ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the expropriations and indigenization programmes of the late 1960s and 1970s in Nigeria and Ghana. It traces the complex sequence of different types of local content legislation and analyses the corporate responses to these programmes. The Nigerian Enterprise Promotion Decrees were among the most comprehensive of these programmes in Africa. They were introduced when Nigeria realized windfall profits from its oil and petroleum industries, and thus multinationals were paying close attention. Expropriations of foreign companies in West Africa and beyond have been of interest to researchers in economic sociology, law, international business and history. The final section engages with these debates based on the archival evidence from multinationals in Ghana and Nigeria.
