Feature/OPED
Why Environmental Injustice Flourishes In Nigeria
By Jerome-Mario Utomi
Recently, precisely on Tuesday, November 21, 2023, I participated as a panellist at the Institute for Housing and Urban Development Studies (IHS), Erasmus University, Rotterdam, Netherlands, a panel discussion on The role of multi-stakeholder engagement in achieving environmental justice.
The gathering, which was held in Victoria Island, Lagos, formed part of training on Environmental Justice: Reducing Ecological and Social Inequalities through Effective and Participatory Land Governance.
Essentially, in my private study/preparation for the programme, the need to domesticate the subject became paramount to me. To achieve this objective; the following questions came flooding; what is environmental justice? Are there traces or evidence that it exists in any part of Nigeria? In what form or shape? Who are the people responsible? Who are the most impacted? What is the politics that kept it going? How can we creatively achieve effective development, implementation and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies without discrimination against the have-nots and vulnerable peoples? What strategy and tactics can policy and decision-makers at both Federal and state levels adopt to get the people directly involved in the decision-making process that affects their environment?
Providing answers to the above questions, beginning with the first, from what experts are saying, environmental justice is a crusade that advocates fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people, regardless of race, colour, national origin, or income, with respect to the development, implementation and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies.
Viewed broadly, environmental justice, according to the world information search engine, Wikipedia, is a social movement to address environmental injustice, which occurs when poor or marginalized communities are harmed by hazardous waste, resource extraction, and other land uses from which they do not benefit. The movement has generated hundreds of studies showing that exposure to environmental harm is inequitably distributed.
Historically, the movement began in the United States in the 1980s. It was heavily influenced by the American civil rights movement and focused on environmental racism within rich countries. The movement was later expanded to consider gender, international environmental injustice, and inequalities within marginalised groups.
The global environmental justice movement arises from local environmental conflicts in which environmental defenders frequently confront multinational corporations in resource extraction or other industries. Local outcomes of these conflicts are increasingly influenced by transnational environmental justice networks.
Undoubtedly, when the above definition/explanation is juxtaposed with the ongoing degradation in the country in the name of development, it becomes glaringly obvious that environmental injustice exists here in Nigeria and remains a sin that all must share in its guilt. But if this injustice which daily and harmfully impacts the poor and other vulnerable Nigerians is a challenge in other parts of the country, what is happening in the Niger Delta region, South-South Geopolitical zone is a crisis.
It is a brazen unfairness planted by the government and signposted in areas such as; a parade of multiple but obsolete environmental laws, poor enforcement habits and brazen lack of capacity to see through to programme monitoring and evaluation, discrepancy in application and implementation of environmental, policies, programmes and initiatives.
This environmental ill is further accelerated by corporate organizations’ particularly the International Oil Companies (IOCs) noncompliance with international best practices in their day-to-day quest for profit maximization through crude oil exploration and production in the Niger Delta region and compounded by their erroneous understanding of call for Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) as a dangerous fiction targeted at hand twisting the rich and mighty.
Out of many such examples, this piece will highlight evidence of incapacity to enforce compliance with environmental regulations and demands.
Fundamentally, many Nigerians with critical interest had hitherto believed that the advent of Nigeria’s Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) 2021, which was signed into law in the aforementioned years, and arguably the most audacious attempt to overhaul the petroleum sector in Nigeria, will solve the real and imagined challenges in the nation’s petroleum sector, and turn Niger delta region, particularly host communities to a zone of peace in their relationship with Crude Oil prospecting and exploration companies.
But today, facts have since emerged that instead of providing the legal, governance, regulatory and fiscal framework for the Nigerian Petroleum Industry and the host communities, the Petroleum Industry Act (Act), has contrary to expectation become a first line of conflict between crude oil prospecting, exploration companies and their host communities. Like other Acts that guided crude oil production in the past, PIA has similarly become a toothless bulldog that neither bites nor barks. In fact, analysts and industry watchers have come to a sudden realization that nothing has changed.
