RE-APPRAISAL OF REGULATORY OVERLAP FOR NATURAL RESOURCES MANAGEMENT IN NIGERIA AND THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Abstract

Nigeria is regarded as a country endowed with abundant natural resources such as iron, lead-zinc, tin, tungsten, tantalum, gold, manganese, and nickel. Nigeria’s mineral resources also include valuable industrial minerals and rocks such as barite, halite, kaolin, gemstones, limestone, marble, and granite. In Nigeria, there are a number of laws applicable to natural resources ownership, control, management and governance in Nigeria. The extant laws in Nigeria made several provisions on natural resources governance and equally established several regulatory agencies to coordinate and supervise the activities in the industry. For instance, the passage of the Petroleum Industry Act in 2021 was a significant milestone intended to streamline and modernize the legal and regulatory framework governing the petroleum sector. However, the implementation of the Petroleum Industry Act has highlighted enduring issues of regulatory overlap, which impede efficient governance and create legal ambiguities. This overlap arises from the legal frameworks and the introduction of new regulations that sometimes conflict with existing laws. Again, the ownership and control of Nigeria’s mineral resources are vested in the Federal Government for the common good of the citizens. Moreover, the multiplicity of agencies and regulatory bodies involved in natural governance exacerbates these challenges. Each entity often operates with overlapping mandates and jurisdictions, leading to inefficiencies and bureaucratic delays. The lack of a cohesive strategy and coordination among these bodies hinders the effective management of the sector, affecting everything from exploration and production to environmental protection and host community development. It is against this backdrop that this paper legally re appraised the regulatory overlap in natural resource management in Nigeria. Adopting a doctrinal research methodology, this paper concludes that challenges to petroleum governance in Nigeria and by extension, natural resources ownership and control include regulatory overlap, inadequate enforcement of laws and regulations, integrity failures, and poor asset management. It is recommended that the Nigerian Mineral and Mining Act 2007 needs to be amended, particularly section 1 (2) of the Act so as to clearly state whether the titles to small scale mineral discovered becomes automatically that of the individual or that such individual has to wait for a lawful grant license by the government before he can assume ownership.