KEY POINTS
- PANDEF is demanding a review of the Petroleum Industry Act, saying its implementation disadvantages Niger Delta host communities.
- The group accused the NUPRC of benefiting from penalty payments while failing to ensure proper disbursement of host community development funds.
- PANDEF also urged the Federal Government to revive dormant ports across the region to support economic activity.
The Pan Niger Delta Forum, PANDEF, has renewed pressure on the Federal Government to revisit the Petroleum Industry Act, arguing that the way it is currently being applied leaves oil-producing communities at a steep disadvantage.
The group said the law, hailed at its passage as a landmark reform, has instead entrenched practices that strip host communities of rights and resources meant to cushion the environmental and economic impact of decades of extraction.
In a statement released over the weekend, PANDEF’s national spokesman, Chief Obiuwevbi Ominimini, said several provisions of the Act have created “an uneven playing field” that benefits regulators and operators at the expense of the communities whose lands and waterways host the industry.
He pointed to Section 257, which allows deductions from funds allocated to host communities whenever oil assets are vandalised, even though many communities have long argued that they are often blamed for sabotage they neither organised nor benefited from.
Ominimini contrasted that section with another part of the law that places daily penalties of 2,500 dollars on companies that fail to comply with the Act’s obligations.
Those penalties are paid to the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission. PANDEF said it struggles to understand why money meant to compensate for failures by operators should flow to the regulator rather than to the communities suffering the consequences.
Group Accuses NUPRC of Profiting from Fines While Host Community Boards Remain in Limbo
The organisation alleged that the NUPRC has been slow to enforce compliance, partly because the fines represent an income stream for the commission. It said this has contributed to a backlog in the distribution matrices that oil companies are required to submit, a delay that has held back the disbursement of funds earmarked for community development projects. In many areas, host community boards of trustees and management committees have reportedly yet to receive the documentation needed to begin work.
PANDEF warned that inflation is eroding the real value of these funds while they sit idle, deepening the hardship already felt across oil-bearing communities. The group urged the Ministry of Petroleum Resources to step in and ensure that the NUPRC’s chief executive, Engr Gbenga Komolafe, is held to account for what it described as a pattern of neglect.
Alongside its demands for reform of the PIA, PANDEF pressed President Bola Tinubu to revive long-neglected seaports across the Niger Delta ahead of the 2026 federal budget. It criticised the heavy concentration of container traffic in Lagos, saying ports in Warri, Sapele, Koko, Burutu, Port Harcourt and Calabar have been left dormant even though the region remains central to Nigeria’s oil and gas revenues. Bringing those ports back to life, the group said, would stimulate local economies and address longstanding complaints that the region contributes far more to national coffers than it receives in return.