A tour by boat of creeks and coastal communities of Warri South West and Warri North Local Government Areas of Delta state will amply reveal that the much-anticipated end in sight of gas flaring is actually not in sight. In the same manner, a journey by road from Warri via Eku-Abraka to Agbor, and another road trip from Warri through Ughelli down to Ogwuashi Ukwu in Aniocha Local Government of the state, shows an environment where people cannot properly breathe as it is littered by gas flaring points.
To a large extent, the above confirms as true the recently published report which among other concerns noted that Nigeria has about 139 gas flare locations spread across the Niger Delta both in onshore and offshore oil fields where gas which constitutes about 11 per cent of the total gas produced are flared. Apart from the health implications of flared gases on humanity, its adverse impact on the nation’s economy is equally weighty.
Banking on what experts are saying, the major reason for the flaring of gases is that when crude oil is extracted from onshore and offshore oil wells, it brings with it raw natural gas to the surface where natural gas transportation, pipelines, and infrastructure are lacking, like in the case of Nigeria, this gas is instead burned off or flared as a waste product as this is the cheapest option. This has been going on since the 1950s when crude oil was first discovered in commercial quantities in Nigeria.
While Nigeria and Nigerians persist in encountering gas flaring in the country, even so, has successive administrations in the country made both feeble and deformed attempts to get it arrested.
The facts are there and speak for it.
In 2016, President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration enacted Gas Flare Prohibition and Punishment), an act that among other things made provisions to prohibit gas flaring in any oil and gas production operation, blocks, fields, onshore or offshore, and gas facility treatment plants in Nigeria.
On Monday, September 2, 2018, Dr Ibe Kachikwu, Minister of State for Petroleum (as he then was) while speaking at the Buyers’ Forum/stakeholders’ Engagement organized by the Gas Aggregation Company of Nigeria in Abuja among other things remarked thus; ‘I have said to the Department of Petroleum Resources, beginning from next year (2019 emphasis added), we are going to get quite frantic about this (ending gas flaring in Nigeria) and companies that cannot meet with extended periods –the issue is not how much you can pay in terms of fines for gas flaring, the issue is that you would not produce. We need to begin to look at the foreclosing of licenses’.
The threat has since ended in the frames as the Minister did little or nothing to get the threat actualized.
The administration also launched the now abandoned National Gas Flare Commercialization Programme (NGFCP, a programme, according to the Federal Government aimed at achieving the flares-out agenda/zero routine gas flaring in Nigeria by 2020.
Again, like a regular trademark, it failed.
Away from Buhari’s administration, in 1979, the then Federal Government in a similar style came up with the Associated Gas Re-injection Act which summarily prohibited gas flaring and also fixed the flare-out deadline for January 1, 1984. It failed in line with the leadership philosophy in the country.
Similar feeble and deformed attempts were made in 2003, 2006, and 2008.
In the same style and span, precisely on July 2, 2009, the Nigerian Senate passed a Gas Flaring (Prohibition and Punishment) Bill 2009 (SB 126) into Law fixing the flare-out deadline for December 31, 2010- a date that slowly but inevitably failed. Not stopping at this point, the FG made another attempt in this direction by coming up with the Petroleum Industry Bill which fixed the flare-out deadline for 2012. The same Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) was protracted till 2021 when it completed its gestation and was subsequently signed into law by President Buhari, as the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA).
Despite this vicious movement to save the environment and its people, the Niger Delta challenge remains. So the question that is as important as the piece itself is; if this legion of laws/Acts cannot save the people of the region, who will? When will it complete its gestation period and deliver the targeted environmental protection/justice to the people of the Niger Delta region?
While answer(s) to the above question remain germane, this piece also identifies the government’s reluctance to appreciate development plans and reform programs from a rights-based perspective, as another fundamental obstacle to realizing environmental justice in the country.
This non-infusion of human rights perspective to development adversely acts as an impediment to the application of principles of participation, accountability, transparency and non-discrimination towards the attainment of equity and justice in development initiatives.
As clarified by the United Nations Independent Expert on the Right to Development, for a programme to be tagged development, it must require a particular process that allows the realization of economic, social and cultural rights, as well as civil and political rights, and all fundamental freedoms, by expanding the capabilities and choices of the individual.
