ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on today’s Nigerian content policies in the historical context of indigenization in Nigeria’s oil and oil services in order to assess the key differences in theory and practice and draw conclusions relevant to the region as a whole. Nigeria’s content policies will undoubtedly generate some employment, as well as significant new wealth, by creating knock-on effects in other sectors of the economy. Nigerian content is also premised on the familiar fallacious notion that Nigerian ownership and participation in benefits the oil sector will trickle down to the ordinary citizen. It will be argued that both indigenization and domiciliation fall short on the promise of delivering social and human development. For this reason, local content policies, which have largely been ignored by many of the key actors in Nigerian and international civil society, must be given new attention in order to ensure that they deliver the best possible outcome.
