THE LEGAL PROVISIONS RELATING TO FOREIGN INVESTMENTS IN NIGERIA WITHIN THE CONTEXTS OF NEPAD AND AGOA
CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background
The challenges of growth and development have necessitated various economic experiments in Nigeria since independence. Development plans and a nationalistic indigenous approach were apparent in the first twenty– five years. Failure to meet fair and just expectations, given the potentials and resources of this country, has allowed a large room for foreign influences in the search for solutions, particularly since the mid–1980s. In both cases the prevailing economic philosophy was always reflected by the legal system as many laws were enacted which in form and content defined the regulatory principles for the relevant period.
As to foreign influences, the close of the last millennium brought about the fall of insular approaches to the management of the economies of nations and this is very significant for a developing country like Nigeria. Great advances in information technology, the opening up of Eastern Europe after the fall of communism, regionalization of economic concerns, globalization, deregulation, privatization and commercialization became realities to which nations could not be indifferent, particularly Nigeria, which after a period of prosperity brought about by the oil boom of the 1970s was in economic decline.