While 50 respondents of non-elite interviews will be given in random, the remaining 50 will be administered to ex-militants, and if access is permissible and personal security is not compromised, to active militants who have refused to disarm. Towing this route, the researcher is aware of some inherent limitations. For instance, the ex-militants whose identity are known to authorities may express some degree of hesitation in divulging important and sensitive incriminating information the researcher seeks to understand. If this becomes the situation, the researcher will identify an alternative access route. The role of an informant becomes essential here. The main purpose of non-elite interview is to gauge how ordinary people and the militants’ think about the amnesty and its implementation. Can ordinary individuals and militants make separate connections and patterns between the amnesty and conflict in the region? Can they state that violent conflict declined in the Niger Delta region and would this, according to their view, be linked to coming into force of the amnesty? Would they think that violent conflict will reoccur in the Delta creeks if the federal government suddenly stops its monthly monetary payments to the former militants? To which extent is the federal government responding to the socioeconomic injustices perpetrated by the state and the acute environmental damage caused through negligence by multinational oil mining companies in the area? Patterns in the interview responses will be analyzed so as to draw connections people make; what reasonable relations do they and do not see? Where do they express consistency, inconsistency, certainty, incoherence, passion, subtlety, and why? Besides interview, survey sampling will be employed. About 1000 participants are expected to respond to the survey questions, 300 of which will be ex-militants (those not previously captured by the structured interview). The survey sampling will elicit information on the respondents socio-demographic background, believe in amnesty, fear about amnesty, perception of amnesty by deserters, as well as the push and pull factors to militancy. The researcher may …show more content…
Collating results of a paper-administered surveys will require additional efforts than it would if done electronically. The survey design assumes that respondents have attained basic literacy level to read and internalize the materials. It is likely that the most impoverished population, those who can not read or write, will be excluded from the survey. The structured interview will partly address this bias. Also, access to rebels in the Niger Delta creeks will present challenges. It is probably that the researcher might be misidentified as an agent working for the federal government of Nigeria. When this happens, access to militants may be restricted. However, this problem may as well be addressed by engaging an informant with excellent local