HEDA Report Faults Weak PIA Implementation, Urges FG to Show Political Will on Petroleum Environmental Reforms
The Human and Environmental Development Agenda (HEDA Resource Centre) has raised concerns over weak implementation of Nigeria’s petroleum environmental laws, charging the Federal Government to demonstrate deliberate sequencing and sustained political will to drive long-overdue reforms in the oil and gas sector.
HEDA made the call on the back of a new report, “Nigeria’s Petroleum-Environmental Governance: Law, Policy, and Reform Roadmap,” unveiled with support from the Africa Centre for Energy Policy (ACEP), four years after the enactment of the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) 2021.
The report finds that despite the PIA’s promise of stronger governance, improved environmental protection, enhanced host community development and greater transparency, its impact remains limited due to weak enforcement, overlapping institutional mandates, poor compliance culture and low community awareness.
Speaking at the report’s unveiling, HEDA Chairman, Mr. Olanrewaju Suraju, said the study was designed to confront the persistent disconnect between Nigeria’s robust legal frameworks and the realities in oil-producing communities.
According to him, ongoing challenges around oil spill response, gas flaring, decommissioning obligations, host community development and beneficial ownership transparency indicate that key actors in the sector still lack effective tools to enforce accountability.
To close these gaps, HEDA, in collaboration with the Environmental Law Research Institute (ELRI), developed a Stakeholder Accountability Tool and a Simplified Policy Brief to complement the report. The tools outline statutory obligations under the PIA and related environmental laws, identify implementation lapses and provide practical guidance to empower communities, civil society, the media and regulators to demand compliance.
The report offers a detailed assessment of Nigeria’s petroleum environmental governance framework, analysing existing laws, institutional structures and operational mechanisms for environmental prevention, mitigation, remediation and accountability. It draws from doctrinal research, comparative benchmarking and stakeholder feedback obtained through surveys and interviews.
While noting that Nigeria already possesses the core elements of a world-class petroleum environmental governance system, the report said these elements remain fragmented and poorly coordinated. It called for clearer institutional mandates, stronger enforcement, recalibrated penalties, improved management of environmental liabilities during divestment and decommissioning, and real-time public access to data on emissions, spills, remediation efforts and host community development funding.
The study also recommended modernising the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) regime to reflect climate realities and integrating host communities and credible civil society organisations as active partners in monitoring the sector.
On the way forward, Suraju stressed that meaningful reform would require deliberate sequencing of actions backed by sustained political will. He identified key priorities to include legislative updates, institutional integration, financial assurance systems, community oversight, capacity building and improved judicial and administrative efficiency.
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“With discipline, transparency and collaboration, Nigeria can evolve from an extractive state to a responsible energy steward that places environmental governance at the centre of sustainable prosperity,” he said.
HEDA said the publication reaffirms its commitment to transparency, accountability and environmental justice in Nigeria’s extractive sector, pledging continued advocacy to ensure that the PIA delivers tangible benefits to citizens and frontline communities.
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