HUMAN SECURITY IN THE NIGER DELTA: EXPLORING THE INTERPLAY OF RESOURCE GOVERNANCE, COMMUNITY STRUCTURE AND CONFLICTS

Olayinka Ajala*

ABSTRACT

Prior to August 2009, the Niger Delta region of Nigeria witnessed widespread violent conflicts between the government, multinational oil corporations (MNCs) and militant groups. This conflict was widely attributed to deplorable human security, which deprived the indigenes of the region access to their sources of livelihoods due to pollution, by MNCs. In 2009, the government granted amnesty to thousands of ‘repentant militants’ and this programme has achieved mixed results. This article will explore the impact of human security on the outbreak of violence in the Niger Delta and the impact of the Amnesty Programme in addressing issues relating to human security. The article concludes that bottom-up community-driven initiatives offer the best approach to address human security issues in the Niger Delta. The article is based on an ethnographic research carried out in 2013 in three states in the region (Bayelsa, Delta and Rivers states).

Keywords: Human security, justice, environment, Niger Delta, MNCs

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4314/jsdlp.v7i2.5

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* Department of Politics, University of York, email: oaa511@york.ac.uk

THE CLASH OF PROPERTY AND ENVIRONMENTAL RIGHTS IN THE NIGER DELTA REGION OF NIGERIA

Sunday Bontur Lugard*

ABSTRACT

The Niger Delta region of Nigeria, home to about 30 million people, is one of the world’s most prominent deltas. Petroleum exploration in this region has been ongoing for over fifty years and revenue from this activity is at present the mainstay of the Nigerian economy. Granted that it is impracticable to undertake petroleum operations without some negative impact on the environment, a good deal of this pollution can be mitigated. The International Oil Companies (IOCs) are complacent about pollution reduction to a sustainable level; regulatory agencies are either compromised or lack the required expertise or equipment to monitor and enforce compliance with extant environmental protection laws and regulations. The pursuit of the IOCs’ property right over petroleum resources has set them against the other stakeholders’ right to a healthy environment. The clash of these rights can best be addressed by ascribing “collective property” and not “private property” right to the acreage over which they have been granted licence to prospect for, explore or mine petroleum resources.

Keywords: Property rights, natural resource exploration, environmental law.

Doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.4314/jsdlp.v6i2.3

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* Lecturer, Department of International Law and Jurisprudence, Faculty of Law, University of Jos, Nigeria; lugards@unijos.edu.ng.

THE MULTI-AGENCY RESPONSE APPROACH TO THE MANAGEMENT OF OIL SPILL INCIDENTS: LEGAL FRAMEWORK FOR EFFECTIVE IMPLEMENTATION IN NIGERIA

Ayobami Olaniyan*

ABSTRACT

The devastating effects of oil spill incidents on humans and the environment can be overwhelming. Effects such as loss of life, forced displacements, loss of property and serious health risks cannot be overlooked. Also, the long-term damage to the ecosystem, sea life and biodiversity are some of the long-term consequences of an oil spill incident. Thus, a swift response to oil spill incidents is always necessary in order to minimize these effects. The multi-agency response approach emphasizes a holistic and coordinated involvement of several related institutions and entities in order to ensure adequate response to any category of oil spill incident. Even though the multi-agency approach seems to be already embedded in relevant legislation on oil spill control and containment in Nigeria, its operationalization has been less impressive. This article discusses the practical relevance and implementation of multiagency response to oil spills in Nigeria. It appraises the efficacy of relevant Nigerian legislation providing for multi-agency response to oil spill control and containment in Nigeria, highlights the weaknesses of the current regulatory arrangement, and suggests legal reforms to make the multi-agency response approach more efficient and effective in Nigeria. This includes the need to harmonize several overlapping legislations and governance institutions on oil spill response and management to ensure coherence and systemic integration.

Keywords: Multi Agency Response, oil spill, polluter-pays, human rights, Niger Delta.

Doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.4314/jsdlp.v6i1.5

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* LL.B (Ife), B.L (Abuja), LL.M (Aberdeen), Lecturer, College of Law, Afe Babalola University, Ado-Ekiti (ABUAD), Nigeria; ajolaniyan@abuad.edu.ng, ayobamiolaniyan@gmail.com; Associate Fellow at the Institute for Oil, Gas, Energy, Environment and Sustainable Development, Afe Babalola University, Nigeria.

ENHANCING STAKEHOLDER PARTICIPATION IN THE NIGER DELTA REGION: THE POTENTIAL CONTRIBUTIONS OF THE ILO CONVENTION 169

Afolasade A. Adewumi* and Adeniyi Olatunbosun**

ABSTRACT

Nigeria’s indigenous people, found in the Niger Delta area, have for many years experienced developmental challenges associated with oil exploration. The region has been perennially engulfed in various forms of agitation pertaining to self-government and resource control. Over the years, attempts to solve these problems have been merely palliative, basically due to local stakeholders’ perception that they are excluded from decision making about the issues that affect their existence. For many years, the Nigerian government has grappled unsuccessfully with the challenge of fostering broad-based participation and stakeholder engagement in the Niger Delta. This article contends that the problems which have arisen can be addressed through the ratification of the International Labour Organization (ILO) Convention 169 by the Nigerian government. Owing to a recent constitutional alteration in Nigeria, the ILO Convention 169 will not require domestication, arguably, making it a ready and viable toolkit for the progressive realization of participatory rights in the Niger Delta.

Keywords: Niger Delta, ILO, constitution, human rights, pollution, participation.

Doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.4314/jsdlp.v6i1.6

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* LL.B, LL.M, PhD, BL, Lecturer, Department of Jurisprudence and International Law, Faculty of Law, University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria.

** LL.B, LL.M, M.Phil, PhD, BL, Professor of Law and Dean, Faculty of Law, University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria.

STAKEHOLDER APPROACH TO CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY: RECIPE FOR SUSTAINABLE PEACE IN THE NIGER DELTA REGION?

Sunday Bontur Lugard*

ABSTRACT

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is a pathway to positive and sustainable engagement of business-stakeholders in general and its host community in particular, especially when the operations of such enterprise have a way of negatively impacting the environment or other interests of such a community. Empirical research has shown that such engagement has a way of not just improving corporate-community relations but acts as a strategic roadmap to allow stakeholders take ownership of and buy in into corporate sustainability plans. This is one area International Oil Companies (IOCs) operating in Nigeria’s Niger Delta region have arguably floundered, and hence the ensuing and seemingly intractable confrontations from the host communities and militant groups who perennially feel left out of topdown CSR initiatives. This paper discusses the concept of “emotional equity” as a missing piece in community involvement in corporate sustainability in Nigeria. It examines how a stakeholder approach to CSR could serve as a participatory and level playing approach that would engender peaceful, symbiotic engagement and cohabitation between the IOCs and their host communities.

Keywords: Corporate social responsibility, development, environment, pollution

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* LL.B, BL, LL.M is a Lecturer in the Department of International Law and Jurisprudence, Faculty of Law, University of Jos, Nigeria. Email: lugards@unijos.edu.ng.

CHALLENGES OF CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY IN THE NIGER DELTA REGION OF NIGERIA

Hakeem Ijaiya, Ph.D*

ABSTRACT

The Niger Delta Region of Nigeria produces a significant portion of the aggregate oil wealth of Nigeria. Since 1956 when oil was first struck in Oloibiri in Southern Nigeria, the Niger Delta region has accounted for over 90 per cent of Nigeria’s oil income. However, the region has perennially suffered from environmental neglect, crumbling infrastructures and services, high unemployment, social deprivation, abject poverty and endemic conflict. This has led to calls for oil companies operating in the Niger Delta to demonstrate the value of their investments to Nigeria by undertaking increased community development initiatives that provide direct social benefits such as local employment, new infrastructure, schools, and improved health care delivery. This paper examines the concept of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) that is, how companies manage their oil exploration and business processes to produce an overall positive impact on society. It reviews the evolution and growth of the CSR concept under international law and the key institutions that have spearheaded this growth. Since the emergence of the CSR concept in Nigeria, it has been espoused mainly as an optional and non-obligatory responsibility for oil companies. There is currently no national law in the area of CSR. More so, many of the International Corporate Responsibility Instruments, such as, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises; United Nations (UN) Global Compact and the 1998 ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work are soft law instruments with less binding status in international law and by extension in Nigeria. This paper examines the need for a more coherent and binding recognition of the CSR principle in Nigeria. In a country such as Nigeria, where the principles and benefits of democratic governance are still fragile, there is a need for a dynamic and step-wise approach through which the CSR concept could be continually mainstreamed into national laws and policies. Keywords: Corporate Social Responsibility, Niger Delta, Environment

