test Bulala
RosaLyn Dressman
28 August 2026
These rulers were not modern resource-control activists, and their palm-oil-era conflicts should not be projected backwards from contemporary petroleum politics. Their experiences nevertheless show that contests over commercial access, political authority, and the terms imposed by external power predated crude oil. The paper then examines whether Nigeria implemented the substance of Willink’s response to minority fears and why agitation nevertheless persisted. It compares the Tiv and wider Middle Belt experience, the Calabar-Ogoja-Rivers and Mid-West state movements, Isaac Adaka Boro’s 1966 revolt, the 1967 creation of twelve states, the transformation of derivation and fiscal federalism, the succession of Niger Delta intervention agencies, the Ogoni and Ijaw rights movements, Odi, armed militancy, the 2009 Presidential