Book

Description

In 1956, oil was discovered in commercial quantities in Nigeria. What followed was the domination of the Nigerian oil and gas industry by international oil companies. The unavoidable consequence of this domination was a gross under-utilization of the human and material resources of indigenes for decades. This necessitated the adoption of a legal framework for local content, marked popularly by the passage of the Nigerian Oil and Gas Industry Content Development Act of 2010. This initiative caused an increase in indigenous participation in the oil and gas industry and a move towards progressive domination of the industry by indigenes. While this local content progress remains true for the oil and gas industry, there are other key industries left without a significant legal framework for local content. Notable among these industries are the construction and solid mineral industries. This paper sets out to examine the rather insignificant local content regime in the construction and solid mineral industries. In so doing, this paper seeks to consider the practicalities of extending local content laws to the construction and solid minerals industries. This paper critically examines the Nigerian Content Development and Enforcement Bill of 2019, which seeks to extend local content to the construction and solid mineral industries.