APPRAISAL OF THE PETROLEUM SECTOR NATURAL RESOURCE GOVERNANCE IN NIGERIA

Abstract

The work seeks to appraise the Nigerian Petroleum sector and the issue of Natural resource governance. This issue aggregate to create a situation hereafter referred to as “resource curse”, which provides the rational basis for understanding the prevalence of poverty in many resource rich countries. It also seeks to interrogates how law, corporate governance and institutional restructuring can help reform the Nigeria Petroleum sector to actualize the ideals of sustainable industry. The Nigeria Petroleum sector remains an enclave that provides a tiny proportion of the overall employment and has relatively few direct linkages with the rest of the economy. This to a large extent includes the challenge of transparency and accountability in revenue management.

A Doctrinal methodology, combining primary and secondary sources of information was adopted in this work. The key legislations are the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 as (altered), the Petroleum Industry Act 2021, Petroleum Profit Tax Act 2007, Audit Act 1956, Fiscal Responsibility Act 2007, Public Procurement Act 2007, and Nigerian Extractive Transparency Initiative (NEITI).

The work finds that Nigeria’s unwholesome reliance on Petroleum and rent seeking has created structural imbalances and socio-economic maladies in the economy. And identifies the challenges in Nigeria’s quest to institutionalize Natural Resource governance and has made policy recommendations with a view to reforming and institutionalizing the practices of Natural Resource governance within the Nigeria context.

The works concludes that good natural resource governance that embodies corporate governance is essential to the realization of the laudable objective of the Petroleum Industry Act, without which the exploitation of the petroleum resources in Nigeria will not attain its desired objective of impacting positively on the other sectors of the economy.