The Political Economy of Colonialism and Nation-Building in Nigeria

With the 1914 amalgamation of the Northern and Southern Protectorates of Nigeria by Lord Lugard, the largest concentration of black nation came into existence. Nigeria as a political entity is a colonial creation, which emerged out of many nationalities that had previously existed for thousands of years. Starting with the British conquest of Lagos in 1861, other parts of the country fell in quick successions. Nigeria was ruled by the colonialists from 1914 to 1960. This period witnessed the introduction of the Western-style state apparatus manned by British bureaucrats and locally trained clerical officers. The idea of ruling the various nationalities as a federation was borne out of fiscal and administrative expediencies to reduce costs. Indirect rule was also adopted in places where there have been existing centralized governance institutions in the Northern and Western. As in other British colonies such as India, while respecting the cultures of the various nationalities in Nigeria, the colonialists entrenched an administrative system that mirrored the interests and goals of the colonialists. This chapter provides the background to the link between colonialism and the challenges of nation-building in Nigeria. It also introduces the chapters in the volume.

This chapter examines the political economy of colonialism and nation-building in Nigeria. It argues that the politics of difference, the binary of citizens and subject, the legacy of tribalism and ethnicity that colonialism reinforced and amplified continue to play out in the manner in which self-hate, Afrophobia, xenophobia, kenimanism and kenimatoism continue to define everyday relations, struggle for relevance, meaning and power in Africa. It adopts both historical and materialist political economy approaches in contextualising and situating the contemporary resurgence of centripetal and centrifugal forces in Nigeria. As well as the threats posed to the continued existence of the country as a single political entity. These forces are linked to the foundational errors, extractive logic and exploitative motif force of colonialism.

Western education was introduced into Nigeria by the Christian Missions in 1842. The first among them to arrive was the Wesleyan Methodist Missions, followed by the Church Missionary Society, the Baptist Missions and the Roman Catholic Missions. They embarked upon the opening of a number of primary schools for the general education of the converts. By 1900, the colonial government embarked on reforms in such areas as the judiciary in 1903 and consequently eroded the power of the Emir who was regarded as the highest judicial authority in legal matters. In 1907, the colonial government introduced a district head system. Despite this, the colonial government went ahead to pursue effectively the introduction of Western education amongst the Muslim Community of Ilorin. In the year 1915, a provincial school was established with a view to providing the desired personnel to serve the Native Authority. However, before 1915, six Ilorin Malams were at the Nasarawa School in Kano. But Western education was not welcomed readily by the Muslim Community of Ilorin. They showed their hatred against Western education because they regarded it as being foreign and antithetical to the teaching of the Quranic education that the people were familiar with. But this anti-colonial feeling to education was not peculiar to Ilorin alone but the whole of Northern Nigeria. Therefore, an attempt will be made to look into the place of the British colonial administration in the development of Western education in Ilorin, 1900–1960, a major area that had not been given adequate attention by scholars.

One of the resultant effects of British colonial rule in northern Nigeria was restructuring and incorporating the indigenous economy into the newer capitalist oriented system through the introduction and expansion of cash and exportable crops cultivation, use of single currency, and imposition of a new system of taxation among others. This led to rural–urban migratory flow to offer labour for cash. The advent of the Second World War and the economic recession that preceded it threw the economy of this area in crisis. Instead of attending to the labour question, the colonial regime used the war to canvass for support from the colonized people by encouraging intensive labour recruitment and conscription in various fields as well as confiscation of foodstuffs, pay cuts and compulsory contributions towards winning the war project. These policies gave rise to a drastic reduction in the price of labour and widespread protest in the 1940s, a development Toyin Falola among other scholars conceptualized as a form of economic nationalism which signified the advent of a new force in the anti-colonial nationalist movement that was entrenched in the struggle to dismantle the colonial regime. Through a careful examination of primary and secondary sources which are accessible in both colonial and post-colonial archives and libraries, the paper will explore the factors that culminated in the labour unrest and demonstrate the ways the colonial state took advantage of the war to combine coercion and consent in its dealings with workers

