When Peace Means Business: Corporate Authority and Environmental Conflict in Nigeria's Niger Delta

Nkasiobu Wodu, University OF MASSACHUSETTS BOSTON (United States)

Environmental peacebuilding in fragile, resource-dependent regions increasingly relies on corporate-led or corporate-partnered models, yet their effects on equity, inclusion, and accountability remain contested. This paper examines how evolving corporate–community governance regimes in Nigeria’s Niger Delta—specifically the popular Global Memorandum of Understanding (GMoU) and the state-mandated (PIA)—have reshaped the politics of environmental justice. Drawing on fieldwork, policy analysis, and interviews, it shows that while these frameworks created new participatory mechanisms, they also entrenched elite-controlled informal networks mediating access to environmental benefits and compensation. These networks have reduced overt conflict and fostered cooperation, but they have also reinforced patronage, exclusion, and weak environmental oversight. Rather than displacing informal authority, reforms have absorbed it, producing hybrid governance regimes that stabilize operations but undermine accountability. The paper argues that environmental peacebuilding must address these informal political economies to design conflict-sensitive corporate responsibility models in fragile extractive contexts.