To operationalize the above guideline, the state and federal government must shun all forms of discriminatory approaches to environmental designs, implementation and enforcement, as the concentration of environmental attention in one part of the state to the detriment of others is nothing but environmental injustice.
As stated elsewhere “the intentional involvement of traditionally underrepresented communities — especially low-income people of colour — is key to addressing local environmental justice concerns. Not only do these communities benefit from inclusion in the planning processes, but their knowledge can help those making planning and policy decisions in identifying activities of polluters and potential hidden hazards that they may not even realize exist.
This holds the opinion that both Federal and state governments must internalize these facts.
Jerome-Mario Utomi is the Programme Coordinator (Media and Public Policy), Social and Economic Justice Advocacy (SEJA), a Lagos-based Non-Governmental Organization (NGO). He can be reached via Je*********@***oo.com or 09032725374
By Blaise Udunze
Daily, the world watches Nigeria through a familiar lens in what appears to be a gory situation. Especially in cases when the news headlines tell stories of farmer-herder clashes, bandit attacks, kidnappings, villages reduced to ashes or deserted by the dwellers, as thousands of Nigerians have been displaced across states such as Zamfara, Plateau, Benue, Niger, Kaduna and Nasarawa. Subliminally, this is about to become a similarly ugly occurrence in southwestern Nigeria, which is fast becoming obvious if not nipped in the bud quickly.
Recorded data have shown that bandits, Boko Haram, and others killed over 190,000 Nigerians in 17 years and displaced 3.7 million people.
A human rights organisation, the International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law (Intersociety), in its fearful revelation, has said that no fewer than 190,150 Nigerians have been killed by bandits, Boko Haram insurgents, and suspected armed herdsmen between July 2009 and March 19, 2026, as this calls for concern.
The dominant explanations often point to ethnic tensions, religious divisions, climate change, shrinking grazing routes or weak security institutions. No doubt, those factors are certainly part of Nigeria’s complex security crisis. Yet another question deserves serious examination.
What if, in some locations, the violence is also serving another purpose? What if some of the territories experiencing repeated displacement are the same places sitting atop some of Nigeria’s most valuable mineral deposits? More importantly, if such a pattern exists, who benefits when communities disappear?
Of a truth, these questions are uncomfortable, but undeniably they deserve careful investigation rather than dismissal.
For ages, Nigeria has been naturally endowed, and it is estimated to be rich in enormous significant reserves of gold, lithium, uranium, tin, columbite and other strategic minerals increasingly sought after in the global transition to clean energy technologies. As international demand for battery minerals continues to rise, these resources have become far more valuable than they were only a decade ago.
If one overlays publicly available geological information with maps showing persistent violence, some observers argue that striking geographical overlaps appear in several regions. Such overlaps alone cannot establish causation. Correlation is not proof of conspiracy. However, they raise questions worthy of independent scrutiny.
One issue attracting increasing attention and adequately yearns for answer is whether prolonged insecurity may inadvertently or deliberately create conditions that make mineral extraction easier.
Under Nigeria’s Nigerian Minerals and Mining Act 2007, mineral resources belong to the Federal Government, while mining rights are granted through licences and leases. Community engagement and land access are expected to form part of the licensing process, although implementation varies depending on circumstances. This raises an important policy question.
What happens when the communities expected to participate in those processes have already fled because of violence?
Displacement changes the dynamics of land ownership, consent and access. While no evidence automatically proves that attacks are orchestrated to facilitate mining, the sequence of violence followed by renewed commercial activity in some locations deserves closer examination by regulators, lawmakers and investigative journalists.
In conflict studies, researchers have long observed that wars often generate economic winners alongside humanitarian losers. Could elements of Nigeria’s insecurity also be producing economic beneficiaries?
Reports over the years have documented concerns about illegal mining operations across parts of northern Nigeria. Government agencies themselves have repeatedly acknowledged that criminal networks profit from the country’s vast mineral wealth. The unresolved question is whether isolated criminality has, in some instances, evolved into more sophisticated alliances involving political influence, financial interests and international supply chains. If so, the implications extend far beyond Nigeria.