This article traced the origin of cocoa in Nigeria and noted that although growth occurred in some sectors of the economy without corresponding development, colonialism brought a halt to genuine development of the Nigerian economy. Adopting both secondary and primary sources, the paper reexamined the positions of the British Colonial Office (CO) and British business interests in the international marketing of cocoa from south-western Nigeria in the late 1930s when problems in cocoa marketing climaxed as a result of the activities of the expatriate firms that formed a ‘Pool’ and the consequential responses of the farmers. The chapter also examined the unequal trade relations that led to the ‘hold-up’ period, which was followed by a British commission of inquiry during World War II and immediate post-war era when the C.O. imposed a marketing system that was designed by the expatriate merchant firms, and which was subsequently changed into a permanent peacetime reorganization. This study revealed that the relationship between the C.O., expatriate businesses, Nigeria middlemen/indigenous cocoa farmers was complex, and that the firms were the real beneficiaries of the industry while the planters were the real victims of the tripartite relationship. The study also found that the close relationship between the C.O. and British firms squeezed Nigerians and other non-British small cocoa-export firms, in many cases, out of business. Significantly, it concluded that having lost in an unequal struggle with the expatriate firms and the C.O. between 1937 and 1944, Ibadan middlemen never recovered from this economic blow and thus remained excluded from cocoa transactions as the farmers continued to suffer from the ebbs and flows arising from fluctuations in international market prices of cocoa.

Leprosy disease is said to have been introduced into Nigerian area hundreds of years ago, and it became prevalent in the country. Modern control and prevention methods of leprosy disease began in the eastern part of Nigeria during colonial period. Perhaps, the reason was that, the region was believed to be the most endemic area of leprosy. The campaign was later extended to northern Nigeria in which the central Colonial Government, the Sudan Interior Mission and the Native Authorities made a joint effort to control and prevent the disease in the defunct Sokoto Province. The aim of this chapter is to examine the activities of the three bodies in anti-leprosy campaign in Sokoto Area. By so doing, the chapter intends to show the extent to which missionary anti-leprosy services were provided and appreciated in a predominantly Muslim area with a view to contributing to historical knowledge production. Finally, the chapter concludes that despite all the efforts of the authorities concerned, the area is still one of the most leprosy endemic areas of Nigeria.

This chapter examines the motivations behind the institution of colonial governmental regulation of the overland pilgrimage from Nigeria to Mecca in the early twentieth century. It argues that pilgrimage control in Nigeria, while initially undesirable to colonial officials, ultimately came about as a result of concerns that an unregulated pilgrimage posed significant threats to the political imperatives of indirect rule in northern Nigeria. In so doing, colonial officials in Nigeria, alongside the British Empire and other world governments, were constructing a new political order in which the religious obligation of the hajj became understood as something that state governments had the right and duty to regulate, and which was to be undertaken by subjects of those states. In making this case, this chapter contributes to a growing literature on the history of governmental control over the transnational processes of the hajj both in Africa and the wider world.

Since gaining political independence from Britain in 1960, Nigeria has been plagued by series of agitations by different interest groups. Lately, is the growing demand for the restructuring of the country, which, prior to the National Conference of 2014, was regarded as sectional and treated as an irritant by the federal government. Those clamouring for restructuring, however, found strong support for their demand in the report of the 2014 National Conference, which provided for states wishing to merge to do so in accordance with the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Following the release of the report, agitations and counter agitations have not only continued unabated but grown in intensity and become better aggregated, engulfing the six geo-political zones of the country. A clear line of division has emerged. Whereas opinion leaders in the three geo-political zones in southern Nigeria clamour for restructuring, those in northern Nigeria (save for a few) are vehemently opposed to it claiming acceding to the variously expressed terms of restructuring would inexorably lead to the dismemberment of the country. The core demands of the agitators for restructuring include resource-control and devolution of excessive powers of the government at the centre. This paper discusses restructuring within the context of the ongoing debate; examines the core issues under consideration, noting the reasons for the sharply differing positions taken by the opposing groups. It also considers the supposition of the protagonists that, if achieved, restructuring would end all problems hitherto blamed on the current political structure of Nigeria. The paper integrates the expressions of opinion leaders as well as those of informed non-political actors as reported by mainstream media in discussing this subject.

