Minority political mobilization in the struggle for resource control in Nigeria

• With a combination of creative writing (over a dozen books on Ogoni condition, two book-like letters to the Ogoni, several newspaper articles), petitions (addressed to governments and the United Nations), and protest marches, Saro-Wiwa ignited modern minority political mobilization of the Niger Delta.
• The flames of this mobilization have refused to go off in the face of relentless repression by the minders of the Nigerian state.

Pressure from outsiders as groups within a state or as the state in its dominant ideological form is the main driver of ethnic political mobilization. It is no surprise that the state played a prominent role in the minority ethnic revival witnessed in the early 1990s in the developing world. Relying on primary and secondary documentation and the analyses of political events from colonial times, this article examines the role of the state in the development of the oil-based ethnic minority political mobilization in Nigeria. It notes that Ogoni political mobilization and the resource control theme developed by Saro-Wiwa, drew on the Nigerian ethnic-based and major ethnic group skewed electoral competence/structure of political power, unfavorable resource allocation principles, and the abuse of centralized major ethnic group-controlled political power. It is evident from the protest of the Ogoni and other Niger Delta ethnic minorities who imitated their example that violent repression does not definitely terminate protest arising from discontent over deprivation but drives it underground and transforms hitherto non-violent protest into violent protest. Thus, shows Saro-Wiwa’s ethnic political mobilization of the Ogoni to be sublime, enduring among the Ogoni and finding replication among the neglected Niger Delta ethnic minorities.