Occupational Safety and Disaster Risk Convergence in Upstream Oil and Gas Operations in Nigeria: A Conceptual Framework and Comparative Case Analysis

Upstream oil and gas facilities in Nigeria are workplaces and, at the same time, hazard sources for the communities and ecosystems around them. Occupational safety and health (OSH) and disaster risk reduction (DRR) have nonetheless developed as separate fields with separate laws, metrics and institutions. This article argues that this separation contributes to recurring blind spots: events that begin as process-safety failures end as community disasters. Drawing on organisational accident theory, safety culture research, vulnerability and resilience scholarship, and Niger Delta political ecology, the paper develops a convergence framework with four domains (hazard governance, shared learning, joint preparedness, and accountability and redress). The framework is applied to four documented Nigerian cases, the Funiwa-5 blowout (1980), the Jesse pipeline fire (1998), the Bodo spills (2008–2009) and the Bonga export-line spill (2011), and to a desk-based assessment of eight legal and normative instruments. Cross-case analysis shows that each event exposed weaknesses in leak detection and reporting, off-site emergency coordination, credible investigation, and redress. Five propositions are advanced for empirical testing, and implications are drawn for operators, regulators and host communities. The paper contributes a shared vocabulary for practitioners and a research agenda for integrating workplace safety with community disaster risk in Nigeria.