This study is a narrative of the historical and contemporary physical and intellectual debates within Nigeria about reconfiguring the territorial and administrative structures of the country to drive development. The description of the post-colonial African state by scholars in negative terms such as: underdeveloped, neocolonial, dependent, inverted, oligarchic, bureaucratic, fascist, crisis-ridden, rogue, failed, weak, fragile, and rentier applies to Nigeria that has not matched citizens’ expectations. The general Nigerian publics see the state as a sort of “evil empire,” oppressive, and a shackle on their progress. Citizens have related with the states in anger, commonly expressed by means of demonstrations, protests, strikes, rebellions, and in extreme cases, insurgencies. Although many believed/believe that the modern Nigerin state needs to be restructured, there is no consensus on the best model to adopt in the several decades of discussions on the subject.

An African woman is so defined because she is a wife of an African man or because she is a female of an African origin, have two different perspectives to the definition given to them and therefore to the role they are expected to play in politics within their various communities. An African woman so labelled given her marital position as a wife of an African man is seen as an appendage of a man and treated as the shadow of the man. This view is the dominant view of who an African woman has been or expected to be. The effect of this kind of view is the subjection of the will of the woman and the subjugation of her rights, interests, benefits and endowments as though she were inferior to the man in all ramifications. This view of the African woman has been the main reason for the disenfranchisement of the African woman. On the other hand, an African woman is seen rightly as a person who has not only duties but also rights; not only responsibilities but also privileges in her own right as an individual with potential, ideas, wishes, choices and interests. This view has become popular in recent times and has been the result of many decades of struggle for the recognition of women. The involvement and participation of African women in politics cannot however be traced accurately without some specific references to different periods in history. While it is desirable to inch into the history of the African woman in politics, it should be noted that it is impracticable to exhaust such events especially because Africa and by implication African women developed differently at a different speed. This precludes a generalized view of the history of African women in politics, but gives rise to the necessity of tracing the trends of events in ‘historical blocks’, instead. For the reasons mentioned above and for ease of reference, these historical blocks would be categorized as the past, the present and the future. The objective is to examine how the African woman has been boxed into the ‘mental corner’ labelled: ‘impossible’ in spite of the traceable contributions and impacts of the African women in all facets of life. In addition, this paper attempts, to identify some African heroines in the past; in terms of the role that they played in the politics of their nations; as well as the role that some African women play in the present ‘digital age’. Given these roles, questions arise as to whether these women are appendages of men. What has the present heroines done and what is the result of their efforts; what are the possibilities of having more women in politics in the future i.e. better participation and representation of women in leadership and decision-making in Africa. The paper adopts a historical method to interrogate the narratives and experiences of women in politics in Africa, with Nigeria as the case study.

Leadership has become one of the most significant concepts in global discourse because of the important role leadership play in peace, social justice, equity, freedom, and sustainable development. Leadership expert John Maxwell in view of the important role of leadership asserts that “everything rises and falls on leadership.” During the past three decades, the call to include women in leadership at all levels has resulted in a major paradigm shift from the politics of exclusion to the politics of inclusion, hence, in 2011, the UN General Assembly Resolution on women’s political participation notes that, “Women in every part of the world continue to be largely marginalized from the political sphere, often as a result of discriminatory laws, practices, attitudes and gender stereotypes, low levels of education, lack of access to health care and the disproportionate effect of poverty on women.” This paper examines the necessity of inclusion of women in leadership and the complexity of interdependent social relations between men and women and how this impact on sustainable development, peace, and justice is the catalyst for international instruments and convention. Notably, Conventions on the Elimination of Violence Against Women (CEDAW) 1981; the Beijing Platform for Action, 1995, the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights 2006, the recently expended Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the ongoing Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The 1970s and 1980s, in most of Africa, were decades of festering authoritarianism exemplified by militarism, despotism and repression. This debilitating state of affairs was not helped by the Cold War under which Africa was the beautiful bride of rival ideological blocs, as Mamdani notes in Good Muslim, Bad Muslim, that the Cold War was indeed a Hot War in Africa not with the numerous proxy wars waged in countries such as Angola (UNITA) and Mozambique (FRELIMO). To widen their respective geo-strategic and ideological support-base, the United States of America and the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republic (USSR) turned blind eyes to undemocratic practices of their various allies, and in some cases supported the same. The international best practices at the time were rooted in a modern anachronism called “non-interference in domestic affairs of nations”; this provided a convenient leeway and justification for international inaction against dictatorship and militarism, worldwide.

