava (Manihot specie), which takes longer to

mature and is often harvested last before the flood transgression. The cassava crop provides

families with carbohydrate-rich subsistence in the lean dry-season (famine) months.

Generally, the crops harvested serve multiple purposes: (1) they serve the food needs of the

immediate and extended family, (2) they are shared with sharecroppers, (3) they are sold to

generated small income for family and (4) they are stored in yam barns for future con-

sumption, sale and planting.

It is important to comment on the observed gender patterns in the communities, which is

easily gleaned from the communities’ valuation of the cassava and vegetable crops as

inferior to yams in taste and commercial value (and association of the crops with women).

The feminization of the cassava crop and vegetables and masculinisation of the yam crop

could be manifestation of uneven gender hierarchies, economic standings and power

relations in the communities (for similar findings, see Carney 1993). However, the

observable gender roles in the communities seem adaptive, dynamic, relational and subject

to continuous renegotiation in relation to the Lower Niger River flood intensities (for

similar analysis, see Harris 2006; Butler 1994).

4.5.3 Participants’ narratives about fishing and the Lower Niger River system

According to the participants, the Niger River flood cycle is critical for fish breeding,

growth, maturity and harvest (see also Moses 1992). Key informants claimed that most fish

breed at the beginning of the Niger River flood cycle. Both mature fish and fingerlings

depend on flood-borne food resources for growth and on the floodplain habitat for pro-

tection from predators. In fact, in the participants’ opinion, a reduced flood level usually

translates to reduced fish harvests. In addition, the participants claimed that certain fish

reproductive behaviour facilitate their prediction of annual flood intensities. Table 1

illustrates the interrelationship among the River Niger flood cycle, the fish population and

the Anam fishing culture.

In relation to fishing as a livelihood activity, the key informants agreed that each

individual (or group) decides on which river, stream or natural pond to fish and what tools

to use. The choice of fishing location and gear is guided by an individual/group’s

The Lower Niger River 681

123

knowledge, perception and experience of fish behaviour and habitat, knowledge of a given

body of water’s potential for fish harvest, the Niger River flood levels, the accessibility of

the fishing location and the availability of fishing implements. Generally, the participants

agreed that fishing the River Niger and surrounding plains often require: (1) dugout canoes

(Ugbor) and oars (Amala), (2) fishing/gill nets (Ojogolo) of various sizes, (3) fishing hooks

and lines (Ukpom) and (4) fish bait (Nli-azu), that is, earthworms, worms, molluscs and so

forth. Other fishing tools include (5) harpoons of various shapes and sizes (Aha), and (6)

hand-woven fish traps (Ikele or Nkata) (for details on local fishing gear, see NIFFR 2002).

Dugout canoes (Ugbo-amala) are the chief mode of fishing transport in the River Niger and

surrounding streams.

The fishing gears are used to hook, snare and drown fish; they are sourced from

neighbouring markets, loaned from relatives/peers or supplied by a potential sharecropper,

who shares the haul and/or has the first right of purchase of fish harvest. According to the

key informants, fishing in the surrounding flooded ponds, pools and swamps are most

productive after the flood recession (December-March). In the surrounding small streams,

however, temporal damming, fishnets, hooks and conical fish traps woven with raffia palm

(harvested from the surrounding mangrove swamps) are used to trap and harvest fish,

shrimp and mollusc.

In contrast, fishing in inundated wetlands and forests is usually conducted on foot,

depending on the flood intensities. Governed by their indigenous knowledge and experi-

ence of the flood patterns and fish behaviour, individuals and groups wade through the

floodwater, setting fish traps, gill nets, hooks and so forth in choice locations. During high

flood, however, dugout canoes are used. Instead of oars, which are rendered ineffective by

the flooded undergrowth, long, firm saplings or stems of raffia palms are used to propel the

boat forward, backward or sideways.

