Evaluation of Government’s Efforts to Mitigate the Adverse Effects of Gas Flaring in Host Communities

Background: This is a 5th in the series on gas flaring in Niger Delta Nigeria and previous reports have highlighted health impact and comparison of communities, amongst others. Government have mitigation programs whose satisfaction in the communities of Niger Delta is unknown.

Objective: The objective of this study is to evaluate government’s efforts at mitigation and adaptation whether there are age and/or gender differences

Methods: This was a quantitative survey cross-sectional study that used Likert scale questionnaire to generate views of the community on the behavioural change wheel (BCW) as well as mitigation and adaptation efforts of the government. Respondents were stratified into age groups and dichotomized in female or male and analysis involved multivariate analysis (MANOVA) to evaluate age and gender differences. Chi-Square tests were performed to assess associations between BCW components mitigation versus adaptation.

Results: A total of 435 respondents were included and the results show levels of inconsistent age and gender differences. Men tended to agree more on government’s BCW albeit not significance achieved, while women agreed more mitigation and adaptation (p < 0.02). On age, the silent generation (>70 years old) group agreed more on BCW, but contrarily disagreed on mitigation and adaptation while younger generation agreed on the latter (0.001). Chi-Square tests show significance for association.

Conclusion: This report highlights divergent views of the community on the discourse of government’s efforts at mitigation and adaptation of gas flaring in Niger Delta Nigeria, thereby providing empirical evidence of generational gap on environmental issue.