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Abstract
Sustainable development, understood since the Brundtland Report as development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs, has been embraced by Nigeria as an organising principle. This paper examines the paradox between that commitment and the limited enforceability of Nigerian environmental law. The study uses a doctrinal, library-based method. It reads the 1999 Constitution, the NESREA Act 2007, the Environmental Impact Assessment Act 1992, the Petroleum Industry Act 2021 and related statutes alongside Nigerian and comparative case law. Section 20 of the Constitution directs the State to protect the environment, but section 6(6)(c) places that duty outside direct judicial enforcement. Statutes proclaim sustainability without a single enforcement architecture. Courts have absorbed environmental harm into the rights to life and dignity, notably in Gbemre v Shell, but the trajectory is uneven, as Opara v Shell shows. The paper treats the paradox as structural rather than merely definitional, linking the Positivist and Negativist readings of sustainable development to constitutional non-justiciability, statutory fragmentation and contested judicial absorption. Clarifying guidance from the Supreme Court, a harmonising environmental framework statute, specialised court capacity, and supervisory remedies drawn from Indian and South African practice would move the commitment from aspiration toward remedy.