The paper examines the phenomenal relationship between ethnicity, citizenship identity and nation building in Africa within the prism of the political culture that promotes and sustains it. The paper argued that the art and process of nation building in Africa are characterized by the politicization of ethnicity and religion, primordial identities formation and the use of enforced discrimination and alienation to justify control of political power by an elite cliché. This phenomenon partially accounts for the political crisis in Nigeria, Togo, Cameroon, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Central Africa Republic, DR Congo, Rwanda and Angola, among others. Associated with these crises is the crisis of leadership engineering, sustainable development, peaceful democratic transition and political stability in Africa. The paper is analytical in nature and relies on primary and secondary data to understudy the subject matter. Using the concept of ethnicity as the baseline for theoretical discourse, the paper concluded that the promotion of primordial values and the crafting of citizenship identity around the frontlines of ethnicity and religion are antithetical to nation building in Nigeria and Africa at large. The paper recommends the adoption of liberal attitude to governance, the effective management of ethno-religious diversities, the establishment of veritable platforms for social integration, social solidarity and equality in the distribution of national resources as the baseline for national integration and nation building in Nigeria and Africa at large.

How does interaction between the variables of ethnicity, farmer–herder conflict, and nation-building impact the Nigerian state? This question formed the major puzzle which this study intended to solve, and appeared an interesting analysis, especially in the wake of the many clashes that have been experienced in the recent past between groups of farmers and herders in many communities in the “Giant of Africa.” The study was undertaken using the descriptive survey design; secondary data were sourced from texts, journal articles, and other publications that were of relevance to the subject matter under investigation. The study found that there was not sufficient literature that interrogated the mutual reinforcement of the variables of ethnicity, farmer–herder conflicts, and nation-building, and their implications for sustainable peace and development in developing African state generally and Nigeria in particular. The study also found that ethnicity significantly complicates the conflicts between farmers and herders, and negatively affects nation-building efforts, especially in Nigeria. The study concluded that nation-building in Nigeria must pay attention to the implications of ethnicity particularly on farmer–herder conflicts, along with other such issues. The study recommended that deliberate effort should be made by media and educational institutions to enlighten Nigerians against irrational ethnic sentiments, and government should pay attention to the ethnic dimensions of farmer–herder conflicts in Nigeria.

There is a plethora of studies on the herdsmen and farmers’ crisis in Nigeria. Majority of these studies have interrogated the lethal roles of climate change and the other drivers of the conflict. Others have examined the security and socioeconomic implications of the conflicts for the victims and affected communities across Nigeria. This paper investigates the herdsmen and farmers’ conflicts from the standpoint of how the proliferation of porous borders and state failures in enforcing the dictates of regional protocols interweave to jeopardize human security in Nigeria. The study relies on the analysis of primary and secondary data to argue that the proliferation of many porous borders across Nigeria and governmental failure to enforce the dictates of the conditions for the immigration of humans and cattle among ECOWAS member states have occasioned the influx of armed foreign herders to Nigeria. The study argues that the influx of foreign herders armed with sophisticated weapons has intensified the contestation for depleting land space between Fulani herders and farmers in North Central Nigeria. The study argues that the recurrence of violent contestations, attacks on farming communities, and reprisals jeopardize human security in North Central Nigeria. The study recommends the enforcement of the provisions for the free movement of humans and cattle among ECOWAS member states as stipulated in the ECOWAS Protocol on the free movement of persons and the ECOWAS Transhumance Protocol of 1998. It also recommends that the Nigerian Government should barricade illegal entry routes and secure its borders. Transhumant herders from ECOWAS member states who violate the dictates of the ECOWAS protocols should also be arrested and evicted from Nigeria. Lastly, the study recommends the adoption of state police in Nigeria because it will engender a swift response of state police officers to security challenges within their localities.

