The Conflict in the Niger Delta arises in the early 1990s due to tensions between the foreign oil corporations and a number of the Niger Delta's minority ethnic groups who feel they are being exploited, particularly the Ogoni as well as the Ijaw in the late 1990s.

Ethnic and political unrest has continued throughout the 1990s and persists as of 2007 despite the conversion to democracy and the election of the Obasanjo government in 1999.

Competition for oil wealth has fueled violence between innumerable ethnic groups, causing the militarization of nearly the entire region by ethnic militia groups as well as Nigerian military and police forces (notably the Nigerian Mobile Police).

The regional and ethnic conflicts are so numerous that fully detailing each is impossible and impractical.

However, there have been a number of major confrontations that deserve elaboration.