A coalition of environmental and civil society organisations from the Niger Delta has urged President Bola Tinubu and the National Assembly to urgently amend Executive Order 9, warning that Nigeria’s current gas flaring penalty framework has drifted from its original purpose of environmental protection to revenue generation.

The groups, under the umbrella of Concerned Environmental Organisations, spoke at a World Press Conference in Abuja over the weekend.

It argued that penalties imposed on oil and gas companies for gas flaring should function strictly as deterrents and instruments for environmental remediation, rather than being treated as part of government income.

Addressing journalists on behalf of the coalition, Comrade Itsede Victor condemned the continued remittance of gas flare penalties into the Federation Account, describing the practice as a grave injustice to communities in the Niger Delta who suffer the direct environmental and health consequences of routine gas flaring.

To address this, the groups called on President Tinubu to immediately remove gas flare penalties from revenues remitted into the Federation Account and to ensure that all outstanding and future collections are ring-fenced exclusively for environmental remediation, healthcare delivery, poverty alleviation, and sustainable development initiatives in the Niger Delta.

“Gas flaring penalties must serve their true purpose as deterrents. Penalising pollution must never become a business model,” the coalition declared.

They added that lasting peace and stability in the Niger Delta would remain elusive without visible environmental justice, urging the administration to align its Renewed Hope Agenda with concrete actions that prioritise the wellbeing of oil-producing communities.

“The central question before the nation is this: should gas flaring penalties serve as a deterrent against environmental destruction, or should they continue to function as a source of government revenue?” Victor asked.

According to the coalition, scientific studies have consistently linked decades-long gas flaring to the release of hazardous pollutants including methane, carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and particulate matter, which are associated with respiratory diseases, cancers, skin disorders, reproductive health complications, acid rain, soil infertility, water pollution, biodiversity loss, and declining agricultural output.

Despite Nigeria’s repeated international commitments to curb gas flaring, the activists noted, the country remains among the world’s leading gas-flaring nations, blaming the situation on weak regulatory enforcement and ineffective penalty regimes.

Under Executive Order 9, gas flaring penalties collected from oil and gas companies are remitted into the Federation Account through the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC Ltd.). This arrangement, the groups argued, has effectively commercialised environmental violations, while the communities most affected receive little or no compensation, remediation, or development support.

They also cited a 2019 Supreme Court judgment which affirmed that the right to a clean and healthy environment is an essential component of the constitutional right to life, and that citizens and civil society organisations possess the legal standing to challenge environmental abuse and hold polluters accountable.

In addition, the coalition referenced provisions of the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) 2021, particularly Section 104, which prohibits gas flaring except under legally sanctioned conditions, and Section 52(14), which mandates that gas flare penalties be channelled towards gas infrastructure development and community-based projects.

Raising further concerns, the organisations pointed to findings by the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) and oversight committees of the National Assembly, which have documented widespread cases of unauthorised gas flaring, poor compliance with penalty payments, delayed remittances, and persistent regulatory lapses.

They warned that any executive move to divert gas flare penalties from their statutory without legislative backing would amount to a breach of existing law and an erosion of constitutional governance.

The coalition further alleged that substantial volumes of gas flare penalty funds have remained warehoused at the Central Bank of Nigeria for years, and that redistributing such funds across the federation, instead of deploying them directly in impacted communities, effectively transfers the burden of pollution to victims while dispersing its financial benefits nationwide.

(The Sun)

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