Beyond the Reports: Cultural Pressures, Unheard Voices and the Climate Accountability Gap in Oil and Gas Sector Governance

ABSTRACT Environmental governance in Nigeria's oil and gas sector remains central to global climate justice debates, yet persistent accountability failures continue to undermine meaningful environmental and social outcomes. Despite extensive regulatory frameworks, accountability in resource‐dependent contexts is frequently reduced to formal reporting and compliance, marginalising the role of socio‐cultural power relations and community voice in shaping governance effectiveness. Drawing on stakeholder theory (Freeman, 1984) and Hofstede's cultural dimensions (Hofstede, 1980), this study examines how culturally embedded power relations mediate stakeholder engagement and accountability practices in Nigeria's oil and gas governance. Using a qualitative design combining documentary analysis of key governance frameworks with 17 semi‐structured interviews involving regulators, corporate actors and affected community members, the study shows that ambitious governance arrangements are not undermined by regulatory absence, but by fragmented institutional mandates, weak enforcement capacity and stakeholder engagement practices that remain largely procedural. Cultural norms related to power distance, collectivism and uncertainty avoidance shape whose voices are recognised, enabling elite capture, fragmented, transaction‐oriented leadership and communication gaps. Corporate actors predominantly frame accountability through compliance reporting, climate pledges and discretionary CSR delivery, while positioning social infrastructure provision as a governmental responsibility. These dynamics allow companies to exploit tribal divisions and leadership fragmentation to weaken collective resistance and reduce accountability pressure, despite communities judging accountability by tangible outcomes. The study advances a culturally mediated stakeholder accountability perspective, demonstrating how accountability gaps emerge from the interaction of governance design and local socio‐cultural dynamics, with implications for more credible and context‐sensitive climate governance reforms in extractive economies.