Abstract
The article examined the nature, dynamics and implications of the interactions of interventions and project contexts. It emphasised the centrality of the resources of interventions in driving the mutual, bi-directional impacts of both interventions and project context. Using a grounded theory (GT) research approach, the study investigated the interactions of the Niger Delta Development Commission’s (NDDC) interventions in Odi community in Bayelsa State, Nigeria. A peace and conflict impact theory that emerged offers eight concepts: resource-status of intervention, black hole of interactions (Bhis), likely deprivation, malevolent charity–beggar relationship, oppressiveness and divisiveness of intervention, local capacities for peace (LCP) and federal government presence as a theoretical explanation of the phenomena. It argues that the resource-status the interventions enjoy compels competition from actors at various levels, in a socio-political and cultural space characterised by bad governance and endemic corruption. The competition begins with shady deals among influential actors as they appropriate the resources, constituting Bhis. The combined effects of the resource-status of intervention, Bhis and bad governance and endemic corruption provide sufficient conditions for spirals of negative impacts—likely deprivation, the malevolent charity–beggar relationship, oppressiveness and divisiveness of intervention—down the intervention programming stages. Thus, the potential positive impacts of the interventions are significantly reduced. However, the LCP and federal government presence that the interventions represent cushion the effect of the negative impacts.
Keywords
Introduction
The Niger Delta (hereafter ND) region located in the southern part of Nigeria, with a long history of conflict, is conflict-prone. It comprises nine oil-producing states and is home to about 40 ethnic groups speaking 250 languages and dialects (Niger Delta Regional Development Master Plan, 2006, hereafter, ‘Master Plan’, p. 53). Conflict in the resource-rich ND has a long trajectory, predating Nigeria’s independence. Causes of the conflict in the ND are complex and interrelated. They include ‘…oil based environmental degradation, induced productivity losses and occupational disorientation, inadequate compensation for damages caused by oil industry, poor channels of communication by the oil companies, failed community development programmes…’ (Ibaba, 2007, p. 1). In addition, feelings of neglect by the central government and marginalisation in mainstream national development, underdevelopment, bad governance, endemic poverty and systemic corruption, among others, are other causes of conflicts that scholars have identified in the region. Except religious conflict, all types of conflicts—resource-based, psychological, environmental and ethnic—are present in the region. Principal actors in the conflict are the ND people (especially at the community level), the Federal Government of Nigeria (hereafter FGN) and multinational oil-producing companies.
At some point, the ND conflict gradually became intractable, typified in various forms of violent conflict, armed conflicts, youth militancy, inter- and intra-communal conflicts, guerrilla warfare by militants against government forces, vandalism and hostage-taking, among others. The ensuing culture of violence evolved into a war economy and proliferation of small and light weapons in the ND. These have wide-ranging implications for the socio-economic life of individuals and communities in the region. In addition, at the national level, violence in the region disrupts oil production and thus affects national foreign exchange earnings.
The ND conflict situation is in its sixth decade. Each decade has its peculiar characteristics. The first decade (1960s) was largely a period of complacency with the prevailing illusion that development would automatically trickle down with oil-sector activities. This situation was possible due to a low level of education and widespread ignorance. The second decade (1970s) was characterised by passive resistance, as people began to ask questions. However, the general belief was that the existing institutional mechanisms were adequate to address the problems. Oil companies responded with mere tokenism in the form of scholarship programmes, medical trips and other palliatives. The third decade (1980s) witnessed improved education, an increase in population and greater masses’ awareness of their relative deplorable condition compared to other parts of the country. The tempo for the demand for a more equitable and transparent formula to the ND question was thus heightened. This perceived grievance increased the possibility of group mobilisation for collective action.
By the time the conflict entered its fourth decade in the 1990s, the patience of the people had not only thinned out but also exploded into strident agitations and protests of unprecedented proportions that shook the Nigerian nation. Nigeria returned to civil rule in 1999—the end of the fourth decade. Year 2000–2009 marked the fifth decade of conflict in the ND. Agitation in the ND continued throughout the first eight years of democratic rule in Nigeria. It assumed a new dimension of militancy during this period. It was characterised by armed confrontations between militant groups and the Nigerian Armed Forces and kidnapping of expatriate oil workers and, later, affluent Nigerians. In its sixth decade (and post-amnesty phase), violent conflict and militancy in the region subsided. Militants responded massively to the Federal Government, granting amnesty in the second half of 2009. The amnesty was followed by a reintegration process (Niger Delta Development Commission, 2012).
Like conflict, intervention also has a long history in the ND. Intervention in this context refers to development aid, humanitarian assistance or peacebuilding initiatives. Development intervention is a package of ‘[l]ong-term efforts aimed at bringing improvements in the economic, political, and social status, environmental stability and quality of life of the population especially the poor and the disadvantaged’ (‘Resource Pack’, p. 3). Humanitarian aid/assistance refers to ‘[a]ctivities designed to rapidly reduce human suffering in emergency situations, especially when local authorities are unable or unwilling to provide relief’. Peacebuilding interventions are ‘[m]easures designed to consolidate peaceful relations and strengthen viable political, socio-economic, and cultural institutions capable of mediating conflict, as well as strengthen other mechanisms that will either create or support the creation of necessary conditions for sustained peace’ (p. 3). Local and international actors have intervened at various times and levels of the ND conflict. Non-governmental organisations (NGOs), international non-governmental organisations (INGOs), intergovernmental organisations (IGOs), community-based organisations (CBOs), multinational oil companies (MOCs) and the FGN have all intervened. Their interventions have been at the project, programme or policy level; at the level of the community or region; and with diverse objectives such as aid (development, humanitarian and peacebuilding), democracy and good governance, among others. The FGN has the longest history of intervention in the ND. Its various intervention strategies have included security responses, relief responses, political responses and socio-economic responses (Isumonah, 2003).
The socio-economic responses of the FGN involve setting up development agencies to cater for the needs of the region. In 1960–1966, the Balewa administration set up the Niger Delta Development Board (hereafter NDDB). The Presidential Task Force was set up in 1980 by the 1979/1983 Shagari administration and was allocated 1.5 per cent of the Federation Account to tackle developmental problems of the region (Master Plan, 2006). In 1992, the Babangida administration established the Oil Mineral Producing Areas Development Commission (hereafter OMPADEC) for the provision of infrastructure in the area. The OMPADEC operated from 1992 to 1999. Through these establishments, the people of the ND have suffered rising expectations, relative deprivation and frustration. The result has been to engender more aggression and violent conflicts among the people (Niger Delta Development Commission, 2006). By the late 1990s, the ND had become a region where youths disrupted oil production and communities frequently engaged in destructive communal strife. This was the situation of things before the Federal Government established the Niger Delta Development Commission (hereafter NDDC) by an Act of Parliament in 2000 as an intervention agency for the sustainable development and peacebuilding in the ND. In the words of President Obasanjo, ‘[t]he Niger Delta Development Commission has the potential to offer a lasting solution to the socio-economic problems of the Niger Delta people’ (Master Plan, 2006). The NDDC’s vision is to ‘offer a lasting solution to the socio-economic difficulties of the Niger Delta Region’. It has the mission ‘…to facilitate the rapid, even and sustainable development of the Niger Delta into a region that is economically prosperous, socially stable, ecologically regenerative and politically peaceful’ (Master Plan, 2006, p. 103).
