The Rhetoric of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) 1 in the Niger Delta
Olawari D.J. EGBE, Mr. Fidelis A.E. PAKI

Abstract
Petroleum exists as the source of an unholy convergence of interests between the Nigeria state and oil corporations operating in the Niger Delta. However, the unholy alliance develops major cracks when social responsibility to the oil communities is brought to the fore; with both parties shifting responsibility to the other. The paper, in an interdisciplinary leaning to business ethics, examines the place of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in the Niger Delta, with the Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Limited (SPDC) as a case study. Donaldson’s Moral Minimums for Multinationals (MMM) provide the ethical basis in evaluating SPDC’s corporate social responsibility in the Niger Delta. The paper establishes that CSR undertaken by SPDC in oil host communities are inadequate and not making the desired impact. Though, in SPDC’s current community development model, the Global Memorandum of Understanding (GMoU), projects within the clusters where the GMoU is operational is community initiated, communities outside the GMoU influence are still top-down initiated and that is the problem. The paper concluded that the SPDC’s GMoU be made a Niger Delta wide development model for oil host communities, to become community driven and that CSR projects be made gender biased in favour of women as they bear the full brunt of environmental devastations and as child bearers and home keepers.

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