Former Minister of State for Petroleum Resources and Foreign Affairs Henry Odein Ajumogobiahas declared that the Niger Delta’s persistent environmental degradation, poverty, and underdevelopment were not the result of inadequate laws but a fundamental failure to enforce existing legal frameworks and to govern the region’s vast natural resources in the interests of the communities that hosted them.
Delivering the keynote address at the 2026 Niger Delta Development Commission Law and Development Summit in Port Harcourt, Ajumogobia, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, called for an absolute legal ban on routine gas flaring, stricter environmental sanctions, the establishment of specialized environmental courts across the region, greater transparency in petroleum revenues and contracts, and a decentralization of resource governance away from exclusive federal control.
He said decades of weak legal governance had prevented the oil-rich region from translating its vast resources into sustainable prosperity, and that communities must no longer remain passive observers while activities affecting their environment and livelihoods were carried out around them. He said meaningful development could only be achieved when host communities were empowered through enforceable legal rights guaranteeing participation in petroleum operations, equitable revenue sharing, and inclusion in decision-making processes.
On gas flaring, he said the practice should be prohibited absolutely with stringent penalties that deterred violation, not merely tolerated through regulatory frameworks that allowed it to continue in practice. He said without environmental courts equipped with real authority, compliance would remain an aspiration rather than a requirement.
NDDC Managing Director and Chief Executive Samuel Ogbuku said the commission had achieved nearly 90 percent digitalization of its internal processes, enabling contractors to execute agreements electronically without physical interaction. Board Chairman Chiedu Ebie said the summit was convened to explore how legal frameworks could be strengthened to accelerate sustainable development, lamenting that cumbersome appropriation structures, regulatory compliance burdens, inflationary pressures, and project abandonment had undermined development efforts across the region.
