Political Economy of the Petroleum Sector in Nigeria

Gboyega, Alex ; Soreide, Tina ; Le, Tuan Minh ; Shukla, G. P.

关键词: ACCOUNTABILITY;    ACID RAIN;    ASSOCIATED GAS;    AUDITS;    AUTHORITY;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-5779
RP-ID  :  WPS5779

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

The relatively slow pace ofNigeria's development has often been attributed to thephenomenon of the resource curse whereby the nature of thestate as a "rentier" dilutes accountability fordevelopment and political actors are able to manipulateinstitutions to sustain poor governance. The impact of thepolitical elite's resource-control and allocation ofrevenues on core democratic mechanisms is central tounderstand the obstacles to development and governancefailure.Given that problems of petroleum sector governanceare extremely entrenched in Nigeria, the key question iswhether and how it is possible to get out of a poorequilibrium after fifty years of oil production. This paperuses a political economy perspective to analyze thegovernance weaknesses along the petroleum sector value chainand attempts to establish the links between challenges insector regulation and the following major political andeconomic attributes: (i) strong executive control onpetroleum governance in a political environment of weakchecks and balances; (ii) regulatory and operating rolesbundled into one institution, thereby creating conflict ofinterest; and (iii) manipulation of elections and politicalappointments. The restoration of democratic government hashelped improve transparency and management of oil revenueand reforms at the federal level and proposed reforms of thepetroleum sector hold much promise. At the same time, thejudiciary has started to restore confidence that it willserve as a check and balance on the executive and theelectoral process. Yet, these reforms are fragile and needto be deepened and institutionalized. They must be addressednot as purely technocratic matters but as issues ofpolitical economy and vested interests that must, throughregulation and reform, be aligned with the public interestand a vision of Nigerian development.