Petroleum Industry in Nigeria

Petroleum Industry In Nigeria

The petroleum industry in Nigeria, Africa is the largest industry and main generator of GDP in the continent's most populous nation. Since the British discovered oil in the Niger Delta in the late 1950s, the oil industry has been marred by political and economic strife due to a long history of corrupt military regimes and the complicity of multinational corporations, notably Royal Dutch Shell. However it was not until the early 1990s, after the Nigerian state execution of playwright and activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, that the situation was given international attention, leading to the immediate suspension of Nigeria from the Commonwealth of Nations. Nigeria is identified as a major concern regarding human rights and environmental degradation by the international community and the firms that operate there. The Nigerian government, oil corporations, and oil-dependent Western countries have been criticised as too slow to implement reforms aimed at aiding a desperately underdeveloped area and remediating the unsustainable environmental degradation that petroleum extraction has caused.

In February 2013, the Nigerian Association of Chambers of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture (NACCIMA) claimed that the oil sector of the country “is killing the economy”. NACCIMA's Director General Dr John Isemede said the oil sector is affecting businesses in the country negatively by failing to add real value to them. He said the oil sector has caused substantial decline in agricultural exports, which began in the mid-1960s and continued to date.