| dc.description.abstract | Niger Delta region of Nigeria is naturally endowed with huge oil and gas deposits,
fauna and flora. However, unsustainable exploitation of its oil and gas since 1956, has
led to breaches of environmental standards, human and environmental rights. The
existence of obnoxious laws have all contributed to the huge destruction of its
ecosystem, endangered its biodiversity, human health and its people's means of
livelihood. These have created a two-pronged environmental violence problems;
namely; violence against renewable natural resources within the environment by
MNOCs and violent agitations by indigenous people against the degradation of
ecological biodiversity within their environment. The use of physical violence to stop
protests against renewable natural resource exploitation has not helped but
compounded the problem.
A plethora of literature on Niger Delta research including Niger Delta environmental
degradation, Conflicts and Niger Delta, Internationalisation of the conflict, Niger Delta
and human rights, Bill of Rights and Resource control has proliferated but there exists a
gap in the literature, which this research fills. It is the utilization of combined legislation
and renewable energy regulation in the mitigation of iger Delta environmental
violence. This study contributes to this knowledge as a multidisciplinary new
perspective on Niger Delta research.
The study establishes a nexus between the contributory legal loopholes, energy crisis
and unsustainable mining activities as joint causations of the Niger Delta environmental
violence. This necessitates the meeting of legal and energy solutions at an equilibrium
point for effective mitigation of the crisis. The objectives of this study include
developing resource control based and environmentally friendly legal reforms in
Nigeria; evolving a renewable energy policy and legal regimes that promote energy mix
and mitigate environmental violence in Niger Delta.
This study adopted both quantitative and qualitative research methods where. Primary
data were generated through questionnaires and interviews while secondary data were
sourced through books, journals, articles, newspapers and the internet. About 280
people constituted the sample size of the population of the study, as well as Focus
Group Discussion (FGD).
Findings from respondents reveal that 90% of MNOCs and Government resource
exploitations are below international best practices in oil exploitation; 47% do not
consider dialogue for resolving the problem. Over 96% are convinced that
Government's failure to ensure M OCs compliance with standards is a major cause of
the crisis. Focus Group Discussants (FGD) were in consensus that resource control
based legal reforms and development of huge renewable energy resources in Nigeria
(particularly in the Niger Delta and Northern Nigeria) could mitigate Niger Delta
environmental violence.
In conclusion, Niger Delta's two pronged environmental violence could effectively be
mitigated using a multidisciplinary problem-solving model that combines legal reforms
and renewable energy solution driven approaches. The researcher recommends that
Nigeria should commence a legal reforms process in favor of fiscal federalism and
resource control; pass into law the pending Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB); enact a
renewable energy law and establish a regulatory authority to set renewable standards,
create massive employment opportunities to engage restive Niger Delta youths, create
forest harvests to implement reforestation and afforestation projects for the mitigation
of effects of emissions. Finally, strict enforcement of existing environmental laws and
standards is also recommended. | en_US |
