Risk Management and Regulatory Failure in the Oil and Gas Industry in Nigeria: Reflections on the Impact of Environmental Degradation in the Niger Delta Region

Risk management practice and effective policy intervention are critical to achieve stable environment and sustainable development. They are mechanisms for environmental management, environmental sustainability and sustainable community development for the people of the Niger Delta region. Informed by intuitive insights on the large scale of degradation in the Niger Delta, theoretical analysis of extant literature and content analysis of field interview/observation, this paper identified poor environmental risk management and regulatory failure as the bane of environmental degradation in the Niger Delta region. Why has regulatory agencies failed to protect communities against the impacts of environmental degradation and other consequences of oil and gas exploration activities? While there are enough legal and regulatory frameworks, however, weak enforcement and poor implementation of the existing regulations provides fertile ground for environmental degradation to persist. Thus, this article analyses some of the salient environmental issues as well as the regulatory and risk management failures in the oil and gas industry in Nigeria. It concludes that failure to carry out effective regulations and oversight in the oil and gas industry have resulted in environmental degradation (oil spills and gas flaring), contamination of water for fishing and farming activities, dispossession of rural farmers from their means of livelihood, poverty, migration and food shortages in the Niger Delta.