LEGAL AND INSTITUTIONAL ASPECTS OF THE CONTROL OF OIL POLLUTION IN NIGERIA

Abstract

Pollution and more particularly oil pollution usually result in the degradation of the environment. The environment is basically constituted as the air, water and land and has for ages remained the nature’s greatest legacy to mankind. The air, water and land continue to constitute the basic necessities for human existence. In spite of nature’s generous provision of these necessities of life, the environment has been and is still being polluted by man through indiscriminate disposal of domestic, commercial and industrial wastes. Fortunately, man ultimately, depends on resources in his immediate environment for sustenance. The pollution of the environment at times could be a consequence of industrialization, and oftentimes, usually as a result of combined environmental pollution as well as oil pollution. There is also a fast growing tourist industry encouraging hordes of human traffic, which gives more time and opportunity to encroach upon countryside and beaches, often times polluting land, air and water, as well as jeopardizing plant and animal life in the process. These selfish exploitations of natural resources make bleak the future of the world youth and the unborn generations. By implication, the process of extraction of oil from underneath the surface or from the subsea has been characterised as development associated with technological know-how. The menace of pollution has attracted the concern of government, who in turn churns out relevant legislations and creation of institutional agencies to check oil pollution. Notwithstanding the efforts of government, much has not been achieved in checking oil pollution. In the light of the above, the authors analysed the very foundation for the control of oil pollution in Nigeria. The authors maintained the need for effective legal and regulatory framework in monitoring the menace of oil production in Nigeria.