Cradle of Depletion: Unravelling the Tears of the Niger Delta

The Niger Delta region of Nigeria has faced extreme environmental degradation and a history of exploitation. Whereas anthropogenic thinking fails to engage with the context correctly, the Capitalocene (Moore, 2015a) offers a framework for understanding crises in the Niger Delta, synthesising the analysis of economic and environmental exploitation. Through an analysis of the exploitation and appropriation of ‘Cheap Nature’ (Moore, 2016a; Moore and Patel, 2017), this article uses the Capitalocene and attendant frameworks (see McBrien, 2016) to present a nuanced understanding of environmental change in the Niger Delta, ‘cheap’ nature inherently produces and reproduces ‘negative value’ (McBrien, 2016, p. 118). It thereby reveals the interconnectedness of environmental, socio-economic, and security breakdowns. It does this through the introduction of Nature as an agent, and capitalist exploitation and security in the Niger Delta are examined, transcending mono-causal explanations of an oil curse theory by examining capitalist exploitation and security in the Niger Delta. The security implications materialise in an understanding of ‘negative value’. Nature is exploited and appropriated to such an extent that it pushes back, characterised by environmental degradation and violent/non-violent resistance.