The fish harvested include varieties of the Niger barb, tilapia, catfish, mudfish, Niger

tetra, moonfish, mullets, grass carp, perch, shrimp and so forth. According to the partici-

pants, the fish harvests serve as food and are additionally sold for household income. Key

informants narratives about fish consumption corroborated Edwards (2000) contention that

40 % of the animal protein intake in Africa is derived from fish consumption. There was

consensus among the participants that fishing activities are second to yam cultivation in

terms of importance to livelihood, small-income generation and well-being, and that both

activities depend on the Lower Niger floods, which the dredging exercise would reduce or

terminate.

5 Discussion

Participants’ narratives confirmed earlier claims about Nigerian development elites’

technicist development normativities and project management culture. The implementation

of the project continues the colonial legacy of excluding local stakeholders because

developments in the Niger Delta continue to serve the utilitarian function of facilitating

natural resources extraction. In the imagination of the ruling Nigerian elites, and indeed

multilateral institutions like the World Bank (see World Bank 2005), the Niger Delta

represents the last politically untamed and violent region with abundant extractive natural

resources, such as oil, which is the ‘‘singular’’ Nigerian state export that is in high inter-

national demand (see Obi 2007; Osuoka 2007; Watts 2004).

Unfortunately, key informants and other marginalized groups in Nigeria believe that the

Nigerian state, oil extraction, export and development projects are unfairly controlled by,

682 A. D. Okonkwo

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and benefit, the northern ethnic majority, whose redistributive practices, among other

factors, nurtures interethnic conflict, socioeconomic and political discord, corruption and

criminality that Nigerian is known for today (see Obi 2007; Osuika 2007; Ake 2000).

Concurrently, natural resources extraction from the Niger Delta region created the

extensive environmental damage and loss of indigenous livelihoods in the Niger Delta (see

Obi 2007; Watts 2004). Expectedly, riverside communities were concerned about the

project’s autocratic conception and management; the likelihood of adverse outcomes, such

as localized drought; and the lack of mitigation regimes, such as fishing assistance given a

deeper river channel and periodic flood releases to support agriculture. Regardless,

Nigerian development elites authorised the dredging project in manner that confirmed

Nolan’s (2002) assessment of the spatial and organic distance between development elites

and the projects they conceive and implement. According to Nolan:

there is simply no direct connection between [Nigerian elites,] development agencies

and the results they obtain from their projects in the field. There are no institutional

consequences for failure, no rewards for success … [T]he main criterion for success

appears to be, in virtually all the agencies, the ability to move money through the

system with the minimum of friction (Nolan 2002: 239—words in parenthesis by

author)

Local actors were additionally excluded from participating in the project because

project planners and managers continue to view indigenous people and cultures as

anachronistic. This view of indigenous people and cultures render redundant the need to

meaningfully engage with them for development projects, which are primarily intended to

obliterate their archaic cultures and livelihoods for the neoliberal commercialization of

riverside communities’ principal livelihood asset. Consequently, the dredging project was

enacted with decentralized despotism (Mamdani 1996), or with the dialectics of command

and control (see Ake 2000: 89) to ‘‘repress otherness in the name of sameness (economic

growth), and thus fundamentally escape the task of making sense of other worlds’’

(Mudimbe 1988: 72; words in italics, by author). The allegation that the Nigerian state

exploits development to repress otherness (broadly conceived) is valid when the devel-

opment needs expounded by the case-study communities are considered. Case-study

communities claimed they need rural electrification, child/adult literacy programmes,

farming/fishing aids and farm/fish produce preservation projects.

Furthermore, Nigerian elites’ discursive reconstruction of the Niger Delta underdevel-

opment as infrastructural inherently authorized the seemingly benevolent and apolitical

dredging project without stakeholder consultations. It additionally minimized and shifted

responsibilities for the region’s underdevelopment and structural violence from the state

and licensed extractive corporations to the regional ecology and people (see Galtung 1969).

