Clement Oghoro

Research Title

Oil Complex? Land and Oil in Delta State Nigeria

More about Clement 

Clement Oghoro was originally trained in Forestry and Wildlife, at Delta State University in Nigeria. But his interest was beyond Forestry and Wildlife, as he went on to complete an MSc in Environmental Protection and Management from the University of Edinburgh.

He worked briefly with the Department of Forestry of Delta State Ministry of Environment Nigeria, as a scientific officer before embarking on a study leave to commence his doctoral degree at University College London. One of the things that have intrigued me is the subject of land, therefore my research at the  Department of Geography of University College London-UCL explores land in southern Nigeria, drawing on historical and contemporary experiences.

Research Interests

This research engages with the debate on oil resources and their implications on violence but from a land perspective. It revisits the notion of the oil complex to express that disputes emerging from supposedly categorised resource enclaves have deep roots than the specific resource being disputed.

It uses a case study of the colonial Warri province of southern Nigeria and contemporary expression, explored through archival and ethnographic fieldwork to explain how changes in the condition of land have implications on social relations, and vice versa. Land and Oil are not fixed social categories, neither are they mere biophysical materials, as they become objects of unequal social power relations that constantly configure and reconfigure their material nature.

Specifically, the thesis examines the interaction of oil production and land tenure in the “Oil-complex” of Niger Delta, Nigeria and Land is foregrounded to illuminate how parties conspire to instigate disorder in the struggle over access to land and oil compensations.