Abstract

There have been several development policy agencies on the Niger Delta on mineral oil issues. What have they done on flare down? The trust of this paper is that in spite of all these policy making agencies nothing has been committed to the fight for the cessation of gas flaring in Nigeria. Even the desire to factor gas consumption into the centre ground of policy formulation has not found any concrete expression in law. Rather all local content vehicles like all oil majors have taken to reckless abandon in flaring. In fact, the desire of the Nigerian State in flare down has been scuttled and all timelines previously advocated or pegged down have demonstrated the precarious nature of oil and gas policy issues in Nigeria and the quicksand nature of same. This study which adopts the doctrinal method sets out to address the question of gas flaring from the legal perspective especially in the light of the 2010 increment in penalty for gas flaring by 900 percent and the Buhari administration flare down extension to 2060. It examines the gas flaring policy of the Nigerian state against the background of the current judicial policy and environmental activism in matters relating to oil and gas. It reviews the legal hurdles to the question of flare down and argues that legislative penalization has to be balanced with the infrastructural development of the gas potentials of the Nigerian state. The study looks through the development policy agencies and the modalities of oil majors to see whether they have any legal framework to cease flaring. It finds that those lofty aspirations of ex-President Yar’Adua and Hon. Almona Isei to connect the oil and gas sector to the power, industrial and agricultural sectors during and immediately after the Obasanjo etc administrations were guess-works if not cants and hot airs. Where are the aspirations today? A look through the policy making agencies cannot find any anchorage and glimmer of hope. What can be found is disconnect.