Chapters authored
Creative Living off the Margins of the Niger Delta: Implications for Corporate Governance
The distribution and privatization channels of the wealth from Niger Delta’s oil and gas resources are multiple. The main channels excessively favor mainly office holders, international entrepreneurs and their contractors. The rest of the population, or the less favored majority will have to cut their share of the wealth via the alternative channels which may include violent insurgencies. This work focuses on one of these alternative channels, where an Igbo community creatively sustain their access to the oil wealth. An ethnographic study of Egbema, shows that the local population modify their traditional practices to sustain the flow of the oil wealth. This modifying capacity was manifest when they creatively transformed a fishing festival that was traditionally celebrated exclusively, into a public fish bazaar. This was done to keep hold of the money received as compensation for the land expropriated for oil extraction by Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC). This has implications for corporate governance, especially with regard to the relationship between companies and other stakeholders.
Part of the book: Corporate Governance
Responding Creatively to Faulty Corporate Social Responsibility Practices: The Case of Nigeria’s Niger Delta
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), in the Niger Delta of Nigeria has left significant impacts on the local communities. While analysts have explained how CSR has either succeeded or failed in this oil rich zone, over the years, their analyses, however, are yet to highlight sufficiently, the extent to which the responses to CSR practices have either strengthened or weakened the processes and practices of CSR. What are the implications of such responses for CSR theory and practice. A field visit to the Niger Delta shows that local communities have had to modify their traditional alliances and practices in order to sustain the flow of the share of oil wealth accessible to them via CSR. This creative response to faulty CSR practices stems possible violent reactions against the transnational corporations and/or the state government as much as it encourages the sustenance of CSR in the community. Besides, it highlights the fact that the substitution of ‘long term value maximization’ for ‘short-term profit at any cost’ in the corporate vocabulary notwithstanding, corporate conception and practice of CSR hardly excludes window dressing.
Part of the book: Corporate Social Responsibility in the 21st Century