Natural Gas and Nigeria's Energy Trilemma: Balancing Equity, Security, and Sustainability
Leonard Maxwell Livingstone *
University of Dundee, Scotland.
*Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Abstract
Background: Nigeria's energy transition debate has intensified as the country seeks to utilise its vast natural gas reserves to address persistent electricity deficits, energy poverty and industrial underdevelopment while meeting global climate commitments. Within this context, the energy trilemma framework provides a useful lens for examining how natural gas policy can simultaneously influence energy equity, energy security and environmental sustainability in a developing hydrocarbon economy.
Aims: This chapter examines how Nigeria's natural gas sector can contribute to the energy trilemma dimensions of equity, security and environmental sustainability.
Methodology: It synthesises evidence from Livingstone's 2024 doctoral thesis, including stakeholder survey findings and secondary data for 1990-2022, and triangulates the results with recent peer-reviewed and official policy sources.
Findings: The evidence indicates that natural gas can support employment, fiscal revenue, labour income, GDP growth and cleaner energy access when it is linked to domestic utilisation, resilient infrastructure and credible governance. However, infrastructure deficits, vandalism, regulatory instability, affordability constraints, gas flaring and methane leakage weaken its contribution.
Conclusion: The chapter advances a conditional-gas-transition framework and proposes a Gas-for-Equity Compact that links access, affordability, infrastructure security, emissions control and renewable-ready planning. The chapter concludes that gas should be treated as a disciplined transition asset, not as an automatic bridge fuel or a permanent fossil-fuel development pathway.
Keywords: Nigeria, natural gas, energy trilemma, energy equity, energy security, gas flaring, methane, energy transition, net zero, energy policy