SOCIO-POLITICAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL ELEMENTS THAT VITIATE INDUSTRIAL OIL SPILLAGE AND POLLUTION MANAGEMENT SCHEME IN NIGERIA

Oil pollution, both in the air and land space, has over the years attracted serious problems on the use of the environment. This pollution manifested in water pollution through oil pipeline spillages with the attendant adverse effects on aquatic plants, animals and fishes in the water, contamination of crops and other forms of hazards on the ecosystem. By no stretch, stopping the oil industries from operation has been an impossible venture on the part of the Nigerian government, apparently due to the huge financial benefits accruing from transactions in crude oil which potentially supports the Nation’s economy. Consequent on the above, the Nigerian government resorted to redress and remedy the situation through enacting laws for the purpose of controlling or managing oil spillages within the air and land spaces of the Nigerian environment. Some of the frameworks include the Oil Spill Recovery, Clean-up, Remediation and Damage Assessment Regulations 2011; Oil Spill and Oil Waste Management Regulations 2011, National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency (Establishment) Act 2006, Oil Pipelines Act 1965 and lots more. Managing oil pollution through these laws has not been easy due to environmental elements such as illegal oil bunkering, pipelines vandalism and corrupt practices of enforcement agencies. The authors therefore argued that these elements have always vitiated industrial oil spillage, control or management scheme in Nigeria. The authors vide a doctrinal research methodology and evaluation examined the said environmental elements that vitiated industrial oil spillages. Consequent on this premise, this paper maintained the need for critical re-organization of environmental law enforcement officials in the face of mounting corruption in order to reinforce the safeguarding of the Nigeria environment from oil pollution.