Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in Nigeria: western mimicry ...

9UndertheCompaniesandAlliedMattersActtheprincipallegislationoncompaniesinNigeria,the shareholdersarerecognisedsolelyasthemembersofthecompany–(Seesection79CompaniesandAllied MattersAct,1990SeealsoJ.OOrojo,CompanyLawandPracticeinNigeria,3rded.,(Lagos,Nigeria:Mbeyi& 8TheBillisattemptingtoenshrinesomeprinciplesofCSRintolegislation.Page10of44it was necessary to promulgate laws to facilitate business activitieslocally. The first company law in Nigeria was the Companies Ordinanceof 1912, which was a local enactment of the Companies(Consolidation) Act 1908 of England; and even the current companylaw of Nigeria (now known as the Companies and Allied Matters Act1990 - CAMA) is largely modelled on the U.K Company Act, 1948(Guobadia, 2000).Despite the fact that the Nigerian Company Law was modelled after UKlaw it has been largely interpreted and applied from the perspective ofthe U.S contractarian model. While in the U.K there has been anoticeable shift in focus in the conception of the purpose of thecompany to ‘enlightened shareholder value’ and the requirement thatcompanies report on the impact of their operations on otherstakeholders such as employees, suppliers, communities and theenvironment (see Williams and Conley, 2002), culminating in therecent Company Law Reform Bill 8 , which is in the process of beingtaken through parliament, the Nigerian legal framework has not gonethe same direction. It still essentially reflects the shareholdersupremacy and shareholder wealth maximization goal 9 characteristic of