Literature in peace and development studies and, especially, in peace and conflict impact assessment (hereafter PCIA) has long argued for the existence of a relationship or nexus among development, conflict and peace (Africa Peace Forum, Center for Conflict Resolution, Consortium of Humanitarian Agencies, Forum on Early Warning and Early Response, International Alert, & Saferworld, 2004, henceforth the Resource Pack, Bush, 1998; Bush & Opp, 1999; Bush, 2003a, 2003b, 2003c; Schmelzle, 2005). They claim the existence of mutual impacts (interactions) of intervention and its operational context and that these interactions have potentials to support conflict (by exacerbating conflict and/or undermining peace) or peace (by reducing conflict and/or building peace) in the context. Based on this logic, several approaches, methods or frameworks were developed to assess the impacts of interventions and project context. The most popular of such frameworks are PCIA (Bush, 1996), Do no Harm/Local Capacities for Peace (hereafter, DnH/LCP, Mary Anderson, 1999) and Conflict Sensitivity (hereafter CS, Resource Pack, 2004). These and similar frameworks aim at minimising negative and maximising positive impacts of intervention in its operational context. They attempt this by mapping the nature, dynamics and implications of the interactions of intervention and its context, using appropriate indicators.
The understanding of the potential positive and negative impacts of interventions and its operational context suggests that while the NDDC as an intervention agency has a well-intended vision and mission, its interventions might have had/be having both negative and/or positive impacts on the ND contexts, on the one hand. On the other hand, the ND contexts might have impacted/be impacting on the NDDC interventions negatively, positively or both. In other words, the NDDC, in over a decade-long intervention in the ND region of Nigeria, could have exacerbated conflict, built peace or both in the region. The nature, dynamics and implications of these potential/actual impacts of the NDDC interventions and the ND contexts have not been adequately covered in extant literature, especially using the impact assessment framework. Applying the PCIA framework to interactions of the NDDC interventions (projects and programmes) on the ND conflict context is timely and pertinent because the agency remains the FGN’s most ambitious and enduring attempt to address the ND problem. This guarantees continual interactions between the agency’s interventions and the ND context. Understanding the nature, dynamics and implications of these interactions might inform better programming that ensures that the interventions make maximum positive and minimum negative contributions to the situation.
This study assessed eight NDDC interventions—four physical/infrastructure development projects (hereafter IDPs) and four human capacity development programmes (hereafter HCDPs)—in Odi community of Bayelsa State, the largest Ijaw State in Nigeria. The IDPs are the internal link (concrete) roads, Odi-Trofani Road and Agberiye-Odonu to Sampo Road, and the construction of blocks of classroom/laboratories. The HCDPs assessed included the agricultural support programme (different sets of training on farming, fishing and rearing of snail and grass-cutter, i.e., Thryonomys swinderianus), rice plantation, distribution of flying boat and the training of youths on non-violence.
Following on the foregoing analysis, this study explores the interactions of the NDDC interventions and Odi community context with the view to understand their nature, dynamics and implications for peace and conflict dynamics in the region. Specifically, the study identifies, categorises and conceptualises factors and processes in the phenomena. It also explains the relationships between the factors and their categories, and makes recommendations on how to minimise the negative and maximise the positive impacts of the development interventions.
Mapping Peace and Conflict Impacts: The Intervention–Context Interactions (ICI) Model
As earlier discussed, empirical evidence supports the notion that intervention in conflict setting impacts on elements of the context and vice versa. Against this background, the intervention–context interactions (hereafter ICI) framework emerged from the preliminary stage of the study (Akinyoade, 2011), and it was adopted as an explanatory model of the study. As noted by Barbolet, Goldwyn, Groenewald and Sheriff (2005), conceptualising impact in terms of interactions is helpful. They argue that new thinking on ‘interaction indicators’ shows promise worthy of application and subsequent learning. The ICI matrix is based on such thinking. The ICI are the mutual interactions between stages of an intervention programming and elements of a given conflict context, with their potentials for positive or negative impacts on the conflict situation. This is captured in an ICI matrix. In the Matrix, alphabets represent the stages of an intervention and elements of a context. P stands for planning, I for implementation, ME for monitoring and evaluation, while A stands for actors, C for causes, Pr for profile and D for dynamics (Figure 1).
PA represents the impact of planning on actors, while AP stands for the impact of actors on planning. PA–AP, therefore, represents the interactions between planning and actors. PA may be positive or negative; same goes for AP. In essence, in planning–actors interactions, there are four potential impacts: positive planning–actors (+PA) impact, positive actors–planning (+AP) impact, negative planning–actors impact (-PA) and negative actors–planning (-AP) impact. +PA describes a situation where the planning of an intervention has positive impacts on the actors. +AP is when actors, through their contributions, impact positively on the planning of an intervention. -PA and -AP are negative impacts of planning on actors and of actors on planning, respectively. For instance, planning may involve a party and neglect other(s) or give better treatment or special recognition to a party at the expense of the other(s). This may sustain old tensions or foment new ones among parties. Alternatively, actors’ conflict behaviours may disrupt planning or inform bad decisions. The same could be said about other stages as well.
From the foregoing analysis, the planning stage has four potential impacts with each of the four elements of the context. In all, it has sixteen potential impacts with all the elements of the context: actors, causes, profile and dynamics. These potential impacts have equal number (eight each) of both positive and negative charges. Similar cases can be made for other stages (implementation and monitoring and evaluation) as well. This brings the total number of potential impacts between intervention and contexts to 48 (24 potential positive and 24 potential negative impacts). This implies (mathematically speaking) that ICI carry equal potential to contribute positively or negatively to a given conflict situation (Figure 2).
The ICI framework represents potential, multi-layered, multidirectional interactions between intervention and context. The ICI’s potential impacts on the context are in the emergent loop of multi-layered, bi-directional interactions. These interactions produce the dynamics that support peace or conflict in a conflict situation. The ICI perspective measures impact in terms of the implications of the interactions on conflict situation. It shows the measurable potential impacts that interactions of intervention and conflict context have for the conflict situation. Therefore, we can conceive of ICI’s negative impact and ICI’s positive impact on a conflict situation. The ICI are useful frameworks for understanding and explaining the nature, dynamics and implications of the interactions of the NDDC interventions and the context of Odi community. Subsequent sections present phenomena that aid such understanding.