In reality, and to adapt Ferguson’s (1997: 69) seminal critique of development manage-

ment in Lesotho, the causes of the Nigerian Niger River Delta underdevelopment, poverty

and violence, ‘‘are political and structural (not technical and geographical) … the national

government is part of the problem (not a neutral instrument for its solution).’’

In addition, the latent political and industrial expansionist (governmentality) goal of the

project precludes meaningful local participation. Before the dredging project, the Nigerian

state’s presence in riverside communities was minimal and mostly in the form of violent

enforcement of onshore and offshore crude oil extraction whenever community dissent

arose (see Okereke 2009 Ake 2000). However, the dredging project performed ‘‘extremely

sensitive political operations involving the entrenchment and expansion of institutional

state power almost invisibly, under cover of a neutral, technical mission to which no one

The Lower Niger River 683

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can object’’ (Ferguson 1997: 256). That is, dredging project was the Trojan horse that

facilitated the Nigerian bureaucratic-military state’s unequivocal and seemingly good

willed re-entry into the greater Niger Delta region, which would invariably lead to further

commercial extraction of natural resources, environmental degradation and taxation,

without a correspondent improvement in the livelihoods or well-being of indigenous riv-

erside communities.

In addition, the opacity and autocracy of the Lower Niger River dredging project

suggested that the project may have been exploited for grand corruption, which is prevalent

in Nigeria (see Smith 2006; IMF 2005; Ribadu 2004). Corruption could explain the official

haste in project execution, the withholding of the environmental impact assessment study

(EIA), contractors’ performance conditions/oversight documents, the systemic failure to

inquire into what the Niger River and its annual floods represented for riverside com-

munities’ livelihoods, and how these representations would be transformed by the project.

The author believes that meaningful stakeholder consultation and participation at all phases

of the project would have reduced political, bureaucratic and business elites’ pursuit of

their self-interest with the project.

Corruption, development opacity and autocracy are the major reasons for widespread

development failure in Nigeria, and for the country’s arrested development (see Yakubu

and Aderonmu 2010; Langer et al. 2007; Garba 2006; Ishaya et al. 2008; Obadan 2001;

Ake 2000). This historical, and ongoing, inverse relationship between state-led materialist

development and alleged beneficiaries versions and experience of programmes and projects

was acknowledged by the Nigerian government’s (2007) Niger Delta Regional Develop-

ment Master Plan document. According to the document:

The Niger Delta Region has witnessed a number of attempts to influence the pace

and nature of development in the area and improve the standard of life for its people.

For the most part the legacy of these schemes translates into a picture of missed

opportunities, low value for money and, not least, enormous disappointment for

communities of the Niger Delta whose hopes and aspirations have been raised and

then repeatedly shattered (FGN 2007: 102)

Notwithstanding their negative development experience, riverside communities and the

author do not quibble over the obligation of the Nigerian state to commercialize the Lower

Niger River, driven by compelling neoliberal market imperatives. Instead, they rightfully

expect the state’s accommodation of their livelihood asset and well-being in the relentless

quest to emulate ‘‘industrialized societies… the model to which weaker economies should

aspire’’ (Nolan 2002: 45).

Critically, the communities’ concerns about the (un)anticipated and negative outcomes

of the dredging project have local and external precedents. A similar dredging project in

the 1970s rendered the Cree community of Manitoba, Canada, who depended on com-

mercial fishing for livelihoods destitute. Low fish harvests induced community relocation,

poverty, depression and alcohol abuse (Rosenberg et al. 1995; see also Swales 1989). The

author projects similar outcomes for the riverside communities of the Lower Niger Delta

region in Nigeria. Complicating the above scenario is the dismal local precedence in

Nigeria of mitigating the (un)anticipated consequences of similar projects, such as the

failure to manage flood releases in the Hadejia/Jama’are floodplain system in Northern

Nigeria (Jibrin 2007). Unlike the Hadejia/Jama’are floodplain system, which is challenged

by inter and intra community conflicts over perceived and actual inequitable flood water

releases (see Jibrin 2007), no one is certain that there are mitigation plans for (un)intended

outcomes of the just concluded Lower Niger River dredging. The poverty and destitution

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the project will cause are needless development challenges that agents of the Nigerian state

are (un)intentionally nurturing, and will expend scarce resources to mitigate in future.

