OBINNA OKAFOR

Gas flaring practices started since the first discovery of oil in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria,
and this practice has continued without seizure. Gas flaring has been associated with many socioeconomic,
political and health implication in Nigeria, especially the Niger Delta region.
Moreover, the Niger Delta region of Nigerian is known for its abundance resources endowment
and multi-ethnic diversity enrichment, and it is the second largest wetland in the world with
mangrove swamps and fertile alluvial plain which is one of the resourceful plain in the world.
The region is however known for restiveness, violence, poverty and arms conflict and all sorts of
environmental atrocities and crime. Nigeria is currently one of the largest gas flarers in the world
and this has contributed enormously to the alteration of the climate condition of earth systemclimate
change and global warming. Being aware with what is happening and the negative
impacts of flaring gas in the region, the Nigerian government instituted many legal framework
and institutions to ensure that this practice is put to an end. This practice of gas flaring still
continues irrespective of the orchestrated laws and intuitions put in place in the oil rich region of
Nigeria. So the objective of this research study is to find out what are the factors hindering the
realisation of the aims of the various laws with respect to gas flaring in the Niger Delta. It is
identified that there are many factors affecting the effectiveness of these laws and the superb
functioning of the agencies. Some of the factors identified are: lack of management framework;
societal composition; low financial incentives; lack of human resources reserved environmental
groups; insufficient data; and the influence of Multinational Corporation etc. This work also
explored other efforts apart from enactment of laws that Nigerian government has been
embarking on to ensure the end of gas flaring practice in the region, and also other stakeholders
who are involved in this environmental discourse were explored. Nevertheless this research
shades light on the alternative approaches to end the gas flaring practice- clean development
mechanism (CDM) and reducing emission from deforestation and forests degradation (REDD). It
is found out in this study that the primary causes of the ineffectiveness of environmental laws to
end gas flaring are the lack of governmental political will and so many competing claims in the
region and its resources.

The Niger Delta region of Nigeria is faced with a number of environmental problems. These problems are gas flaring, oil spillage and ecosystems pollution and result from major oil and gas activities as well as the activities of groups or individual members of the Niger Delta communities. The Niger Delta contributes massively to economic and financial development of Nigeria through oil and gas production and ecosystems services, but receives little or no tangible benefit from the oil production. In an attempt to tackle these multi-faceted environmental pollutions and problems, the Nigerian federal government established environmental regulations and institutions. In 1991, the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) established guideline and standards for the petroleum industry- EGASPIN to regulate the activities of the oil and gas companies in the Niger Delta. Also in 1992, the Nigerian government established an environmental regulatory framework in the form environmental impact assessment (EIA) to regulate developmental projects and to ensure sustainable development. The Nigerian Federal Ministry of Environment (FMENV) has been charged with the responsibility of enforcing, monitoring and implementing the environmental regulatory framework. Despite all these efforts, environmental pollution and non-compliance to the environmental laws in the Niger Delta persist.
This study has been undertaken to assess the state of environmental monitoring in the Niger Delta, by assessing the data deficiencies and needs that are required to be fed into environmental monitoring systems and to advice on improving the monitoring system.
This study adopts INDICAMP and Stakeholder Analysis as the methodologies to analyse the generated data. The data are generated through the methods of interviews conduction, questionnaires administration, literature review of existing work and stakeholder mapping.
The analysis of the results of this study reveals that there are host of factors militating against the effectiveness of environmental monitoring in the Niger Delta. These factors include administrative conflicts amongst the government agencies, poor funding of the agencies, poor quality of available information and poor communication of information on the state of the Niger Delta environment. And this study recommends appropriate funding of the agencies, enhancing information system for effective communication of information amongst agencies, further expanding and developing the staffs of the agencies and, last but not the least adopting a holistic framework for environmental monitoring as designed by USEPA 1992 in all the agencies, as the ways to improve environmental monitoring in the Niger Delta.
In conclusion, this study establishes that environmental monitoring in the Niger Delta currently does not have an effective communication system to disseminate information on the state of the environment to the necessary stakeholders. The environmental monitoring system does not have a specific and comprehensive mode of operation and adopts uncoordinated standards for regulating the operations of the oil and gas companies, and there is data deficiency for environmental monitoring.