ABSTRACT
This chapter interrogates the new wave of insurgent activities in Nigeria’s oil-rich Delta region. The ascendance of insurgent organizations such as the Niger Delta Avengers (NDA), the Adaka Boro Avengers (ADA), Asawana Deadly Force of Niger Delta (ADFND), Joint Niger Delta Liberation Force (JNDLF), and the Niger Delta Greenland Justice Mandate (NDGJM), among others, has fractured the relative tranquillity heralded by the government’s amnesty program and caused disruption in the global oil market. The chapter demonstrates how factors intrinsic to Nigeria’s socio-political structure have led to a new wave of insurgency. The new wave or “insurgency 3.0” is a continuation of yet differs from previous insurgencies. Fundamental internal divisions in the Niger Delta mark this new wave. The texture of these divisions makes the current wave potentially more catastrophic for the Nigerian rentier state. The chapter explicates how the carousel of environmental injustice and economic mal-distribution proliferates unemployed and alienated youth in the Niger Delta. Overall, the study contributes to scholarship on the Niger Delta, the resource war literature and social movement scholarship.