ODI Community
Odi is an Ijaw community in Kolokuma-Opokuma Local Government Area (LGA) (with headquarters in Kaiama), Bayelsa State. It is located beside one of the tributary rivers of River Niger, bordered in the north by Odoni and Agbere, in the south by Sampou and Kaiama along the River Nun bank. Its western neighbours are Patani and Abari, while in the east is Okordia Zarama. Its built-up area is 3.85 km north–south and 2.6 km east–west. Odi has 27 communities (formerly referred to as compounds but rechristened for political reasons) and divided into north (Asanga) and south (Tamanga) parts. There are 13 communities in Asanga and 14 in Asanga. Communities in the north include Amakiriebi-ama, Amatus, Ebereze, Ede-ama, Ekpevama, Fisin, Ifidi, Keminanabo, Mamuagha, Osiakeme-ama, Ogien-ama, Payo and Timbo-ama. The south parts include Ayakoro-ama, Bethlehem-ama, Bolou-ama, Burudani-ama, Ikiri-ama, Ineinfagha/Akangele-ama, Obimo, Oboribengha, Obuka-ama, Ofouwara/Gbagba-ama, Ogboloma, Sounbiri, Tamukunoun and Tonbere-ama. The community has three wards.
There are four cardinal groups in Odi community. These are the Traditional Council, the Community Development Committee (CDC), the Youth Council and the Women Group. The Traditional Council is headed by His Highness, the Amananaowei (King), and has 27 chiefs representing each of the communities in Odi. Membership in the Traditional Council is by election. While the Amananaowei is elected for life, the chiefs are elected for a period of three years. Upon the demise of the King, his first son acts as a regent for a period of two years before election is conducted for the next King. Membership of the Youth Council is open to all female and male youths age 15–45 who have a maternal or paternal affiliation to the community. Interested individuals register with a token fee to become a member. Any member can vie for elective post by campaigning and seeking vote through elections. Elections are held every two years through open or secret ballot system. The Youth Council is a vibrant and formidable organisation in the community, with well-articulated 12-point objectives covering almost every facet of community life.
Divergent views between the Traditional Council and the Youth Council often lead to tension between the two groups. However, in Odi the Youth Council usually defers to the Traditional Council on many occasions out of respect for the elders and in order to ‘allow peace to reign’. The Women Group, headed by the Ereamini da-aru, consists of every community woman by default. The Ereamini da-aru is chosen by the women themselves to manage their affairs. The current Ereamini da-aru has been in office since the 1999 Odi Massacre. The CDC is a group set up for the development of the community. It is supposedly the community’s contact with any development initiative in the community. Each of the 10 members is elected democratically from communities. No community can have more than one member. The group is headed by a chairman. At the time of the fieldwork, the CDC was being reconstituted.
The Odi Massacre is a reference point in the community. The event that led to the massacre is the murder of seven policemen by hoodlums who were then operating from Odi. On 20 November 1999, in retaliation of the murdered policemen, soldiers surrounded Odi and neighbouring communities. According to the Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth (ERA/FOE), Nigeria, report, ‘[b]y the time the military operation ended, 2,483 people, including women and children, lay dead. Many more were displaced, injured, and traumatized and an inestimable number of properties destroyed’ (Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth, 2002, p. 6). At the time of the fieldwork—11 years after the massacre—Odi community has become a peaceful community. There were no open conflicts. However, low-intensity dissatisfaction abounds. The massacre was a recurrent theme in the discussions with all the community people.
A Grounded Theory of Peace and Conflict Impacts
Grounded theory (hereafter GT) was developed in the 1960s through a collaborative work in medical sociology by two sociologists: Barney G. Glaser and Anselm L. Strauss. Grounded theory is not a theory but a systematic research method, a strategy (Punch, 1999). It is a research strategy with an explicit orientation towards developing theory grounded in the data collected from the field—people’s experience/interpretation of their realities. It is ‘…the systematic generation of a theory from data acquired by a rigorous research method’ (Glaser, 1998, p. 3). Grounded theory is not findings, but rather probability statements about relationship between concepts forming an integrated set of conceptual hypotheses. It aims at generating theory grounded in (the analyses of) its data. Hence, its objective for collecting and analysing data is to generate theory. It has its peculiar rationale, philosophy, strategy and techniques to data collection, sampling, literature and analysis of its data. It involves generating conceptualisations and developing propositions from the analysis of data. The GT research and case study research methods were adopted in this study. According to Punch (1999), case studies’ findings are generalisable through conceptualisations and development of propositions.
In this study, therefore, certain concepts and propositions were developed to understand the nature, dynamics and the short-term and the long-term implications of the NDDC interventions in Odi. They are ‘resource-status of intervention’, ‘black hole of interactions (Bhis)’, ‘likely deprivation’, ‘Ward 12’, ‘the malevolent charity–beggar relationship’, ‘oppressiveness of intervention’, ‘divisiveness of intervention’ and ‘federal government presence’. These provide an explanatory model—peace and conflict impact theory. In summary, the theory suggests that the NDDC’s interventions are perceived as resources in the ND, and this perception drives the interactions of the interventions and the context from the macro level to the micro level, producing both positive and negative impacts. In other words, the perception and status of interventions as resources compel actors at various levels to compete for it. The struggle takes place in a socio-political and cultural environment characterised by bad governance and endemic corruption. This lead to Bhis among influential actors at the macro level (country and ND region) as they decide who get what, when and where, thereby impacting on and being impacted by the conception and planning (C&P) stage. The combined effect of the resource-status of intervention, Bhis and bad governance and endemic corruption provides sufficient conditions for spirals of negative impacts down the remaining stages of the intervention programming, and thus significantly reduces the positive impacts of the NDDC’s interventions in Odi. An immediate outcome of this is that it makes the interventions a scarce commodity, triggering likely deprivation (among community people at implementation stage) (author’s fieldwork, September 2012).
