ENABLING SUSTAINABLE SECURITY THROUGH CORPORATE EDUCATION INVESTMENT IN THE NIGER DELTA REGION: LESSONS FROM THE SHELL PETROLEUM DEVELOPMENT COMPANY’S (SPDC) CRADLE TO CAREER SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAMME

Abstract

The problem of insecurity in the Niger Delta region has continued to attract widespread concerns both from policy commentators and academics alike. In fact, an attempt to cluster the literature on insecurity alone can amount to a whole institutional library given credence to the volume of work done in this regard. This notwithstanding, very little has been done to examine how corporate investment in education can contribute to the security of the region in a sustained manner. It is against this foregoing that this paper examined how corporate organizations are enabling sustainable security through investment in education in the Niger Delta region using the SPDC Cradle to Career (C2C) secondary school scholarship programme as a reference point. To achieve this broad objective, data were elicited from a sample of 302 respondents comprising of 240 Cradle to Career Scholars, 50 External Relations Staff of SPDC and 12 in-depth interview participants made up of chiefs of beneficiary communities and management staff of SPDC. The instruments used for data collection were the questionnaire and in-depth interview. A combination of stratified random, simple random and purposive sampling techniques were adopted to select the respondents. The data gathered through the use of questionnaire were analyzed using frequencies, percentages and chi square ( statistical techniques, while interview related information were analyzed using the thematic method. The findings of the study revealed that given its target population, the SPDC Cradle to Career scholarship investment has significant potential to reduce insecurity in the Niger Delta region. However, the challenge with the programme is its choice of elite schools that are too expensive and this clearly undermines sustainability. In light of this, the paper recommends that SPDC should scale down on cost and consider a partnership option as a way of sustaining the programme.