Minority shareholders constitute a critical component of modern corporate governance because they provide investment capital while remaining particularly vulnerable to majority control, managerial opportunism and inequitable corporate decision-making. Although Nigeria and India have undertaken significant corporate governance reforms through the enactment of the Companies and Allied Matters Act 2020 and the Companies Act 2013 respectively, questions remain regarding the adequacy and effectiveness of their legal frameworks in safeguarding minority shareholder interests. This article undertakes a comparative doctrinal analysis of the legal and institutional mechanisms for minority shareholder protection in both jurisdictions with a view to identifying regulatory strengths, implementation gaps and reform opportunities. The study relies on primary sources, including statutes, judicial decisions and regulatory instruments, complemented by recent academic literature on corporate governance and shareholder protection. It finds that while both jurisdictions recognise important minority shareholder rights, India provides a more integrated statutory framework supported by specialised institutional mechanisms and stronger enforcement architecture. Nigeria, by contrast, continues to rely on a fragmented regulatory framework in which several important governance safeguards are located outside the principal company legislation, thereby creating challenges relating to coherence, enforcement and regulatory certainty. The article argues that effective minority shareholder protection requires not only the recognition of substantive shareholder rights but also robust institutional enforcement, transparent governance structures and accessible remedial mechanisms. It concludes that Nigeria can substantially strengthen investor confidence and corporate accountability by adopting selected legislative and institutional reforms drawn from the Indian experience while adapting such reforms to its domestic corporate governance environment.