Actualising economic development through privatisation legal reform: a general assessment of privatisation in Africa with a specific case study of Nigeria and sub focus on the Nigerian electricity sector

Abstract

This dissertation analysed the outcome of the adoption and implementation of privatisation by Nigeria, of which a legal framework has been put in place by the government to legalise the process of transferring the ownership and/or control of public enterprises to private entrepreneurs with a view to facilitating economic development in the country. Many other African countries have pursued similar reform paths with similar objectives and the thesis undertakes a general analysis of the outcome of adopting and implementing privatisation within the continent. Within Nigeria, the proposed power sector privatisation is specifically analysed. The dissertation focuses on the economic development outcome of privatisation, which encompasses key benefits that have been attributed to privatisation including the beneficial impact of privatisation on the public sector as well as the privatised enterprises, privatisation’s contribution to overall private sector development, the benefit of privatisation to the citizens of the country and finally privatisation’s usefulness as a conduit for beneficial foreign investment inflow to the country. These benefits are viewed collectively, of which achieving some of them at the expense of others may not augur well for broad based economic development in Nigeria specifically or Africa in general. Using the analytical framework created in the thesis, various issues that have adversely affected the full realisation of these key economic development benefits and created a gap between the policy objectives behind privatisation law and the reality of implementation were analysed. The approach of International Financial Institutions (IFIs) (specifically the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund) to privatisation was also considered in the thesis owing to the fact that they have had some influence in its adoption and implementation in Nigeria, and Africa more broadly. Privatisation entails more than just legal reform, thus, the research is interdisciplinary in nature and principally touches on legal issues, public policy issues and issues pertaining to economic development, including social issues.