Research On Legal Issues Concerning The Nigerian Oil And Gas Industry Content Development Act,2010

The promulgation of the Nigerian Oil and Gas Industry Content Development Act,2010,by the Federal Government of Nigeria,is a flagrant infraction of both Nigeria's domestic laws and global trade and foreign investment norms.The epicenter of globalization is unfettered access to domestic markets and congenial foreign direct investment climate.Paradoxically,the NOGICD Act,2010,is designed to restrict and discriminate against foreign goods and services and to offer undue advantages to Nigerian locally manufactured goods,services and service suppliers to the detriment of their foreign counterparts.Articles 26 and 27 of the Vienna Convention on the Laws of Treaties,1969,mandate parties to a treaty to observe same in good faith and to refrain from applying its domestic laws to defeat its international obligations.In the same vein,Article XVI.4 of WTO Agreement urges contracting parties not to invoke its national laws,regulations and administrative measures to impair its obligations under the multilateral trading system.Nigeria is a founding member of WTO since January 1,1995.The country is also a party to the VCL.Nigeria has equally entered into a number of binding Bilateral Investment Treaties with other countries with national treatment clause as the hallmark of such treaties.In order to woo foreign investors and propel foreign direct investment,Nigeria has enacted some laws to promote foreign direct investment.Unfortunately,and ironically too,the NOGICD Act,2010,embodies provisions which breaches existing Nigerian laws,global trade and investment laws.The result is policy somersault,economic decline and international liability.The purpose of this dissertation is,therefore,to uncover all the offending sections of the law,identify the problems of the nation's oil and gas industry and law reform of the 2010 Act to align with global best practice.The research is structured into seven parts namely,introduction,background of the study,an overview of the nation's oil and gas laws,analyses of the 2010 Act,the inconsistency of the Act to Nigerian laws,the inconsistency of the Act to WTO law and foreign investment laws,conclusion and recommendations.The introductory section underscores the objectives,significance,legal problems,methodology and innovations of the study.Chapter one entitled Background of the Study,is a diagnosis of the rationale behind the enactment of the NOGICD Act,2010.It discusses the challenges of the oil and gas industry and the justification for the passage of the NOGICD Act,2010.,and uncovered corruption as the bane of the nation's oil and gas sector.It recommends strengthening of the existing anti graft agencies with autonomy and life jail sentence for corrupt related offences.Chapter two labeled An Overview of Nigerian Oil and Gas Laws,is a brief introduction of oil and gas legislations in Nigeria with the principal and subsidiary legislations in focus.It unraveled policy sommersault and functions overlap in the nation's oil and gas sector.The author prescribes a repeal of the redundant laws and institutions in the sector and effective enforcement of laws regulating the system.Chapter three is headed Analyses of the NOGICD Act,2010.The chapter examined the provisions of the Act,revealed the incompatible sections of the law with WTO Laws and Nigerian legislations.The writer proposes a comprehensive overhaul of the NOGICD Act,2010 to conform with Nigeria's international obligations and avert international trade and investment disputes.Chapter four styled The Inconsistency of the NOGICD Act with Nigerian Laws and treaties probes into the incompatibility of the Act with several existing Nigerian laws and domesticated treaties and recommends amendment of the offending sections of the law.Chapter five captioned The Inconsistency of the NOGICD Act with WTO Laws and Foreign Direct Investment Laws,identified the relevant WTO and FDI laws infringed by the NOGICD Act,2010 and advocates law reforms to accord with global best practices.Chapter six is titled Conclusion and Recommendations and it chronicled the findings of the research,conclusion and recommendations.The innovations achieved by the research include deregulation of the nation's oil and gas sector,economic diversification,stamping out corruption in the system,adoption of renewable energy policy,Privatization of the oil and gas sector,control of oil and gas resources by the oil producing states and scrapping of multiple institutions discharging similar functions in the oil and gas industry.The writer applied case law analyses,black letters technique,demonstrative,quantitative and qualitative methodologies in arriving at a valid conclusion.