Regional development authorities On a federal level, the
Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs and its parastatal – the
Niger Delta Development Commission – cover the South-South in addition to three other oil-producing states (
Abia,
Imo, and
Ondo). Unlike the development authorities of other zones like the
North-East Development Commission, the present authorities are responsible for the areas outside of the South-South as the NDDC was created in response to protests and
conflict in the wider
Niger Delta region. Nonetheless, the creation of a South-South Development Commission has been repeatedly proposed by some lawmakers in the late 2010s and 2020s, with proponents advocating fairness with the other zones' commissions while opponents deride the proposal as redundant. The remit of the current development agencies includes ecological protection and infrastructure development; however, both the ministry and commission have long been beset by corruption and mismanagement that has led to the abandonment or failure of many projects.
States and local government areas Politics Although the areas that now comprise the South-South were electorally competitive during the
first,
second, and aborted
third republics, every state in the region consistently voted for the nominees of the
Peoples Democratic Party in
fourth republic presidential elections from 1999 to 2019. After
Olusegun Obasanjo won the South-South by substantial margins of victory in
1999 and
2003,
Goodluck Jonathan – an indigene of
Bayelsa State – expanded PDP margins greatly in
2011 and
2015. However, PDP margins of victory decreased in
2019, when
Atiku Abubakar was the party nominee. In
2023, with Abubakar again as the PDP nominee, four South-South states broke their streaks of PDP voting – with
Rivers being won by
Bola Tinubu (APC) amid widespread irregularities while
Cross River,
Delta, and
Edo voted for
Peter Obi (LP).
In presidential elections Presidential votes in South-South states in the Fourth Republic: == Notes ==