Invariably, it is clearly known that lithium has become one of the world’s most strategic commodities, powering electric vehicle batteries and renewable energy storage systems. Gold has always remained one of the safest global investment assets during periods of uncertainty. Meanwhile, it is well confirmed that the global appetite for these minerals creates enormous financial incentives.
Suppose violent displacement reduces resistance to extraction. Suppose shell companies subsequently acquire mining interests. Suppose minerals then leave Nigeria through legitimate-looking export documentation while their true value remains understated.
These scenarios remain allegations unless supported by verifiable evidence. Yet they outline a framework that investigators may wish to test rather than ignore. Financial crime experts frequently identify trade mis-invoicing as one of the most common methods of illicit financial flows worldwide.
Could Nigeria’s solid minerals sector be vulnerable to similar practices? If valuable lithium ore is deliberately but inaccurately described as lower-value material on export documents, substantial wealth could potentially leave the country without reflecting its true market value. Likewise, if unrefined gold exits through privileged channels with limited scrutiny, questions naturally arise about oversight, transparency and accountability over criminal activities which have continued to stunt and disrupt the country’s socio-economic growth and at the same time cause carnage.
Such possibilities are not accusations against any particular institution or company. Rather, they illustrate why stronger monitoring systems are increasingly essential. Another question concerns logistics.
With the high level of criminal activities, industrial mining requires heavy machinery, diesel supplies, transportation networks and specialised personnel. These are not operations that can remain invisible indefinitely.
If certain territories are genuinely too dangerous for security agencies, how do industrial-scale extraction activities reportedly continue in some remote locations? If they do, who protects those operations? Who authorises their movement? Who verifies what is extracted? Who ensures royalties and export revenues reach public coffers? These are governance questions that demand institutional answers.
Equally important is the international dimension. Minerals extracted in Nigeria ultimately enter global supply chains. Gold may pass through international refining hubs before entering financial markets. Lithium may become part of battery manufacturing destined for electric vehicles, which are being sold across Europe, North America and Asia.
One known fact is that consumers purchasing products containing these minerals rarely know the full story of where they originated.
Increasingly, however, investors and governments are demanding ethical sourcing standards that trace minerals from extraction to final manufacture.
A critical factor that must be taken into cognisance is that if insecurity is creating opportunities for illegal or unethical extraction anywhere in the world, multinational companies have responsibilities alongside national governments, of which the onus falls on the Nigerian government.
Transparency cannot stop at the mine gate. Nor should accountability end at national borders. Another issue requiring attention concerns beneficial ownership.
Across many jurisdictions, shell companies can obscure the identities of individuals ultimately controlling commercial assets. If politically exposed persons or powerful business interests are hidden behind complex corporate structures registered offshore, identifying beneficiaries becomes significantly more difficult. This challenge is hardly unique to Nigeria.
Findings showed that from Latin America to Central Africa and Southeast Asia, resistant corporate networks have frequently complicated efforts to combat corruption and illicit resource extraction. That is precisely why open corporate registries, beneficial ownership databases and transparent mining licence disclosures are becoming global governance priorities. For Nigeria, the stakes could hardly be higher.
The country stands at the centre of the world’s emerging critical minerals economy. The Nigerian government can’t feign ignorance of the fact that, when handled transparently, these resources could finance infrastructure, education, healthcare, and industrial development for generations.
In no way would the government claim not knowing that when handled poorly, they risk becoming another chapter in the well-documented “resource curse,” where extraordinary natural wealth coincides with persistent poverty, insecurity and institutional weakness.
The ultimate challenge, therefore, is not simply about mining. It is about governance. It is about whether public institutions possess both the independence and capacity to ensure that natural resources benefit citizens rather than narrow interests. It is about whether conflict zones receive genuine peacebuilding efforts instead of becoming forgotten frontiers. And it is about whether international markets demand accountability with the same enthusiasm they demand raw materials.
None of these questions should be answered through speculation. They require rigorous investigations, forensic financial analysis, satellite imagery, mining license audits, customs records, beneficial ownership disclosures and courageous journalism.