AMNESTY IN THE NIGER DELTA: VERTICAL MOVEMENT TOWARDS SELF-DETERMINATION OR LATERAL POLICY SHIFT?

Rhuks Temitope Ako and Ohiocheoya Omiunu*

ABSTRACT

The inhabitants of Nigeria’s oil-rich Delta region have engaged the State in long-drawn disputes over the ownership and control of oil resources and revenues. While the country’s Constitution vests the absolute ownership and control of oil resources as well as the distribution of oil revenues in the federal government, the Niger Delta communities claim that they are entitled to participate in the industry that exploits resources from their environment. Simply, they claim that the country’s extant laws and the actions of the federal government infringe on their rights to self-determination. The conflicting stance is one of the fundamental causes of violent conflicts that have besieged the region; particularly in the last decade. Coming off the backdrop of peaceful struggles of the Ogoni peoples considered to be largely ineffectual in achieving the desired objectives, ethnic groups have embraced militancy as a means to force the government and oil-multinationals reckon with their demand for self-determination. The consequent breakdown of law and order in the region and the impacts of shortages in production prompted the federal government to initiate the amnesty initiative in June 2009. Under the amnesty programme, militants were offered a presidential pardon, training opportunities, promises of infrastructure development in the region and direct payments of oil revenues to host-communities. This paper seeks to examine the recent developments vis-à-vis the government’s amnesty initiative to determine if this policy has bridged the gap in the longstanding self-determination demands of the Niger Delta communities.

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* Dr. Rhuks Temitope AKO (correspondence author), Lecturer, University of Hull Laws School, England; R.Ako@hull.ac.uk and Ohiocheoya OMIUNU, Doctoral Candidate at the University of Liverpool Law School, England.

THE SEARCH FOR ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE IN THE NIGER DELTA AND CORPORATE ACCOUNTABILITY FOR TORTS: HOW KIOBEL ADDED SALT TO INJURY.

Rufus A Mmadu*

ABSTRACT

Right from the beginning Man has been given the privilege by his Creator to tender the earth and take dominion over his environment. But for the impoverished people of the Niger Delta region, the mainstay of Nigeria’s oil wealth, the situation is ironically abysmal. The region has been the scene of protest, sometimes violence, against the repressive tendencies of the Nigerian state and against the recklessness, exploitative and environmentally unfriendly activities of oil multinationals. The issues of environmental injustice and human rights violations are the central focus of this article. The article examines the concept of corporate accountability for tortuous acts and faults Kiobel as a miscarriage of justice against a people so callously and criminally oppressed. Kiobel’s pronouncement that corporations cannot be held liable for egregious abuses under international law is a sad note on global war against environmental injustice. The paper warns that Kiobel could foster situations in which corporations become immune from liability for human rights violations. The war against environmental degradation is too important to be clogged in web of legal technicalities else man would have no environment to live in.

Keywords: Environmental Justice, Niger Delta, Corporate Accountability, Torts, kiobel

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* LL.M, LL.B (Lagos); Barrister and Solicitor of the Supreme Court of Nigeria; Lecturer, College of Law, Osun State University, Osogbo and also MPhil/Doctoral candidate of the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Osun State, Nigeria. Email: mmadurufus@yahoo.com, rufusmmadu@uniosun.edu.ng . Tel: +2348035319283, +2348127017430.