Mkpoikana Udoma
Port Harcourt — Environmental advocates have warned that Nigeria’s transition to cleaner energy could deepen decades of injustice in oil-producing communities unless governments, regulators and extractive companies place host communities at the centre of natural resource governance.
Delivering the keynote address at a multi-stakeholder dialogue on “Advancing Community-Centred Natural Resource Governance and a Just Transition for Extractive Communities” in Uyo, Executive Director of the Youths and Environmental Advocacy Centre, YEAC-Nigeria, Dr. Fyneface Dumnamene Fyneface, said oil-producing communities have continued to bear the environmental and social costs of extraction despite generating enormous wealth for the country.
“For over six decades, oil has generated enormous wealth for Nigeria, yet host communities continue to experience environmental degradation, unemployment, gas flaring, polluted farmlands and declining livelihoods,” he said. “This reality makes community-centred natural resource governance an urgent necessity rather than an academic discussion.”
The dialogue, convened by the Clement Isong Foundation, CIF, and the Akwa Ibom Extractive Justice Alliance, AKEJA, in partnership with ActionAid Nigeria under the Strategic Partnership Agreement II Programme supported by DANIDA, brought together community leaders, civil society groups, government representatives and extractive industry stakeholders.
Speaking from YEAC-Nigeria’s years of field experience across the Niger Delta, Fyneface argued that the Petroleum Industry Act’s Host Community Development Trusts, HCDTs, have yet to deliver their full promise because of “poor transparency, elite capture, exclusion of women and youth, weak community participation and limited public access to HCDT information.”
“Communities deserve to know who manages these Trusts, how much money is received and how it is spent,” he declared.
He also cautioned that Nigeria’s energy transition agenda must not overlook the environmental liabilities created by decades of oil exploration.
“Environmental justice cannot wait for energy transition,” he said. “Communities affected by oil spills, gas flaring and environmental degradation deserve remediation, strict regulatory enforcement, proper cleanup, transparent decommissioning plans and accountability from companies, especially as international oil companies divest from onshore assets.”
Fyneface stressed that a truly just transition must include meaningful participation by host communities, warning that climate policies designed without local voices risk creating “new forms of injustice.”
To address the challenges, he proposed institutionalising Free, Prior and Informed Consent, FPIC, increasing women and youth representation in Host Community Development Trusts, publicly disclosing trust budgets, investing oil revenues in renewable energy and green jobs, strengthening community accountability mechanisms and improving transparency in the management of extractive revenues.
He also called for the establishment of a Community Accountability Framework for HCDTs, a state-level multi-stakeholder platform on just transition, and community-led environmental monitoring and ecosystem restoration programmes.
“The oil beneath our soil is finite, but the dignity and rights of our people must endure,” he said. “The real measure of a just transition is whether communities such as Ibeno, Eastern Obolo, Eket and other extractive areas transition with dignity, opportunity and environmental justice.”
The event also highlighted the growing role of community alliances such as AKEJA in pushing for greater accountability from regulators and oil companies, amid increasing calls for reforms that ensure extractive wealth translates into sustainable development for host communities rather than prolonged environmental degradation.