6 Conclusion

The article explored systemic tendencies for state-led development projects in Nigeria,

such as the recently concluded Lower Niger River dredging, to compromise indigenous

livelihoods. It also discussed the dredging project implications on development elites’

worldviews and project planning and management practices in Nigeria. Reiteratively, the

focus on indigenous community perspectives is justified by the routine neglect of their

perspectives of development in the literature and the concomitant privileging of the

powerful multilateral, bilateral and nation-states’ development rhetoric.

As can be deduced from the presentation, the Lower Niger River system (before

dredging) structured the communities’ livelihoods and well-being. That is, riverside

communities earn their livelihoods from flood-recession farming and fishing on the Lower

Niger River inundated wetlands. Reframed, the Lower Niger River is the major livelihood

asset of riverside communities, without which the Anam people, and similar communities,

would be impoverished (for a similar analysis of riverside communities’ sustainable

dependence on rivers for their livelihoods, see IISD 2003; Carney 1998; Davies et al. 1994;

Welcomme 1986).

Riverside communities’ project concerns have implications for future development

programmes and projects in Nigeria. The primary implication is that development needs

and associated unintended outcome mitigation measures ought to be democratically gen-

erated and explicated in transparent and accessible project documents. This document must

outline and address the conflated factors that enable and constrain sustainable livelihoods

and well-being beyond the recent dredging project managers’ narrow focus on indigenous

ecology and livelihood cultures. That is, future projects will benefit from the institution-

alization of stakeholder consultations (contrasted with its procedural variety), transparent

social and environmental impact assessment studies, contractor conditioning and oversight,

robust stakeholder participation in project monitoring and the explication of unintended

outcomes mitigation measures. These recommendations are made in the realization that

vulnerable Nigerian communities, such as the Anam, are often powerless development

spectators with weak capacities to cope with the structured alteration of their primary

livelihood asset—the Lower Niger River and associated ecologies (see Fabricius et al.

2007). This analysis is corroborated by development precedents in Nigeria.

Referencing development precedents in Nigeria (see FGN 2007; Ake 2000), it is

doubtful that the Lower Niger River dredging project will improve the livelihoods of

riverside communities, as well as over half of Nigerians (151 million people), who are

poor, vulnerable and depend on small-scale farming and fishing for their livelihoods and

small income. The Nigerian poor do not participate in modern neoliberal commerce that

requires commercial shipping on a perennially navigable Niger River that the project is

intended to produce. Instead, the project will satisfy local and multinational extractive

corporations’ expansionists’ goals and increase their productivity and the Nigerian state’s

natural resource export to international markets. Inevitably, the economic gains of the

project will corruptly flow to the Nigerian business, bureaucratic and political elites,

‘‘especially the very rich’’ (Todaro 1997: 155–163; see also Gibson 2003; Watts 2004; Ake

2000; Gavin 1977). This outcome will render more Nigerians destitute and sustain pre-

existing inequalities, unfreedoms and regional violence.

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Consequently, the author asserts that the recently concluded Lower Niger River

dredging project exemplifies a contradictory and domineering version of neoliberal

development that will ruin riverside communities’ livelihoods. In emancipatory and live-

lihood parlance, the project did not bring ‘‘ordinary people to the centre’’—it did not

privilege them, nor will it remove their livelihood vulnerabilities (Ake 2000: 190). The

project radically departs from the idealistic conceptualization of development as expanding

freedom from hunger, poverty, ill health, ignorance and so forth (see Sen 1999).

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