They require governments willing to open their books. They require international cooperation capable of tracing money across borders. Most importantly, they require asking questions that have too often remained unasked.
Perhaps Nigeria’s security crisis is exactly what it appears to be: a tragic convergence of historical grievances, weak institutions, criminality and environmental pressures. Or perhaps, in some places, another layer of economic incentive deserves closer scrutiny.
Until those questions are thoroughly investigated, one possibility will continue to linger. Maybe the world’s attention has been fixed on the blood spilt above ground, while too little attention has been paid to the extraordinary wealth lying beneath it.
Blaise, a journalist and PR professional, writes from Lagos and can be reached via: bl***********@***il.com
Feature/OPED
What Does Nigeria’s $51bn Reserves Milestone Mean if Most New Foreign Money Can Leave Quickly?
Nigeria’s foreign reserves have climbed to about $51 billion, a decade-plus high, according to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). EBC Financial Group (EBC) notes that this reflects stronger investor confidence, but the second half may show whether it holds, as the build rests on three cyclical drivers: oil earnings, short-term foreign money and a narrowing official-to-street naira gap.
Reserves rose from about $32 billion in April 2024, during a dollar shortage, to about $51 billion now, near the CBN’s target. Much came from two cyclical sources, strong oil earnings and money chasing high-yielding naira assets, so EBC expects the pace to slow or reverse. Fitch Ratings, a major international credit rating agency, expects a marginal decline to about $47 billion by the end of 2026, citing higher spending and external pressures.
David Precious, Senior Market Analyst at EBC Financial Group, said, “Nigeria’s reserve build is real but may not be durable yet, because nearly all of the new money is the kind that can leave quickly. Of the $10.37 billion that came in over the first quarter, the overwhelming majority was short-term portfolio funds rather than long-term investment, so a shift in oil prices, global interest rates or confidence in the naira might pull a large part of it straight back out.”
Most New Money Can Still Leave Quickly
The composition of the foreign inflows explains the caution over how long the build can last. The country attracted $10.37 billion in foreign investment in the first quarter of 2026, up 83.83 per cent year-on-year, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). Of that, $9.86 billion or 95.09 per cent, was portfolio money, largely short-term naira debt such as Treasury bills that investors can sell at the next auction, while foreign direct investment, the long-term kind that builds factories and jobs, was $135.08 million, or 1.30 per cent. Put simply, of each dollar coming in, about 95 cents can leave quickly, and barely one cent stays.
That money supports reserves while it stays. Dollars brought in to buy naira assets add to market supply, letting the CBN hold more reserves and steady the naira. It leaves when conditions change. Nigeria earns most of its export dollars from oil and gas, so lower oil prices mean fewer dollars, and as a member of the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), it cannot simply produce more, output capped by quota and reduced by theft and ageing fields. Higher global interest rates draw money toward safer returns abroad, and a weakening naira prompts investors to sell early. When oil fell in 2016 and 2020, foreign investors withdrew and could not convert naira to dollars as supply dried up, leaving the CBN to clear more than $7 billion in trapped obligations into 2024.
The Oil Boost is No Longer Certain
Oil looked like a dependable source of the dollars behind the reserves only months ago. Earlier in 2026, concern over disruption around the Strait of Hormuz lifted crude prices, and stronger receipts flowed in, with crude oil export earnings of $8.11 billion in the first quarter in the CBN’s balance-of-payments data. That support is now easing. The tension has subsided, and Brent traded near $72 on June 29, down about 24 per cent over the month, back to pre-conflict levels. With the price boost gone and output constrained, reserves are more exposed, leaning on non-oil earnings and investor patience rather than oil.
The Naira Still Trades at Two Prices
The naira has traded at two prices, an official rate and a higher parallel-market rate, and closing that gap into one trusted price is what many investors might watch most. Before committing funds, they may want assurance they can convert naira to dollars at a fair rate when they exit, and a wide gap revives the fear of being trapped that lingers from earlier shortages. The gap has narrowed to roughly N20 to N30, with the CBN’s official rate near N1,380 per dollar on June 26 against parallel-market quotes around N1,400. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) 2026 Article IV review urged Nigeria to depend less on this fast-moving portfolio money and to keep phasing out its multiple exchange-rate practices. The CBN’s Foreign Exchange Manual, in force from 1 June, is intended to make the market clearer, though such rules build confidence only once investors can freely trade dollars at the posted rate.
