The Nigerian Oil Industry: Assessing Community Development and Sustainability

Purpose- The reoccurrence of loss in revenue generation from the oil industry which is due to the unstable and heated relationship between oil corporations and host communities in the Niger Delta (ND) region of Nigeria has spurred the strategic social permission of oil multinational corporations (OMNCs) to operate in the country. Thus, OMNCs have continually given attention to the challenges faced by the region through community development in terms of initiatives and projects. Community development (CD) and sustainability are core to viable social responsibility (SR) whether from the part of government or from OMNCs. However, since the independence of the country in 1960, a lot of development agencies and commissions have been established by the government towards social and infrastructural development in the ND region. These agencies and commissions often combine efforts with OMNCs to enforce development and sustainability in the region which consequently result in mutual benefits on both ends. The purpose of this paper is to critically examine CD and sustainability of host communities in the ND by evaluating initiatives conducted by government development agencies such as the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) and OMNCs such as ExxonMobil and Shell Petroleum Development Commission (SPDC) in the region.Approach/Design/Methodology- The paper applied a qualitative research approach. It conceptualises CD and sustainability and examines the views of community members on initiatives from the NDDC and OMNCs. Instruments for primary data collection were the Focus Group Discussion, In-depth Interviews (IDIs) and observation. The research made use of thirty IDIs and five FGDs. Secondary sources of data were journal articles, reports and other documents from both the OMNCs and NDDC. It also made use of the Nvivo11 software to organise the data while a content-based analysis was used to set data into themes. The study puts into consideration the perspectives of different community members as well as the various concepts which exist in the literature.Findings- Analysis reveals that there is positive impact when development takes place in host communities and sustainability attained but consequently, there are no probable and visible improvement of the OMNCs operations and business in the region, which is why there is reoccurrence of revenue loss in the country from the oil sector.Value/Originality- This paper gives voice to participants in a social setting by highlighting the importance of CD and sustainability in the ND region. It does this by looking into the different initiatives conducted by the NDDC, ExxonMobile and SPDC.