Ethical issues in the western Nigeria development corporation and its Israeli partners, 1958-1966

Abstract

The Nigersol Construction Company (NCC) and the Nigerian Water Resources Development Company (NWRDC) were formed by the Western Nigeria government through its Western Nigeria Development Corporation (WNDC) and Solel Boneh; an Israeli company. While WNDC held the controlling shares and interest of 60 per cent, Solel Boneh held 40 per cent equity, in both the NCC and NWRDC  respectively. While the NCC was a civil engineering consortium, the NWRDC was chartered for water drilling and distribution. The companies operated at two levels; firstly, within the confines of their clearly publicized objectives and secondly,  clandestinely, a caucus within a political party, the Action Group of Nigeria (AGN), which formed the government of the Western Nigeria used them to launder public  funds. In line with the charters of the companies, the companies excelled in road construction, house building and water engineering. This essay is a study on ethical underpinnings in the two companies. We conclude that the ruling class in AGN demonstrated its earnest determination to provide social infrastructure through the two companies and at same time undermined its integrity by using the companies to expropriate public funds. The sources of the data are mainly the National Archive, Ibadan in Nigeria, government publications and newspapers. The data was analyzed using the quantitative and qualitative political economic approach.