Theorising Petroleum Governance Failure in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Comparative Institutional Analysis of Nigeria and Chad

This study develops a theoretical framework for understanding petroleum governance failure in Sub-Saharan Africa, drawing on a comparative institutional analysis of Nigeria and Chad over the period 2010 to 2024. Both countries exhibit persistent governance deficits in their petroleum sectors despite different institutional architectures, regulatory histories, and international oversight mechanisms. The research employs a historical-institutional comparative methodology, combining process tracing, elite interview data, and longitudinal analysis of governance performance metrics from EITI reports, World Bank governance indicators, and IMF Article IV consultations. Theoretical contributions are drawn from principal-agent theory, resource curse literature, and neo-institutionalist frameworks. Findings construct an original typology of petroleum governance failure pathways in low-income oil-producing states, distinguishing between capture-led failure, capacity-constrained failure, and fragmentation-induced failure. The study contributes original theoretical propositions to the petroleum governance literature and challenges existing universalist regulatory transplantation arguments. It argues that governance reform strategies must be institutionally contextualised and sequenced differently for different failure pathway types. These theoretical contributions are directly applicable to petroleum law reform advocacy and development agency programme design. Keywords: petroleum governance failure, institutional analysis, Nigeria, Chad, comparative theory.