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In this paper I develop a conceptual framework for analysing youth cultures of resistance and violence in the context of customary and world religions in which old and new gods are important sources of ideological resistance. Condensing around points of intersection between capital and non-capitalist kin-based economies, I argue that militant youth cultures develop through a 'double' articulation between 'parent' cultures largely producing use values, and capitalist cultures pervaded by world religions (Christianity, Islam). The former construe social relations between groups struggling to establish rights over strategic natural resources (land, oil, water) in terms of spirit beings and their protective powers against attack; the latter preside today over production for sale and profit according to impersonal market forces that dissolve the social into relationships between 'things', the products of labour exchanged in the market place.

In this briefing I explore some aspects of local & Western discourses of political violence & militarization. I argue that influenced perhaps by historic perceptions, social structures, & commercial 'mentalities' of middlemen, combatants transform 'boundaries in the mind into terrains & jurisdictions on the ground'. Thus, (fundamentalist) discourse communities emerge, guiding the ethnic sovereignty movement, militarization by the state & ethnic liberation groups, legitimizing political violence & redrawing territorial boundaries (c.f. Apter, 1997:1,5). 23 References. Adapted from the source document.

The Niger Delta, one of the world's largest wetlands and the sixth largest exporter of crude oil, is notorious for environmental pollution, poverty and violence. For four decades the Federal Nigerian Government has neglected its obligations to fishing communities in the vicinity of oil wells or facing offshore platforms. Although the Federal Government takes 60% of the dollar sales of crude oil (40% goes to the oil companies), the political class has declined to regulate gas flaring, pipeline maintenance or levels of spillage. Frustrated by their exclusion from the benefits of oil, militant youths attack oil company installations, hi‐jack personnel, and lay waste to villages believed to harbour oil reserves, leaving many homeless. These angry subalterns believe that their communities own and should control of the natural resources in their vicinity. The consequence is an increase of casualties in inter‐communal raids and counter‐raids, in wildfires at spillage sites, and in shootings by 'mobile police' when demonstrating youths enter the oil installations that they guard.

There is a continuing contradiction between the state as the corporate representation of Nigerian society and sectional (ethno‐religious) interests struggling to counter perceived margin‐alisation by revenue 'sharing' among patrons and clients (Joseph, 1987). Power elites in command of the centre identify with the state and proclaim its indivisible 'unitary' character; poly‐ethnic labour activists believe in the Federal Republic but criticise their exclusion from state power by a mege‐rich elite (Ojewale, 2000). Other (southern) leaders are so dissatisfied with the unitary Nigerian state that they are campaigning for a confederation of ethnic 'nationalities' or secession into independent republics. As well, certain northern leaders are emphasising the Islamic identity of the Hausa‐Fulani 'nationality' by substituting Shari'a law for the criminal code so some people believe core northern states are engaging in covert religio‐legal secession (Soyinka, 2000).
The state and ethno‐religious sectionalism thus continue to interact, power elite networking and patronage ensuring that each party to the contradiction reproduces politically unitary and divisive forces in changing constellations, rendering uncertain indeed the outcome of present empowerment struggles.
In this Briefing Caroline Ifeka explores current conflicts. She identifies historical constants in political relations between the state and ethno‐religious 'nationalities' and highlights those that are crumbling. As conflicts intensify the (unitary) viewpoints of certain power elites, reported daily in the print and visual media, become more strident. Ifeka compares these with the sectional perspectives of the struggling masses she encounters in tropical high forest villages, in vigilante meetings, and in guest houses in downtown city quarters. She asks: do current crises and discourses of 'marginalisation' constitute a penultimate phase in the history of a state born and governed through violence, and nurtured in mystifying discourses of 'faith and unity'?

The national and international press report the recent upsurge of youth-led ethnic violence in Nigeria as if it were new. But Ifeka argues that in view of the catastrophic fall in Nigeria's GDP from $US93.1 billion in 1980 to US$40 billion in 1997 (Adedeji, 1999), youth's proclivity for violence is hardly surprising. Indeed, youth-led rebellions are not new. A political economy approach shows that developed economies exploitation of peripheral economies supplying raw materials sustains under-development and conditions spawning periodic revolt (Richards, 1996).
Poverty makes people depend for assistance on customary (kin-based) relationships between superior elders and junior youths. But educated (unemployed) youth are finding that dependency on elders thwarts their own development and that of their people. Militant youth articulate a general perception that development is being obstructed by 'selfish' elders and chiefs who 'chop' on government contracts for their own gain, not their people's advancement.