Extractive sector governance: Does a nexus of accountability render local Extractive Industries Transparency Initiatives ineffective?

This study examines the Nigerian Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative’s (NEITI) ineffectiveness in delivering public accountability to Nigerian citizens. Although this failure is recognized in prior literature, the paper contends that NEITI’s role is obscured by one-sided links to external factors.

 The study’s conceptual framework is built around Dillard and Vinnari’s (2019) distinction between different accountability systems and Brown and Dillard’s (2020) complimentary insights on the technologies of hubris and humility. The analytical framework draws from Grant and Keohane’s (2005) modes of accountability, which we use to articulate conflicting accountability demands (to-whom and for-what) of NEITI’s operating relationships. The paper analyses official documents, media, reports, and interview responses from members of NEITI’s National Stakeholders Working Group (NSWG).

The research surfaces a variety of intersecting interests across NEITI’s operational relationships. Some of these interests are mutually beneficial, like Donors and the EITI. Others run counter to each other, such as NEITI’s relationship to the Presidency, which illustrates a key source of NEITI’s ineffectiveness. The paper articulates these interests’ connection to NEITI’s design as an accountability system and its embedded limitations.

 The study provides an incremental understanding of prior insight regarding NEITI’s ineffectiveness by drawing attention to its fundamental design as an accountability system and its failure to deliver public accountability. To illuminate these failures, the study also maps NEITI’s competing accountability demands – the nexus of accountability – to demonstrate the complex socio-political reality within which NEITI is expected to operate. We posit that NEITI’s ineffectiveness has as much to do with NEITI itself as it does with external factors like the quality of information disclosed and the unique Nigerian context.

For further information, please access the following link- Extractive sector governance: Does a nexus of accountability render local Extractive Industries Transparency Initiatives ineffective?

This paper is published in Meditari Accountancy Research

Authors: Olayinka Moses,Dimu Ehalaiye,Matthew Sorola,Philippe Lassou