Post-Colonial Petroleum Law and the Nigerian State: Reconfiguring Sovereignty, Ownership, and Environmental Obligation

This study applies a post-colonial theoretical lens to the evolution of Nigerian petroleum law from independence in 1960 to the PIA 2021, arguing that key structural features of the current legal framework, including production sharing contracts, concession systems, and international arbitration norms, reproduce colonial-era power asymmetries between Nigeria and international petroleum capital. Drawing on post-colonial legal theory, dependency theory, and Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL), the research constructs an original critique of Nigeria's petroleum law architecture as a site of continuing legal dependency. The methodology combines doctrinal analysis of the genealogy of petroleum legislation with critical discourse analysis of international investment arbitration awards involving Nigeria and interviews with twenty Nigerian petroleum law academics and practitioners. The study examines how post-colonial legal inheritance shapes contemporary debates on fiscal sovereignty, environmental liability, and community rights in the Nigerian petroleum sector. Original theoretical contributions include a post-colonial petroleum law taxonomy and a decolonial reform agenda for Nigerian petroleum governance that re-centres community rights and ecological obligations. Keywords: post-colonial, petroleum law, sovereignty, Nigeria, TWAIL.