Combating Corporation-Induced Environmental Pollution in Nigeria vide Shari’ah Mechanism

Abstract

The menace of environmental pollution is not limited to a particular clime. The scourge is being felt globally. Efforts to combat the menace are still ongoing at global, regional and national levels. Nigeria, as a sovereign nation, has suffered and is still suffering the menace of environmental pollution. The discovery of crude oil in commercial quantity gave birth to corporation-induced environmental pollution. National effort towards combating corporation-induced pollution gave rise to series of legal frameworks while the country continues to experience environmental degradation. Against this backdrop, this paper looks for options beyond the conventional corporate law vide Shari’ah mechanism. This paper, which employs the Qualitative Research Design, adopts both the doctrinal and non-doctrinal legal research approaches. For the doctrinal approach, content analysis was adopted to analyze the primary sources like texts of Fiqh and legislations as well as the secondary sources such as textbooks, journals, articles, reports, among others. With the aid of comparative analysis, the paper compares approaches to corporation-induced environmental protection under conventional law and Shari’ah. The paper further presents a visual representation of the various views using thematic analysis with the help of ATLAS.ti software. The paper contends that environmental pollution signifies corporate governance failure. It also argues that despite the availability of legal framework for environmental protection, the menace of corporation-induced pollution is persistent owing to certain challenges. It is contended that Nigeria has never considered Shari’ah perspective in protecting its environment. Hence, Shari’ah approach is recommended for combating corporation-induced environmental pollution in Nigeria.