POSSIBLE MEASURES NIGERIA MAY TAKE TOWARDS IMPROVING GOOD CORPORATE STAKEHOLDING AND SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY PRACTICES IN THE COUNTRY

Abstract

There is the belief in so quarters that some of these big public companies, especially multi-national oil companies operating in Nigeria are not living up to the expectations in the areas of being effectively responsible as a good corporate citizens and being integrative of the interests of the wiser constituencies as well as adopting CSR practices that are truly beneficial to the people. Allegations abound of the adoption of environmental unfriendly practices by these companies resulting in grave environmental degradation in their host communities. These irresponsible activities are causing a lot of untold hardships on the people, as they result to loss of their peoples’ means of livelihood – the people are predominantly farmers and fishermen, death of aquatic animals and plants, health hazards, amongst others. These have caused series of problems/misunderstanding amongst the host communities and these companies, often resulting in civil unrest, protests, kidnapping of some the workers of these companies, institution of legal actions against these companies, etc. It is believed that the situation obtainable in Nigeria is different (at a huge/great variant with that obtainable) from those available in other advanced countries where companies adopt the best corporate practices and are hugely concerned with the impacts of their corporate activities on their wider stakeholder groups. It is believed some of these countries adopted some measures which ‘forced’ those big, otherwise, wealth-maximisation-conscious companies operating in those jurisdictions to be civil, responsible and responsive. The writer therefore deemed it proper to look into some of the measures Nigeria may take to make the companies operating therein to be responsible, broader-minded and stakeholder oriented. In doing this, doctrinal research methodology was adopted. The writer is optimistic that the adoption of the measures suggested in this work will help immensely in making companies operating in Nigeria to be more socially responsible, responsive and integrative, instead of their current disposition of over-indulgence in insatiable wealth accumulation and maximisation.