Likely deprivation is a situation in which actors, propelled by greed, need and fear of marginalisation in distribution of benefits, mobilise to appropriate the NDDC resources and benefits for themselves. Hence, the interventions are acutely competed for by potential beneficiary communities, thus bestowing the status of charity on the Commission and imposing the status of beggars on the communities in a relationship (malevolent charity–beggar) characterised by acute power disequilibrium. Assuming the status of charity, the Commission bestows its interventions on communities that usually have no choice but to accept whatever is ‘graciously’ awarded to them, be it good, bad or ugly. As a direct consequence of the prevailing conditions, the Commission enjoys a considerable amount of power in the power relations in the Commission–community relationship. Taking advantage of this, the Commission programmes its interventions with the barest minimum involvement of the beneficiary community. This makes the intervention programming somewhat oppressive to the community (oppressiveness of intervention). The possibility of being deprived—likely deprivation—of the NDDC’s interventions compels the community actors to struggle for the resources at the community level, creating divisions among them (divisiveness of intervention) from the community level to the family and individual levels. In spite of these, the feeling of ‘…finally we are getting federal government’s attention’ (in physical and socio-economic deliverables) and the existence in the community of traditional and contemporary institutions as well as processes that moderate intervention-triggered conflicts (local capacities for peacebuilding) cushion the effects of the negative impacts on the community (author’s fieldwork, September 2012).
The Resource-status of the NDDC Interventions
A proper understanding of the impacts of the NDDC interventions requires an understanding of intervention as a resource within a given context. This view of intervention as a resource is consistent with Anderson’s conceptual assumption that aid programmes involve the transfer of resources (food, shelter, water, health care, training and others) into a resource-scarce environment (Anderson, 1999, 2004; Resource Pack, 2004, p. 47). Expectedly, interventions enjoy the status of a resource in most contexts because it is a socio-economic solution package intended to improve a given social situation. As a solution package, it comes with tangible (financial and material) and non-tangible (prestige, influence, etc.) benefits. These benefits are potential resources that could be exploited by various actors from within and outside the intended operational context of the intervention. According to Anderson (Resource Pack, 2004, p. 47), ‘…these resources represent power and wealth and they become an element of the conflict’ and actors sometimes ‘…attempt to control and use aid resources to support their side of the conflict and to weaken the other side’ (Resource Pack, 2004, p. 47). Bush and Opp (1999) concur with this view when they argue that intervention introduces new dynamics in the context, creating winners and losers.
The NDDC as an intervention agency (and its interventions) is clearly a resource in the ND. Its tangible benefits include Federal Government jobs (for staff and prospective members of staff), contracts (for contractors and consultants—real, pseudo and ghost), physical projects and HCDPs (for ND communities) and money. The Commission is one of the wealthiest Federal Government parastatals.
1
For instance, funding provisions of the Commission is provided in Part V of the NDDC Act and include:
15 per cent of the total monthly statutory allocations due to member states of the Commission from the Federation Account. 3 per cent of the total annual budget of any oil-producing company operating, onshore and offshore, in the ND area, including gas-processing companies. 50 per cent of monies due to member states of the Commission from the Ecological Fund. Miscellaneous sources.
The above lists translate into an annual budget of billions of naira (Nigeria currency). Although the sources for NDDC funding identified earlier (especially government) do not always provide the fund in due time, the Commission’s funding is still attractive enough to compel various actors to mobilise to share in the resources it offers. Empirical evidence suggests that the NDDC interventions are perceived as resources by stakeholders. As such, they become reasons for legitimate and illegitimate motivations to satisfy legitimate needs, actors’ insatiable wants and/or opportunities (actors do not want to miss). This showcases the impacts of intervention on actors and vice versa. Actors’ perception of intervention as a resource is the main driver of the ICI in Odi. Its occurrence and influence are pervasive throughout the stages of the intervention programming. As a resource in an environment characterised by endemic corruption and bad governance, the NDDC becomes something for which various actors struggle at different levels and stages of the intervention programming. Thus, actors, motivated by need and/or greed, were inspired and compelled to act to appropriate the resources for themselves. The immediate consequences of this compulsive response to resource sharing are the phenomena of Bhis, which are triggered at the stage of C&P and exert a strong influence on the entire programming; and likely deprivation, which is a direct fallout of Bhis and the main factor compelling as well as propelling community actors’ interactions with intervention as they struggle for its benefits.
Black Hole of Interactions (Bhis)
The Bhis is a phenomenon characteristic of the C&P stage of the intervention. It exerts very strong negative influence on subsequent stages and consequently reduce their effectiveness and positive impacts significantly. It refers to the intense interactions between the resource-rich NDDC interventions and influential actors such as NDDC board members and management staff, politicians, contractors/consultants, high-ranking government officials and a unique phenomenon called Ward 12. Bhis was so christened because of its similarity of behaviour with the celestial black hole theorised to exist in the universe (Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2014). The black-hole concept was developed by the German astronomer Karl Schwarzschild in 1916, based on Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity. Celestial black holes have gravitational field so strong that, with a body large enough, nothing, including electromagnetic radiation, can escape from its vicinity (Black-hole, Microsoft Encarta Premium, 2009). Light enters but cannot escape the black hole, hence it appears totally black. Similarly in the Bhis, influential actors lobby, manoeuvre and negotiate in sharing and exploiting the resources of the NDDC interventions in an environment of non-transparency, endemic corruption and bad corporate governance that eventually leave a permanent dent on the whole intervention programming.
