PERSPECTIVES ON THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION IN NIGERIA

Man’s biological and technological strives have to a large extent been determined by environment. It is pertinent to note that environment influences a peoples’ economic activities and even their relationship. The paper examines Nigeria’s environment and its governance over the years with the objective of identifying the governmental policies put in place to protect it. The paper used historical research method by referring to published texts and interview with selected individuals. The findings reveal that the substantial reason for the peopling of particular area was environmental conditions prevailing at that particular time. Most of the destructions on the environment were human inflected however nature itself caused ecological issues as well. During the colonial era, protection of environment was not a priority of the government and the few environments related laws criminalized activities that could degrade the environment and matters relating to the environment were dealt with as tort of nuisance and viewed as public matters warranting state intervention. In the 1990s, more drastic and systematic development of environmental law was witnessed in Nigeria with the establishment Federal Environmental Protection Agency (FEPA) and in 2007 the National Environmental Standard and Regulation Enforcement Agency (NESREA) was established and charged with the responsibility for the protection and development of the environment, biodiversity, conservation and sustainable development of Nigeria’s natural resources as well as environmental technology. The paper concludes that to ensure a safe environment all development plans must contain plan for environmental protection and control.