Flagship or pipedream : a critical analysis of nigerian extractive industries transparency initiative (NEITI)

Abstract

The Nigerian Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) is a subset of the global Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), and for some reasons NEITI has been regarded by many actors and observers as the global EITI flagship programme or one of the foremost national chapters of EITI , along with Azerbaijan. When one considers the guiding principles and beliefs of EITI that wealth from a country?s natural resources should benefit it citizens, and this requires high standard of transparency and accountability. When one further consider that EITI growing status as a platform for progress, that is bringing greater transparency and accountability to all aspects of natural resources management including tax transparency, commodity trading and licensing, one would expect ground breaking disclosure which is required on beneficial ownership to ensure that the identity of proprietors of oil, gas and mining companies operating in EITI countries are made public. As such to a greater extent the measurement of the success of (NEITI) will be subjected to evaluation against the principles of EITI.