The Ward 12 constitutes an important group in the Bhis, hence the need to understand the phenomenon in theorising the impacts of the NDDC intervention in Odi. The Kolokuma-Opokuma LGA has 11 wards (electoral divisions), three of which are in Odi. The Ward 12 phenomenon according to a respondent refers to ‘…our people that are living outside, that are in Yenagoa (the state capital and largest Ijaw city), that are close to the government…sometimes even if you are not close to Ward 12 you will not have anything (that is, benefits, including NDDC intervention)’. Ward 12 constituency thus includes influential individuals such as the NDDC staff and politicians who are indigenes of various communities in Kolokuma-Opokuma LGA and who lobby the Commission and government on behalf of their communities for a share of the NDDC interventions. How influential a community’s Ward 12 members are determines the type, quality and quantity of the NDDC intervention in the community. According to a resident community member,
…like if you have somebody there, like we have a daughter there [the NDDC] that is…influential there, hmm, she can, she can work out something and say look come and meet the CEO, see what I’ve done for the town. Like we have this rest house [guest house] that was just lying fallow [uncompleted], so, the girl now moved and before we knew, they sent a proposal that this thing should go on. (author’s confidential interview, 14 September 2011)
Another resident community member compares Odi with a neighbouring community:
The road network at Sabagreya is more than this place [Odi]…it’s because some of their people are in the NDDC. Even in the state here. The state NDDC representative, the state coordinator or whatever, is from Sabagreya. Then sometimes they also have some of their big men, hmm, they are concerned about the village and so they move to NDDC to lobby for more…projects. They will now liaise with the deputy speaker. The deputy speaker of…the house [the state’s House of Assembly] is from Sabagreya too, he’s from there. So, all of them will now put heads together, hmm, and then see how they can now [facilitate NDDC interventions for their community]…it’s all about the government…if they are assigning project to you, if it’s two kilometres, you lobby for more kilometres. (author’s confidential interview, 16 September 2011)
The existence of the Bhis is supported by the report of a probe panel and the participants’ responses. The panel, set up by President Goodluck Jonathan in 2011 and headed by Mr Steve Oronsaye, was to identify factors hindering the Commission from performing its statutory functions. The report indicted Mr Chibuzor Ugwoha, the former Managing Director/CEO of the Commission, for misappropriating N511 billion in two years. It also indicted consultants of the Commission and aides to the Nigerian president Goodluck Jonathan. It led to the dissolution of the NDDC board, chaired by retired Air Vice-Marshal Larry Koinyan, in September 2011. Corrupt practices identified by the committee include zero procurement procedure (contrary to the provisions of Section 16 (6-9) and 23 of the Public Procurement Act (PPA), 2007), and lack of pre-qualification processes for projects within the N250 million approval threshold of the Commission. The black hole appeared to be a characteristic feature of the NDDC since inception. According to an NDDC consultant on agricultural programmes,
…on the books they [NDDC] seem to be doing it, but it…tilts towards interests. Interest of those who…want to…gain from [it]. Whereby the core people in the rural areas are not benefiting from it. So…you know, even though the office is under the presidency…the oversight…is not really…being done in the way it should. And also the finances of…the NDDC is not being monitored…You will see a project, ordinarily, that will not cost up to ten million naira…the Commission end up saying it is 100 million, 200 million and nobody seems, seems to question it. There is no…accountability…You still see…over so many years now that the Commission has started there have not really been emancipation of the Niger Delta region. (author’s confidential interview, 5 July 2011)
Also, an NDDC desk officer commented:
But to be frank with you…I’ll say that nearly 99.9 per cent of projects are not initiated from the CRD [the NDDC’s Directorate of Community and Rural Development] but from eh, the Projects…ok, if I say the Project Directorate or project department I’ll also not be saying it accurately as it is, you know. We hardly do needs assessment…most of the project that get into the budget for implementation come rather from people who are desirous of doing contracts. For example, members of the national assembly, you know. That’s how our projects are generated. (author’s confidential interview, 6 July 2011)
Some of the activities that suggest the presence of the Bhis, and identified by the probe panel, are non-compliance with extant regulations and statutes, and acrimonious and poor interpersonal relationship between the board, the managing director, the executive directors and among top management staff of the Commission (probably due to contention over resources). Others are structural defects and over-centralisation of the Commission’s activities, widespread misconception of the role of the Commission by staff and people of the region, ethnicity and factionalisation. The remaining are routine and rampant externalisation of internal problem and disagreements, ineffective supervision by the supervisory agencies of the Commission and inadequate funding and staffing of the state offices. The report revealed a characteristic high-level corruption in awarding contracts and that the quality of the NDDC projects is generally far below acceptable standards. Thus, the Bhis jettisons the injunction for transparency, accountability and full participation of critical stakeholders provided in the Master Plan, which reads ‘It needs to be re-stated that the leadership of the NDDC must uphold the principles of transparency and accountability…’ (The Master Plan, 2006, p. 241).
However, rather than uphold the principles of transparency and accountability or promote good governance, the NDDC interventions promote bad governance by entrenching corruption and ineffectiveness (real and perceived) through its activities. More than 90 per cent of participants in the NDDC’s interventions reported various forms of corruption in every stage of the interventions (author’s fieldwork). This was also supported by the report of Oronsaye probe panel highlighted earlier. The report led to the dissolution of the NDDC board, chaired by retired Air Vice-Marshal Larry Koinyan, in September 2011. Abubakar in a newspaper report, ‘Nigeria: NDDC Dirty Deals Exposed’, stated the involvement of aides to the Nigerian president Goodluck Jonathan in the NDDC scandal. However, the dissolved board is not the only NDDC board that was reported to be characterised with corruption and bad governance. Empirical evidence shows that, to a lesser or greater degree, this is the characteristic feature of the Commission. The non-transparent and publicly unaccountable practices characterising the Commission have a general effect of reducing the overall effectiveness of its intervention. The setting up of a probe panel by the Federal Government to investigate the Commission for non-performance testifies to the crippling effect of the corruption in the Commission. The Commission’s usual manner of doing its business, due to the impact of the Bhis, jettisons the injunction for transparency, accountability and full participation of critical stakeholders.
The Bhis thus has a crippling effect on the overall effectiveness of the NDDC interventions. As would be discussed later, the Bhis excludes the resident community people (RCP) from the C&P, limits their participation at the implementation stage and discourages participation at the monitoring and evaluation stage. The immediate negative impact of the Bhis is to exclude critical stakeholders—RCP—for whom the interventions were planned from the C&P stage. This is because the dynamics of the Bhis have little or no concern for the interests of these actors. It is a function of the competition for the resources of the intervention driven by the interplay of outrageous greed, and sometimes business exigencies, against the backdrop of endemic bad governance and corruption. These forces are too strong to accommodate the interests of the RCP, hence their exclusion from C&P. The RCP become more actively involved in the intervention process at the level of implementation in the community.
Likely Deprivation
The RCP activities are driven by a phenomenon conceptualised as likely deprivation, which appear to be an indirect consequence of the Bhis. Although the NDDC interventions are not the main cause of this phenomenon, they do become sufficient motivations to resuscitate and reinforce it. Likely deprivation is a psycho-social and social–psychological condition in which, driven by fear of real possibility or like- lihood of deprivation of benefits (including rights, privileges and other opportunities), individuals and/or groups take actions to secure her/its share of the perceived benefits. This phenomenon resurges among the community actors at the stage of implementation of the intervention. As would be discussed later, individuals and groups in Odi competed for the NDDC resources allocated for the community. The underlying driver of the competition was the fear that, unless they fought for their rights, they would not get it. Likely deprivation can therefore be argued to be prevalent in socio-political arrangements in which the rights and privileges of citizens are not guaranteed in fair and just processes. Thus, they learn to use every means, fair and foul, to secure benefits. Individuals’ psychology and groups’ social psychology in Odi is characterised by anticipated deprivation of the benefits/resources of the NDDC unless they struggle for it. This mindset drives the competition, conflict and cooperation over the resources of the NDDC among the RCP at the implementation stage.
