In various countries of the world, legislation is put in place to ensure that these corporate responsibilities are carried out. In Nigeria, legislations is in place to ensure that these corporate responsibilities are carried out. However, it is one thing to have this legislation, it is another to enforce the legislation as a means of holding corporate organizations accountable to the citizens.
Corporate organizations in Nigeria today have designed a near-perfect method to evade these social responsibilities. While many organizations in the world are committed to ensuring that they visibly contribute their quota to development in their society using various tested approaches, many corporate organizations in Nigeria have instead bamboozled the Nigerian public into believing that they are indeed observing these social responsibilities despite reaping huge gains from such exercises at the expense of the public.
I have seen billboard adverts tailored towards eradicating certain ills in the society but ironically this approach has not yielded any visible result. Take, for instance, a billboard placed along a deserted expressway with the inscription of campaigns to eradicate HIV/AIDS. How many individuals do such gesture intend to reach? Was any research done before the conclusion as to the location of the billboard or the medium of propagation of such a campaign? I doubt if there was any.
Many corporate organizations have basically devised tactics to evade their social responsibilities while some have devised plans to hide under the "media glare" to escape observing social responsibilities that effectively match their earnings. Others engage themselves in bonanzas that give out what looks generous in the eye of the public, but accrues great dividends from the public. The gimmick is simple! Imagine a bonanza that tells you to buy and look under the crown cock and "if" you find it, you will get a raffle ticket (not an instant price). Then, your fate is placed in a raffle draw where you "may" emerge. This is an example of our bonanza; an exercise that reaps profits for producers while motivating consumers to try their luck and win when the numbers of winners have already been predetermined.
Some corporate organizations engage themselves in giving donations to the public in the full glare of the media. Note that most gifts given in the name of observing organizations’ corporate social responsibility fall short of the legislated expectation and sometimes do not result in visible contributions to the development desired in the society.
While most corporate organizations opt for civil society organizations’ support as a means of contributing to social development, some corporate organizations in Nigeria prefer to be the "jack of all trades" by executing community projects themselves. Rather, they dole out huge sums of funds to incredibly corrupt government officials to carry out those projects. How many of such projects in the country have actually yielded the much needed results in comparison to the total number that have been carried out in this manner?
Most civil society organizations (CSO) are dedicated to community development through well researched programmes and projects. These numerous projects have indeed yielded brilliant results over the years. These results, in turn, are ubiquitous in our society today. In comparison to the actions taken by their counterparts in the corporate world, they have had tremendous benefits.
If only the synergy between these two can be rendered visible, corporate social responsibility will yield a huge result. However, a huge number of these CSOs have either been led into designing programmes tailored to best reap huge gains for corporate sponsors to the detriment of the public, or have turned down brilliant proposals for development which may not have been well articulated but possess great prospects: "We are also involved in a similar course of action and thus cannot be able to contribute to this course," amongst other diplomatic statements, is a well-designed excuse for turning down most developmental proposals.
One scenario caught my attention the other day. I was travelling from Ago-Iwoye to Shagamu some years back. We had to take an alternative route to the regular expressway. This route involved us travelling through an untarmacked road which usually had huge chunk of dirt flying in the air as cars passed by. As we passed through this dusty and yet, worsening road, I saw a cement-producing industry. From its entrance, which was visible, the road into the organization was well-laid and tarmacked. It is worth stating that the presence of this industry contributes immensely to the continuously deteriorating state of the road, owing to the huge number of trailers which ply the road to deliver granite to the organization or to purchase cement. I therefore wonder if the public has benefitted from the establishment of that industry in their vicinity or is, rather, counting its losses.
While I continue to ponder on all the aforementioned issues, I also ponder on who exactly is expected to enforce legislation ensuring that organizations observe their corporate social responsibility. Most corporate organizations have failed to recognize the importance of the exercise or have lost direction or guidance in observing these social responsibilities. In my opinion, most individuals at the helms of affairs in such organizations have either forgotten that they belong to the larger society or have simply been derailed from their responsibility as citizens while making a living.
The issue of accountability comes into play in ensuring that proper checks and balances are put in place to ensure that corporate organizations observe this exercise appropriately and effectively. Accountability, in this context, refers to compliance. Legislation must not only create laws, it must also take into consideration accountability to the laws, how this accountability is measured, and how it is enforced. Of course, if all these are taken into consideration, there will be a sharp contrast with what obtains in our society today.
Legislation must not fall short of this exercise as it will be tantamount to being unaccountable. While we thank those corporate organizations that have been held accountable in observing their corporate social responsibility, we equally task organizations that have fallen short of "legislated expectations" to be more accountable to the course.
Recently, corporate organizations in the oil and gas industry were forced to observe their corporate social responsibilities at high speed after a series of kidnappings by Niger-Delta militants. Must we wait for the situation to deteriorate into revolts or protest before we begin to observe our social responsibility?
Imagine, if we practiced our various professions at the expense of the development of our society. We would eventually get to a point where we would no longer thrive be able to thrive at the hands of growing deterioration in larger society. I therefore call on the general public to join in this campaign to help corporate organizations to be more honorable in observing corporate social responsibility rather than following the cosmetic approach of our present society.
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