Assessing the Perception of People on Environmental Resource Curse of Oil and Gas Exploration in Bauchi and Gombe State Nigeria (Published)
Oil and Gas exploration was commissioned in Bauchi and Gombe state Nigeria in the year 2019 and the two states were about to be listed among oil and gas producing states in the North East Nigeria, after the discovery of oil in Niger Delta region 60 years ago. However, the communities’ optimism has widened on the perception that the oil and gas sectors were the turning point fortune for social, economical, and improvement in the infrastructural and better standards of living. However, the implications is the environmental pollution impact on the communities which will affects adversely the environment and health wellbeing, as such it will invariably dwindle its optimism. Conflict may also resurface among the peaceful leaving communities. The study explored communities’ misgivings regarding the environmental consequences of the oil and gas sectors. Through positive and negative expectation Data was collected for the study with the help of questionnaire. The findings revealed that majority of the people who were served with questionnaire were pessimistic about the prospects of oil and gas sectors for insuring national development and income distribution. It has been concluded that the communities have little information about the environmental impacts hence, eventually considered it as resource curse. It has been therefore recommended that strict compliance to environmental policy action such as imposition of market base instrument environmental taxation in particular to protect the environment against the presence Cul-de-sac.
Keywords: Bauchi, Environment, Nigeria, Oil and Gas, Pollution, gombe