Likely deprivation is a different phenomenon from relative deprivation in the sense that the former is a priori (i.e., in anticipation of deprivation) while the latter is a posteriori (i.e., consideration of past deprivation relative to others). It could be argued that likely deprivation is somehow characteristic of the Nigerian society. It is, however, more pronounced in the ND due to the interplay of the long history of marginalisation and deprivation and the availability of the intervention benefits and other resources to struggle for. Likely deprivation is both a structural cause and consequence of conflict in the ND. It results from a loss of faith in public institutions to distribute public goods and services in a fair and equitable manner. The intersection and cross-fertilisation of the resource-status of intervention, Bhis and likely deprivation lead to more negative impacts of the NDDC interventions in the study area. These impacts include the malevolent charity–beggar relationship characterising the NDDC–community relationship, oppressiveness of intervention and divisiveness of intervention. These are explored in the next section.
The Malevolent Charity–Beggar Relationship
The NDDC intervention programming establishes and sustains acute power disequilibrium between the NDDC and the beneficiary communities. (It is probably an extension of the power disequilibrium characterising citizen–state relationship in Africa where citizens are generally made to feel that government responsibilities towards them are privileges, rather than right.) The power relation confers the status of charity on the NDDC and forces the status of a beggar on the community. Over time, the relationship has become malevolent, due essentially, to the effect of the Bhis. Odi community has been compelled to perceive the NDDC interventions as a rare charity and scarce resource. So, in whatever form it comes to the community—good, bad or ugly—the community cannot reject it even if it is clearly not needed or there are significant ways to improve it. According to an interviewee, ‘they are developmental projects, people are looking for them and they don’t get and you, you have the opportunity to…you are given the opportunity, will you reject it?’
Apparently, the interventions are privileges that the NDDC endows on those who are in its good records. This relationship is most evident in the oppressiveness of the Commission’s intervention. The subtle disempowerment of the community starts right from the C&P stage (with the exclusion of the RCP) and runs throughout the entire programming cycle. The community is oppressed when provision of social services put them in a ‘beggar has no choice’ situation. The malevolent charity–beggar relationship makes the NDDC intervention oppressive, leading to the phenomenon oppressiveness of intervention.
Oppressiveness of Intervention
Empirical evidence suggests that the NDDC interventions are oppressive in Odi. Oppressiveness of intervention is a situation in which beneficiaries are directly oppressed by the intervention either as a consequence of insensitive programming or a by-product of corruption in programming. In the programming of the NDDC interventions, oppressiveness of beneficiaries begins right from the C&P stage and runs throughout the entire programming cycle. The oppressiveness of intervention has negative impact on the intervention programming. It manifests in various forms. The first form is in imperious and imperial manner of excluding RCP from C&P, thus giving the community no voice in the interventions meant for them. This arrogance suggests that the intervenor assumes knowing and able to proffer solution to the problems of the intended beneficiaries without necessarily consulting them. This is tantamount to a doctor treating a conscious patient without consulting him/her. It presupposes that the RCP do not know what they need. Certain key NDDC personnel justify the exclusion of RCP on the grounds that since the politicians, the presumed representatives of the people, are involved (as Ward 12, earlier discussed), the community has been involved. Nevertheless, to assume such and thus limit community participation in C&P to Ward 12 elite suggests naivety or deliberate scheme to cover up the Bhis. Marginalising the entire community people this way entrenches the power imbalance between the Ward 12 and the community people. According to a community respondent,
These things [interventions] can only be brought through our big men outside. …we can do the writing thing but if there’s no follow-up from our elite people in the township, they don’t care. They don’t, they don’t care at all [visibly dissatisfied]. Because when they were making the roads, we said look, we wanted more roads to cover certain areas that have not been covered. We wrote that letter but there was no response. (author’s confidential interview, 16 September 2011)
Members of Ward 12 are usually motivated by the personal desire to increase their influence in the community. Hence, interventions attracted by Ward 12 may not necessarily be needed by members of the community. Moreover, inasmuch as members of Ward 12 do not appropriately consult the members of the community, their involvement in the Bhis does not constitute community participation in intervention programming. Evidently, from the earlier quote, the NDDC interventions become commodities that the community can enjoy through the benevolence of its elite. Ineffective communication between the community and the Commission foments dissatisfaction. This was evident in the interviewees’ (elderly man) visible dissatisfaction. Non-participatory intervention programming is the main cause of oppressive intervention.
The second way by which interventions oppress is in the high-handed manner in which the NDDC personnel, contractors/consultants, relate with the community when implementing interventions. The responses of RCP are suggestive of this fact:
Even if they [NDDC contractor/consultant] meet the paramount ruler, they will just go out and do what they want to do. The paramount ruler has no control over them that this and this are what and what I want in my community so that it won’t bring problems. So they just come and map out the roads. So when they come with the contractor, the contractor will just come with his drawing, say ‘This to this will have one road, from so-so-so kilometre, this, this, this, this or this to this will have another road.’ That is all what the consultant will just come to tell you. That ‘I’m an engineer and I know what I’m telling you. If we go to the road and we measure it, you will see it’. Just like that. So that’s the way they do their things. A youth (author’s confidential interview, 14 September 2011) The moment I hold the file, the file opened and I saw the number of projects meant for the school. And that was why I begin to see…some of the things that were supposed to be done. And immediately, I fired back, I cried out, but I was silenced from Port Harcourt office. Say that, ‘You, a civil servant you don’t talk anything, because is it only your community that is there? Are there no other communities?’ The people that came from the headquarters office are the same people silencing me from telling the truth. It’s funny…so, that’s the situation. A secondary school teacher (author’s confidential interview, 16 September 2011)
Third, oppression manifests in the promise and fail syndrome, a situation whereby the Commission promises and delivers less than promised or the case of selective distribution of benefits (author’s fieldwork, June 2011). A case in point is the Commission’s practice of paying lower stipends than what it promised its beneficiaries in its agricultural capacity-building programme (author’s fieldwork, June 2011). A case of selective distribution of benefits is evident in the giving of computers to the leaders of agitators in its computer-training programme. This is captured in the view of an elderly female beneficiary:
…the people that came to train promised them that they would give them because…they delay them in their farming work, they said they will give them 15,000 (Naira) each but they only bring one, one thousand to them. And they said that they hear, that they have paid the money into their account and they contributed some amount of money, but still they have not seen anything. (author’s confidential interview, 6 September 2011).
The threat of and the use of force against disappointed and protesting beneficiaries is another form of oppressing the community people. This comes in the form of arrest of protesters and exploitation of the community’s fear of repetition of the 1999 massacre and fear of further bad publicity for Odi community. According to trainees of the agricultural programmes, the Commission asked beneficiaries to form cooperatives in order to access start-up loans. After they expended their hard-earned financial resources forming those cooperatives, the Commission failed to fulfil its promise. Consequently, according to an interviewee,
So our boys went over to NDDC [headquarters in Port Harcourt]. They locked our boys, arrested them, locked them. We had to contribute money here again to go and release them. A beneficiary (author’s confidential interview, 15 September 2011).
