Ako, Rhuks --- "Resource Exploitation and Environmental Justice: The Nigerian Experience" [2011] ELECD 404; in Botchway, N. Francis (ed), "Natural Resource Investment and Africa’s Development" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2011)

Book Title: Natural Resource Investment and Africa’s Development

Editor(s): Botchway, N. Francis

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781848446793

Section: Chapter 3

Section Title: Resource Exploitation and Environmental Justice: The Nigerian Experience

Author(s): Ako, Rhuks

Number of pages: 33

Extract:

3. Resource exploitation and
environmental justice:
the Nigerian experience
Rhuks Ako

1 INTRODUCTION

Within the contemporary sustainable development paradigm, the exploi-
tation of natural resources must be carried out with due consideration to
environmental and social exigencies. While this may increasingly be the
case in the developed world, it appears that in the developing countries,
such as Nigeria, which this chapter focuses upon, socio-environmental
considerations are seen as a hindrance to the potential economic benefits
of resource exploitation. The chapter examines the key laws that regulate
Nigeria's oil industry, including those that implicate ownership and man-
agement of oil resources, the distribution of oil revenues, landholding, and
environmental protection. It highlights how these laws have contributed
to environmental injustices in the oil-rich Niger Delta region and insti-
gated and/or exacerbated (environmental) conflicts that affect the sustain-
able development of the region.
The chapter is divided into six sections including this introductory
section. The second section presents an historical overview of the Nigerian
oil industry. The third section defines environmental justice with emphasis
on the African conception of the term. The fourth section examines the
Nigerian oil industry's regulatory framework within an environmental
justice paradigm. The fifth section draws the link between environmental
(in)justice in the Niger Delta, environmental conflicts and violence, and
the sixth section concludes.


2 OVERVIEW OF THE NIGERIAN OIL INDUSTRY

The history of the Nigerian oil industry dates back to 1903, when Nigeria
Properties (Limited) and the Nigeria and West African ...