Advancing Robustness Thinking in the Comprehensive Gap Analysis of Risk Governance in Nigeria's Emerging Ship Recycling Industry

Ship recycling is expanding in Nigeria with no dedicated statutory framework to govern it, creating a mismatch between a high-hazard industry and an underdeveloped regulatory environment. Although Nigeria ranks among the top ten emerging ship-recycling countries, the sector remains informally governed, with overlapping mandates, thin enforcement capacity, and fragmented risk-assessment practices. This study evaluates Nigeria's approach through a robustness lens, drawing on Rasmussen's socio-technical levels, Renn's integrative risk-governance model, and Hale's robustness criteria, with Hollnagel's Safety-II as a complementary, proactive perspective. The analysis combines documentary review, field observations across four recycling hubs (Lagos, Warri, Onne/Port Harcourt, and Calabar), and semi-structured interviews with fifteen stakeholders, including yard managers, regulators, workers and safety officers, and maritime experts, followed by a multi-stakeholder validation workshop. Of nineteen sub-criteria, only six are formally present, four are partially addressed, and nine are absent altogether, and even the elements that exist on paper are generic and weakly enforced. Field visits revealed ad hoc practices, hazardous working conditions, weak supervision, and little institutional learning. On this basis we propose a Nigeria-fit Robustness-Focused Risk-Governance Framework built on three pillars: multi-level safety oversight, an integrative risk-governance process, and enhanced mitigation strategies. It emphasises legal recognition, clearer accountabilities, interdisciplinary assessment, transparent risk-acceptance criteria, continuous monitoring, and feedback loops, with a phased implementation pathway. The study shows why robustness, not resilience, should be the organising principle for governing emergent high-hazard sectors in developing economies, and offers practical steps for strengthening institutional capacity in Nigeria's maritime domain.