Oppressiveness is also evident in the real threat of blacklisting any community the Commission considers troublesome—a decision that is entirely at the Commission’s discretion. Community people’s fear of losing potential interventions, a fear, mainly entertained by the community elders, is regularly exploited by the Commission and its contractors. A protesting community stands the risk of being blacklisted as a ‘trouble-maker’. This comes with the possibility of stopping the intervention and allocating it to another community as a punishment to the ‘hostile’ community. The fear has become an instrument for pacifying, or sometimes beating, youths to submission in legitimate and illegitimate agitations. Elders, on the other hand, have become placid. The attitude of the elders is expressed in a participant’s response:
…anything about development, I don’t want any conflict. Anything that will bring development…there should be no conflict at all because these are things you are not, eh, benefiting from before. Like a community over this way, in the thirties or so, they could have been the first Ijaw…town to get a road but because of their hostile this thing, they [benefactor] withdrew and I think that school that was to be established there too was moved, the utensils were moved to Government College Umuahia. I was told that they are now trying to find the roads now by themselves…Something that could have benefitted the whole community in the thirties, see the development that were missed…manpower development, if that thing has been there since the thirties…that’s what I continue to tell the youths, anything about development, don’t hinder, don’t hinder. Because you will benefit at the long run. (author’s confidential interview, 14 September 2011)
The allow ‘development to take place’ attitude, though commendable, is an effective exploitative instrument in subduing the community youths even at such time when they have legitimate reasons to assert their rights as stakeholders in the intervention. According to the Youth Council president:
Sometimes they [the NDDC] will also say that eh, if they [contractors] come to a place and if the community is trying to make trouble they should pack out of that…community and the project will come to an end. Then our community leaders will now fear. ‘We don’t want what will make this company leave this place o, and all the rest, so nobody to ferment trouble.’ [The elders will] say ‘This company is not going anywhere.’ Company that is looking for their job, they will not go. So sometimes our leaders too, our leaders too out of fear and maybe their level of understanding, sometimes, you know, do certain things in a different manner to the benefit of the company. You’re not even killing the company, this is what they are supposed to do. Then the leaders will now say ‘Leave this people o, if you worry them too much, if dem carry their properties go we don lose the work o. This one wey don come we should take am o.’ All those stuff. (author’s confidential interview, 16 September 2011)
The Odi 1999 massacre has also been exploited as an instrument of oppression in the NDDC intervention programming in the community. It has a restraining and mollifying impact on the Odi community, thereby making the community to be careful in protesting, even when they have legitimate reasons to do so. It has been employed as self-restraint by the youths themselves or by the elders against the youths. The memory of the incident was still very fresh in the community at the time of the fieldwork for this study in 2011. Though it might have attracted sympathy from NGOs and, probably, the NDDC, it appears to also be a source of oppression. Community participants reported:
…you know, because something like Odi is said to be a volatile community because of the 1999 and all those things…people are a bit very careful. They are very, very much careful about what happen. But I know that the project…the light [electricity] own [agitations] happened because of youths and contractor. That project was almost suspended for one year because of, eh, crisis like that. (author’s confidential interview, 14 September 2011) So it is youth within themselves, they [say] ‘look remember what happened in our community. The town was just burned down. If we do anything now they’ll say we have started. That intimidation!…Ah you people have started again, can’t you people learn from your mistakes? We’ll call FANTANGBE’ [a special security task force squad]. And people will say please instead of innocent people to die…(laughs). So People are intimidated. So you only grumble if you don’t want open confrontation with the special force, you mellow down. Because if you don’t take time, what they will do is selective picking [arrest]. (author’s confidential interview, 16 September 2011) …and when you just think about this community and say if you do anything now, the name will now go up again that Odi people are trying to come up again, all those stuff. That thing for [will] hold us still and you just stay. (author’s confidential interview, 16 September 2011)
The fear of bad publicity for the community therefore restrains the community people from protests. The relatively few intervention-triggered protests are those that reached the breaking point. Even at that, these were still mellowed down by the effect of the 1999 massacre.
Divisiveness of Intervention
Intervention is by nature divisive. This may be due to the fact that it has its own goals and becomes goals of several actors simultaneously. Intervention triggers greed or the desire to satisfy needs among actors, thus mobilising and deploying their resources in contest for it. In context characterised by conflict where actors are already primed as well as possess soft and hardware for conflict, intervention becomes another goal for which actors compete, creating winners and losers, successful and unsuccessful, the happy and the unhappy. Hence, divisiveness is inherent in intervention. In the NDDC intervention in Odi, divisiveness takes the form of unintended effect of intervention and a deliberate divide-and-rule strategy by the NDDC and its contractors. Intervention divides the community people right from the stage of informing them about it. For instance, the CDC chairman reported:
Anything that’s outside the community was where I was involved. So anything they are doing within the community they don’t want to tell me… (author’s confidential interview, 15 September 2011)
The above comment shows that the respondent feels that there were deliberate attempts to leave out the CDC out of the scheme of things in NDDC intervention. Women leader shares similar feelings. Also, the NDDC intervention causes division among and within families. For instance, job opportunities and supply of construction materials split members of families donating land for the intervention. Selective fulfilment of promise to beneficiaries (or settlement) of HCDPs also constitutes a form of divisiveness of intervention. As noted by community respondents,
…like we that benefited from them, you know, we are very happy. But those people that, you know, did not benefit from them, you know some of them are not happy. (author’s confidential interview, 7 September 2011) And they [NDDC] promised that they will pay them some amount of money but the head ones [leaders], that is, the higher ones ah, they don’t…, she don’t know whether they bring them money or they did not bring. But they [other beneficiaries] hear that they bring the money and people eat [embezzle] the money. (author’s confidential interview, 14 September 2011) The one person [NDDC computer skill trainee], which I came across, he told me categorically that the NDDC promised, so with agitations they only settled persons in the frontline. So as there will be no pressure on them. (author’s confidential interview, 17 September 2011) We always tell them [youths] that this is a development program. NDDC comes with development. NDDC is not Oil Company that you will say because of this and that... Allow development to take place. Allow development to take place [for emphasis]. (author’s confidential interview, 1 September 2011)
Also, through a divide-and-rule strategy, the NDDC contractors deliberately divide the community for their selfish interests.
