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Title
Privatization and Corporate Governance in Nigeria |
Full text
http://dspace.unijos.edu.ng/handle/10485/892 |
Date
2010 |
Author(s)
Amupitan, Joash O. |
Abstract
Privatization and corporate governance are emerging concepts that have become controversial lately. While privatization is all about transfer of shares from the government to citizens or the private sector, corporate governance deals with the manner companies and enterprises are managed efficiently. However, while the two concepts are familiar, not much attention has been paid to their interrelationship. Privatization started in Nigeria in 1988 with the privatization of 88 public enterprises by selling government equity shares to Nigerian shareholders. This led to the creation of about 800,000 shareholders and 1.4 billion shares in the capital market between 1989 and 1993 compared to only 400,000 shareholders that existed in Nigeria from 1900 to 1988. It is expected that by the time all the public enterprises are fully privatized about 12 million shareholders would have been created. The upsurge in the number of shareholders in Nigeria changed the nature of shareholding from concentrated to dispersed ownership. The implication of this is that shareholders of those companies are not only scattered all over Nigeria but held insignificant shares each to be able to monitor the performance of their directors. Consequently, the gap between ownership and control is widened beyond expectation. The corporate law, is therefore, not adequate to meet the challenges by dispersed ownership. This work explored the corporate governance models of the world, especially the American, the British, Japanese and German models, with the aim of bringing out ideal corporate governance for the dispersed ownership that is able to make the management of public companies more efficient and also attract investors for the economic development of Nigeria. In this course of this research, two approaches were used. They are-doctrinal and non-doctrinal. The doctrinal approach involved using of primary and secondary materials, proved more useful. Some of these materials were obtained from the Libraries of University of Jos, Bureau of Public Enterprises, Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and University of Iowa, United States. The non-doctrinal approach yielded little success as most of the people slated for interviews declined on the ground of lack of sufficient information and data on the subject matter. This research was able to establish the fact that share ownership is now dispersed in Nigeria and the gap between shareholders and directors is getting wider. Shareholders are passive and have been reduced to mere supplier of capital. The work also showed that the capital market has been put to good use through the privatization exercise. Measures to make shareholders more active in corporate governance were recommended. These measures include the re-enforcement of unitary boards system through independent directors, the development of Institutional Investors, proxy reform, informal measures by shareholders to increase their voice in corporate governance, reinventing the SEC and expanding its mandate on investors' enlightenment, a more effective machinery for the enforcement of contractual obligations in Nigeria, the appropriate use of leverage buy out and the Nigerian Bar Association getting more involved in corporate governance. - A thesis in the Faculty of Law, University of Jos, Jos, Submitted to the School of Postgraduate Studies, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the award of the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN LAW of the UNIVERSITY OF JOS OCTOBER, 2007 |
Language
en |
Type of publication
Thesis or Dissertation |
Repository
Jos - University of Jos
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Added to C-A: 2016-07-21;07:34:33 |
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