Comparative Analysis of Economic Activities in the Pre-Maritime Era and Post-Maritime Era in Bonny Local Government Area

Abstract

This article undertakes a comparative analysis of economic activities in Bonny Local Government Area, Rivers State, Nigeria, across two historically distinct periods: the pre- maritime era, when the local economy rested on artisanal fishing, subsistence agriculture and canoe-borne trade, and the post-maritime era, ushered in by large-scale port and liquefied natural gas infrastructure, particularly the Shell-BP crude oil terminal of 1961 and the Nigeria LNG plant commissioned in 1999. Anchored on Rostow's stages of economic growth and Auty's resource curse thesis, the study adopted a descriptive comparative survey design, drawing on a purposively selected sample of forty-two long-resident business operators and community elders in Bonny who had lived through both eras and could therefore validly report on both. Data were collected using a structured retrospective questionnaire and analysed using descriptive statistics and the paired-samples t-test. Findings show a statistically significant decline in traditional economic activity (fishing, farming and canoe trade) between the pre-maritime and post-maritime eras (t(41) = 5.87, p < .001), a statistically significant rise in modern, maritime-linked economic activity (oil and gas services, contracting and formal wage employment) over the same period (t(41) = -7.42, p < .001), and a significant positive relationship between the pace of maritime-era infrastructural transition and the diversification of local economic activity (r = .461, p = .002). These findings, read alongside prior empirical work on Bonny and the wider Niger Delta, indicate that maritime industrialization in Bonny Local Government Area has been simultaneously transformative and disruptive: it has diversified incomes and expanded formal employment while eroding the fishing- and farming- based livelihoods that sustained the area for centuries. The article concludes that Bonny's economic transition reflects the resource curse dynamic more than a clean Rostowian take-off, and recommends deliberate diversification policy, restoration of degraded fishing grounds, and structured skills-transition support for displaced traditional operators.

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