…the company’s even paying him [former youth president]…so that they [contractor] will take the youth president to themselves so that if there is any conflict that is trying to arise from the youth group in the community, you know that the president will now… (author’s confidential interview, 16 September 2011)
Indeed, the NDDC interventions divide. For instance, competition and conflict over the resources of intervention create winners and losers from the C&P stage (among the influential actors) and at the implementation stage among community people. It divides the influential actors in the Bhis at the C&P stage. At the implementation stage, it regularly pitches groups in the community against each other—Women Group against the Traditional Council, women against men, the youths against the Traditional Council, thus fracturing the community. It also divides the community along the traditional Asanga–Tamanga geographic line. The division penetrates to the family level as family members are pitched against each other in an attempt to appropriate direct and indirect benefits of the NDDC for themselves.
The Local Capacity for Peace in Odi
The full impacts of the negative implications of the NDDC interventions are not directly unleashed on Odi community. There is a screen of community mechanisms and processes, acting like the ozone layer that shields the community from the direct impacts of the negative consequences, and transforms them to less destructive impacts. These are the geniuses of Odi conflict transformation, that is, its local capacity for peace, in Mary Anderson’s (2004) term. They include prominent traditional and contemporary institutions and/or groups in Odi community that actively participate in cultural, economic, political and social activities of the community. They are therefore inevitably involved in the NDDC interventions brought into the community. These include the Traditional Council, the Youth Council, the Women Group and the CDC. These groups frequently have divergent goals as regards the NDDC interventions. However, they have evolved norms, processes and practices that enable them to manage intervention-triggered competition and conflicts arising among themselves, other members/groups in the community or between Odi and other communities to ensure peaceful genius loci for the community. These groups and their activities, including the norms, processes and practices governing them and their relationships, constitute the LCP in Odi. However, the Commission does not make deliberate effort to strengthen these capacities; rather, it inadvertently and sometimes deliberately weakens them. The geniuses have the credit of keeping Odi peaceful in spite of the NDDC’s peace and conflict blind approach to intervention programming in the community (author’s fieldwork, August 2012).
Federal Government’s Attention
The NDDC’s IDPs are constant reminder of Federal Government’s presence in the community. This is the most significant positive impact of the interventions in Odi. Receiving the attention of the federal government this way is significant because of the historic neglect by the Federal Government suffered by the region. Construction of roads, rural electrification and construction of school facilities, among others, address the pervasive feeling of marginalisation, which constituted a major cause of the ND conflict. Federal Government attention, therefore, is a strong positive impact that offsets some of the negative impacts of the Commission’s interventions in the community.
Conclusion and Perspectives
The NDDC interventions, perceived as resources by various actors, compel them to mobilise and compete for its benefits. This way, the intervention impacts on the actors. Actors mobilise and appropriate the resources, thereby impacting on the intervention. Thus, actors’ mobilisation drives the interactions of intervention and context, thus impacting the causes, profile and dynamics of context. Hence, the resource-status of intervention is the epicentre and driver for the ICI in Odi community. The desire to appropriate the NDDC resource leads to intense interactions among influential actors (the Bhis) which are supported by endemic bad governance and corruption in the ND. The black hole exerts strong negative influence on the entire intervention programming cycle, making the intervention programming non-participatory for the RCP. Odi has influential individuals (especially Ward 12) who, for various reasons, lobby the NDDC for interventions on behalf of their community, thus participating in the Bhis. Individuals and groups in Odi, like other parts of the ND and Nigeria, experience likely deprivation, which is a pervasive psycho-social and social–psychological feeling of anticipated possibility of deprivation of the NDDC benefits compelling them to struggle and fight for it. The interplay of the resource-status of intervention, the Bhis and likely deprivation leads to phenomenon such as the malevolent charity– beggar relationship, which is an acute power disequilibrium characterising the Commission–community relationship in the intervention programming. This relationship manifests in the form of oppressiveness of intervention and leads to divisiveness of intervention. However, existing geniuses of conflict transformation in Odi mediate the conflict-inducing impacts of the NDDC intervention in the community to ensure that the genius loci of the community are peaceful.
The perception of intervention as resources and the activities it compels from various actors at different stages of the intervention are central to understanding and assessing the impacts of the NDDC intervention in Odi. Also critical to this is the twin evil of corporate bad governance (in the NDDC) and endemic corruption (in the ND, as in other parts of Nigeria) as providing the environment conducive to such motivations and activities that set in motion spiral of negative impacts throughout the intervention cycle. The pervasive feeling of likely deprivation is naturally a consequence of the interplay of these factors. These constitute the structural factors that provide the context for, and determine the nature, dynamics and implications of, the NDDC interventions.
At the C&P stage, the interplay of these factors makes the intervention interest-driven rather than driven by community needs. Consequently, C&P is almost reduced to resource-sharing activity involving very influential actors such as NDDC board members, NDDC consultants, high-profile politicians and the Ward 12. The RCP (the critical stakeholders) are conspicuously excluded from this stage. This leads to series of negative impacts in the subsequent stages of intervention. At the implementation stage, when the intervention is fully brought into the community, there are spirals of negative and positive impacts of the intervention in the community. The most notable positive impact is that the interventions are evidence of government’s attention, which addresses the pervasive feeling of neglect and marginalisation. Other notable ones include creation of jobs, income-earning activities, opening up of local market and capacity-building in modern agricultural practices for the locals. Notable negative impacts include the institutionalising of the malevolent charity–beggar relationship in the Commission–community relationship, the oppressiveness of intervention, divisiveness of intervention and, ultimately, conflict among the community groups and individuals. However, the competition, contest and conflict in the community are mediated by the geniuses of the community conflict transformation mechanism. The monitoring and evaluation stage of the intervention is relatively less dramatic because, in all practical terms, it is more of rubber-stamping whatever intervention has been implemented. This, empirical evidence suggests, is a consequence of the structural factors identified earlier.
Certain changes need to be made to the NDDC’s strategies in order to minimise the negative impacts and maximise the positive impacts of the NDDC interventions. These changes would need to address how the Commission does its intervention and not the written strategies (the projects or programmes) the Commission does. These include institutionalising good governance in the NDDC and promoting good governance by its intervention. Also, there is a need to change the asymmetric relationship characterising the Commission–community relationship. This will ensure that the RCP actively participate throughout the stages of the intervention programming. Moreover, there is a need for mainstreaming peace and conflict and gender sensitivity in the NDDC’s organisational structure and culture, and in its intervention programming. Furthermore, there is a need for explicit and affirmative action on using each intervention to build LCP. In addition, there is a need for I/NGOs to participate in the NDDC interventions in capacity-building for locals and the NDDC on certain focus areas and in monitoring and evaluating the NDDC interventions for compliance. Finally, there is a need to change the perception and organisational culture of the Commission to intervention programming. Retraining and reorientation may be needed for the NDDC personnel to see themselves as social physicians, such as health workers. With these changes in strategies, the likelihood that the Commission will fulfil its mandates will be significantly enhanced.