A Federal High Court sitting in Warri has issued a landmark ruling ordering the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission to immediately implement the Host Communities Development Trust provisions of the Petroleum Industry Act based on the existing federal government gazette recognizing coastal host communities, holding that the agency had no legal authority to delay or review a document it lacked the statutory power to alter.
Justice Hyeladzira Nganjiwa, delivering judgment on May 6, 2026, held that only the National Boundary Commission possessed the statutory powers to determine and delineate littoral host communities for the implementation of Chapter 3 of the PIA, and restrained the NUPRC from withholding benefits due to gazetted communities on the grounds that other communities had allegedly been omitted from the published list.
The court held that the statutory provisions governing host community delineation were clear and unambiguous, and that the NBC had already completed the delineation exercise, submitted its report to the federal government, and published the outcome in the Federal Republic of Nigeria Official Gazette No. 48, Vol. 111 of March 18, 2024.
“From the foregoing, I am convinced and of the opinion that it is the 1st defendant that is statutorily empowered to undertake the determination and delineation of host communities, which includes littoral communities, for the purpose of implementation of provisions of Chapter 3 of the PIA in Nigeria, and I so hold. The 2nd defendant has no such powers under the relevant statutory provisions,” the judge declared.
The court noted that while the NUPRC had acknowledged the validity of the gazette, it had argued that communities in Bayelsa, Rivers, and parts of Delta State were excluded and had constituted a committee to review compliance. The court rejected this approach, holding that the gazette enjoyed a presumption of validity under the Evidence Act and that omitted communities had a proper legal remedy through the NBC rather than through a unilateral NUPRC review process.
Justice Nganjiwa criticized the NUPRC’s attempt to revisit the exercise after the gazette had been issued, saying it was “too late in the day” to raise such objections. The court issued a mandatory injunction compelling the defendants, their agents, and representatives to implement the relevant regulations based on the existing gazette. No order as to costs was made.
