A Deep Dive into the Review of National Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency (NESREA) Act

Suleiman Romoke Monsurat, Raimi Morufu Olalekan and Sawyerr Henry Olawale

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Received: July 27, 2019       Accepted: November 15, 2019

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Abstract: Nigerians are poorly aware of their environment and the damages being done to it through their numerous activities either knowingly or unknowingly. Moreover, the constitution is the basic law of the land and it proclaims its supremacy over and above all other laws in the country and any law that is inconsistent with any of its provisions shall be null and void to the extent of its inconsistency. Although the National Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency (NESREA) has good 33 National Environmental Regulations that cut across almost all sectors of human activities that can have negative effect on the environment, but their role is not felt in term of environmental management, conservation, protection and sustainability in the country due to inadequate awareness and enforcement. A literature review was done by using a variety of search engines including Research Gate, Google Scholar, Academia, Mendeley, SSRN search strategy to retrieve research publications, “grey literature” and expert working group reports. This review paper tried to do a deep dive into the review of National Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency (NESREA) act, focusing on national environmental laws and regulations, gazette, composition, structure, mandate and enforcement power of NESREA and intermediary determinants of empowering the citizens to have legal standing and access to justice to be able to protect and enforce the protection of a clean, healthy environment cum sustainable development and others. Therefore, mending the leakages in the roof is the work of an honest, patriotic, disciplined, hardworking, visionary, accountable, sincere and need for achievement driven followership and leadership that is abreast with current environmental knowledge with a solution focused systems therapy approach to environmental problems with a view to heal the world. This paper therefore recommends that the NESREA Act of 2007 be amended to give it oversight over the entire environment including the oil and gas sector. Furthermore, the requirement of Pre-action Notice and Limitation Clause is removed from the NESREA Act. Also, effective implementation of both the NESREA Act and its regulations requires necessary capacity building of the agency in terms of human, technical, material and financial capacity. It further requires effective cooperation and collaboration of various stakeholders in the implementation and protection of environmental laws in Nigeria.

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