Abstract
Despite being one of the most resource rich countries in Africa, Nigeria remains one of the poorest on key human development indicators. This paper explored how weaknesses in resource governance contribute to economic impoverishment and intensify social conflict in Nigeria. The study adopted a qualitative descriptive research design and employed thematic analysis of secondary data obtained from peer reviewed journals, government reports, World Bank datasets, and policy documents published between 2020 and 2026. It established a clear link between institutional corruption, inequitable fiscal distribution, rising poverty, and multidimensional inequality, demonstrating how these conditions fuel class conflict and other forms of social unrest that characterize contemporary Nigeria. The findings further revealed that governance deficits in the oil sector, including poor transparency in revenue management, weak accountability institutions, and fiscal arrangements that favor exclusionary elite coalitions, are major drivers of both inequality and instability. The paper contributed to the resource curse and rentier state literature by arguing that this relationship is not inevitable but is instead the product of deliberate institutional choices that can be transformed through policy reform. It recommended restructuring fiscal federalism, strengthening transparency and accountability mechanisms, and promoting investment led economic diversification as pathways toward more equitable and sustainable development.
Keywords: Resource governance, Economic inequality, Social instability, Nigeria, Rentier state
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21216209
Authors:
Hassan Muhammed Salisu, Ph.D
Department of Ecnomics
Federal university, of lafia
ORCID iD: 0009-0000-4469-9069
08035649198
Umar Yahaya
Department of public Health
Nasarawa State University, Keffi
umaryahayaloko@gmail.com
0806 558 4371
Copyright © [2026] The Author(s). Published by the Journal of People and Worldviews (JPW). This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) Licence, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are properly credited.