Constructing a Theoretical Framework for Corporate Environmental Accountability in Nigeria’s Petroleum Sector: Beyond Compliance

This study constructs an original theoretical framework for corporate environmental accountability in Nigeria's petroleum sector that moves beyond conventional compliance-based models to incorporate elements of restorative justice, stakeholder democracy, and ecological integrity. Existing scholarship on petroleum sector environmental accountability in Nigeria has been predominantly descriptive or prescriptive, rarely engaging with the deeper theoretical architecture needed to reconceptualise accountability norms. The research employs a grounded theory methodology, generating theoretical categories through iterative analysis of qualitative data drawn from sixty in-depth interviews with community members, NGO representatives, company officials, and regulators across the South South and South East zones. These emergent categories are refined through engagement with environmental governance theory, corporate accountability literature, and post-colonial environmental justice frameworks. The resulting original theoretical framework identifies four interdependent accountability dimensions: legal liability, restorative obligation, democratic participation, and ecological restitution. The study argues that effective petroleum environmental accountability requires institutional reforms that activate all four dimensions simultaneously, rather than relying on litigation-centred liability alone. This theoretical framework provides a foundational basis for subsequent empirical and policy research in Nigerian petroleum environmental governance. Keywords: corporate environmental accountability, petroleum sector, theoretical framework, grounded theory, Nigeria.