At 66, Nigeria Needs Receipts From Corporate CSR

On 15 January 1956, Shell D’Arcy struck oil in Otuabagi, in what was then the Oloibiri district of present-day Bayelsa State. The field is remembered by the district’s name, Oloibiri. Crude exports began in 1958. 

By 1978, after about 20 years of production, the field was abandoned, and the community was reportedly left with little to show for it. One resident later recalled that the first borehole came in 1985, through a military governor.

I start there because the story is often told as a failure of intention. I think it is a failure of verification. Nobody checked whether what was promised was what arrived.

Sixty-six years after independence, Nigeria is still telling the same story with better paperwork. My argument this Independence Day is simple. Nigeria does not lack rules. It lacks proof that the rules are being followed, and independent people whose job is to check.

The 3% Is Too Low

The Petroleum Industry Act of 2021 requires oil and gas licence holders to contribute 3% of the previous year’s actual operating expenditure to Host Communities Development Trusts. In theory this is a breakthrough. It means community development stops being a favour and becomes a legal obligation.

I believe 3% needs to go higher and I’m not alone. The chairman of the House Committee on Host Communities, Hon. Dekor Dumnamene Robinson, has said the figure is no longer enough in 2026, and the committee plans to push for 6%. A review at the Act’s five-year mark quoted one analyst calling 3% insignificant against the scale of pollution, damaged farmland and lost livelihoods.

The logic is hard to dispute. The rate is tied to what a company spends on operations, not to what it costs the people who live beside those operations. The damage a community bears does not shrink when a company’s expenditure does. A contribution pegged to the company’s costs, rather than the community’s, was always going to feel small to those on the receiving end.

But A Bigger Percentage Is A Bigger Version Of The Same Problem

Here is where I part company with some of the enthusiasm for raising the rate. A larger percentage of money nobody can trace is just a larger number nobody can trace.

The regulator’s figures sound impressive. At a September meeting, NUPRC’s chief said 173 trusts have been incorporated, 147 have been funded, over 1,001 projects are ongoing, and more than 200 have been commissioned. That is real progress, and I don’t dismiss it.

But look at what is being counted: trusts, funded trusts, projects. Those are activity measures. They do not tell a community in the Niger Delta how many naira reached its trust, when, what was built with it, and whether it works. 

Meanwhile the grievances persist. Communities under OML 26 in Delta State have threatened to shut down operations if the operators do not meet their full 3% obligations. Five years in, many communities say the law has not substantially improved their lives. A statute can be fully on the books and fully contested on the ground at once.

The 2028 Disclosure Rules: I’m Not Convinced

The SEC has told public companies to submit their IFRS sustainability reporting plans by 15 October 2026. Mandatory reporting starts for periods beginning on or after 1 January 2028. Nigeria was the first African country to adopt the standards, in June 2023. That is something to be proud of.

I’m also sceptical, and I’ll explain why. The standards are built to give investors decision-useful information about how sustainability and climate matters affect a company’s finances. That is valuable, but it is not the same as telling a fishing community whether the company that polluted its river has kept its word. A company can produce a well-formatted IFRS S1 report and still leave a host community with nothing.

Then there is readiness. A4S Limited’s 2026 Resilience Report found fewer than 8% of Nigerian companies currently have disclosure frameworks aligned with the standards. Companies are being asked to submit plans in two weeks and be compliant in about 15 months. Perhaps they will manage it. But Nigeria has plenty of good rules. We are rich in them. What we have never been rich in is enforcement and independent checking. I am still watching to see why this one will be different. 

Read Also: 8% READY. 92% EXPOSED. The Data Behind Africa’s Sustainability Reporting Crisis

What I Would Do Instead

If I could change three things, none would involve writing a new law.

First, publish the money. Every settlor should disclose, annually and publicly, what it paid into each trust and when. If a company is meeting its obligation, publishing the figure costs nothing. If it isn’t, the community deserves to know.

Second, verify the work independently. I mean someone other than the company, the trust, or the regulator marking its own homework. Community-based monitors, credible third-party auditors, and journalists with the training to tell a donation from a development outcome can all play a part. If the project built for a community cannot be inspected by someone with no stake in the result, we do not know it exists.

Third, tie any increase to proof. I want the rate to go up. But I would attach it to verified delivery. Raise the percentage and require the receipts. Without that, we are merely raising the amount that disappears.

None of this is exotic. A recent CSR Reporters investigation shows billions spent on CSR with disclosed investments especially from the banking sector. Yet, social impact remains low. Money was never the missing ingredient. Evidence was.

The Real Independence

Independence is more than a flag and an anthem. It is the ability of a community to stop depending on a promise and start holding someone to a result. That requires information, and information requires someone willing and able to check.

We have a Petroleum Industry Act, a regulator, a statutory percentage, a disclosure roadmap, and a deadline in two weeks. What we still need is the unglamorous part: people who walk to the site, count what was built, and report what they find.

At 66, that is the audit I want to read next. Until then, I’ll keep asking the same question about every trust, every report and every plan: who checked?