What could Make the Build Durable
A few signs that may show the build turning durable include a smaller gap between the official and street naira rates, more long-term foreign investment, and steadier oil earnings. A gap that stays small, now roughly N20 to N30, may mean investors trust the official rate and no longer need the street market. A clear rise in foreign direct investment, only $135 million last quarter against $9.86 billion of short-term money, might mean lasting capital is replacing funds that can leave at the next auction. Oil earnings that hold up, rather than sliding from the low $70s, should help keep reserves steady, since oil and gas bring in most of Nigeria’s export dollars.
“Reserves built on money chasing high yields can fall as fast as they rose, as they did after the last two oil shocks, when investors left, and the CBN spent years clearing a foreign-exchange backlog,” Precious added. “What holds through a downturn is slower money, direct investment, steady oil and non-oil export earnings and one credible naira rate, and that is the shift Nigeria has yet to make.”
By Olajumoke Bello
Across Nigeria, small and medium enterprises remain the backbone of economic activity. They drive trade, create jobs, and sustain millions of livelihoods. Yet, despite their importance, many SMEs continue to operate below their full potential due to persistent structural challenges.
Access to finance remains one of the most cited constraints. However, the issue today goes beyond the availability of capital. Many businesses struggle with financial readiness, weak documentation, and limited understanding of what lenders require. This often leads to missed opportunities, even when funding options exist.
At the same time, SMEs face gaps in market access and visibility. Business owners operate in highly localised environments, with limited exposure to broader networks that can unlock partnerships, new markets, and growth opportunities. This isolation can constrain scalability and reduce long-term competitiveness.
Equally important is the capability gap. Many entrepreneurs grow through resilience and experience but lack structured knowledge on critical areas such as financial management, export readiness, and digital adoption. Without this, even well-capitalised businesses can struggle to sustain growth.
These challenges point to a clear need for a more practical and integrated approach to SME support. It is no longer sufficient to offer standalone solutions. SMEs require ecosystems that combine knowledge, access, and direct engagement in ways that reflect how they actually operate.
A key shift is the move from centralised interventions to localised engagement. SMEs are deeply influenced by their immediate environments, whether markets, industrial clusters, or trade corridors. Solutions must therefore be brought closer to where these businesses function, allowing for more relevant support and stronger relationships.
Another important shift is from awareness to action. Business owners do not only need information; they need insights that they can apply immediately. This includes understanding how to structure their finances, how to access trade opportunities, and how to connect with the right partners to scale their operations.
There is also a growing need for continuity. Many SME-focused initiatives deliver strong initial impact but lack follow-through. For support to be effective, it must extend beyond one-off engagements into sustained relationships, with clear pathways for onboarding, advisory, and growth.
For financial institutions, this presents both responsibility and an opportunity. Supporting SMEs now requires moving beyond transactional banking to deeper partnership models. It requires understanding businesses at a granular level and co-creating solutions that evolve with their needs.
At Stanbic IBTC, this perspective continues to shape our approach to SME development. Our focus is on delivering practical support that translates into real business outcomes, helping enterprises grow, compete, and contribute more meaningfully to the economy.
As part of this commitment, we are extending our SME engagement to the regions through the Nigeria Business Summit Regional Tour. The tour will take structured, on-ground activations into key commercial hubs, where SMEs can access funding guidance, trade insights, advisory support, and direct engagement with financial experts.
The regional tour will take place across five strategic locations, bringing these solutions closer to business owners in Aba, Onitsha, Ibadan and Kano.
This approach reflects an important principle. When support moves closer to businesses and when solutions are delivered in ways that are practical and continuous, SMEs are better positioned to grow sustainably. In turn, this strengthens not only individual enterprises but the broader economy.
Olajumoke Bello is the Head of Enterprise Banking at Stanbic IBTC Bank
