ABSTRACT
This chapter localizes the initial global outlook of the subject matter to Africa, taking corporate Nigeria as the first case study. It introduces the reader to CSR conceptualization, practice, issues, debates, and regulation in corporate Nigeria. It provides information about its history in Nigeria and gives instances of specific CSR conception and practices by different companies, small or big in the country. Despite some promising provisions in the secondary legal instruments demonstrating CSR conception as a robust and comprehensive corporate governance construct, the chapter underscores the popular confinement of the subject to corporate philanthropy, and at best, undertaking community development projects. The chapter also interrogates aborted, extant and proposed CSR implementation legislations in Nigeria. The chapter exposes factors militating effective CSR implementation including: (i) the popular confinement of CSR in Nigeria to corporate philanthropy; (ii) the faulty legal transplantation involved in attempts to implement a few foreign policies and principles in Nigeria; and, (iii) the incoherence and policy misalignment in the primary and secondary legal instruments on CSR implementation. Drawing on lessons from discussions in the preceding Chapter 3, this chapter argues for reforms in CSR conceptualization, implementation and practices in Nigeria.