The paper is an empirical cum theoretical analysis of the nexus between leadership, governance crisis and underdevelopment at the grassroots level by focusing on Ijebu North-East local government in Ogun State Nigeria between 2009 and 2016. A descriptive survey research design was adopted. Using an unstructured questionnaire to garner information from 146 residents of 15 towns and villages purposively selected from the study area and analysed using simple percentages, the paper revealed that the level of development in the local government during the period under review was poor; political leaders are found responsible for governance crisis and dearth of development in the local government Area; while findings further shows that poor governance due to innocuous character of political leaders has hindered sustainable development at the rural setting. Other identified factors responsible for governance failure and underdevelopment in the local government Area included State Government’s excessive interference, corruption, lack of financial autonomy, poor candidate selection/appointment and inertia citizens, among others. Data collected through the questionnaire were complemented by data obtained through personal interview and observation techniques. Consequently, election of incorrupt, qualified, committed and development-oriented leadership, constructive engagement of elected leaders by active citizens, effective operational and financial autonomy, and localisation of anti-corruption measures, among others, were suggested as the way-forward towards engendering sustainable development and good governance at the grassroots in twenty first century Nigeria.

Development which is a necessity in every society can be achieved to a great extent with adequate resources. Hence the various sources of local government finance have become very crucial in order to foster development at all levels of governance. Local governments created with administrative and financial autonomy have two sources of revenue (internal and external) to promote development at the grassroot. But presently, the level of development in rural areas since when local government authorities have been created is not encouraging. Since development demands a lot of capital, this study will critically analyze the relationship between local government finance system i.e. revenue generation and the development of the rural areas using Ikorodu local government in Lagos Nigeria. The survey research design was adopted for this study, with 414 staff of Ikorodu local government area as the population of the study. The research instruments used for data collection were questionnaire and interview. 203 copies of the questionnaire were administered to staff of Ikorodu local government who were simple randomly selected of which 188 (92.6%) were retrieved while 15 (7.4%) copies were not retrieved. Three local government officials were also interviewed. The data was analyzed using simple percentage and frequency for primary data and content analysis for secondary data. Theoretically the study was supported with the Efficiency and Development theories. The finding revealed that there is an average relationship between local government finance and development as other factors like proper utilization and administrative competence are necessary in development. Even though what the local government had generated from internal and external sources have impacted the area to an extent, local government finance system i.e. revenue generation still remains poor due to local government being unable to exploit revenue areas because of the interference of State Government in local government affairs. The study concludes that local government finance has a great impact on development as it is a major factor in getting adequate financial resources and has become a problem because of political inference in local government affairs. Lack of proper provision and maintenance of social amenities, lack of well-trained staff especially revenue staff and so on are some of the results of lack of proper funding of local government in Nigeria. It is therefore recommended that these factors that affect administrative functions be addressed; staff salaries should be paid early; the little resources at hand should be utilized in building infrastructural facilities, and the constitutional laws and bye laws should be reviewed for proper understanding of local government autonomy, power and functions as the third tier of government.

The failure on the part of the government of Nigeria to properly fulfil its duties, especially about the common citizens is more of a norm in most third world countries, though scathing, this has remained an enduring situation. The result has been poverty and the vicious hedge it builds around its “captives”. In response, humans have instinctively been known to form common fronts to remedy general and peculiar challenges. The strength produced from this socialization is at the very core of mankind and perhaps one of the most pronounced of acts that distinguishes man from animals. It is the essence of man’s ability to recover, hold and gain grounds in various fields of endeavours. This study is built on both normative research method and dialetic enquires, each employed as circumstances dictated.Preliminary studies have shown that an interplay of activities of both cooperative societies and the Sustainable Development Goals can lead to a higher level of human development in developing countries, especially where the level of human development is at a distance from actual potentials.Whereas, cooperative societies could be formed by people acting on impulse and in response to socio-economic needs, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) was established on January 1, 2016 by the United Nations (UN) in its consistent and conscious attempts at development administration. However, there exists substantial connection between the role of cooperative societies and the SDGs. At implementing the SDGs, the UN draws a template, then partners with governments for the implementation. This is quite unlike the co-operative societies which are non-government actors and draw their respective templates and might not necessarily partner with government. Both are however identified as viable tools in development administration. While the SDGs apply by way of up-down development approach, the cooperative societies apply by way of down-up development approach. The purpose of this study is to identify the points of convergence between the activities of both Cooperative Societies and Sustainable Development Goals, harmonise divergences and proffer ideas to remedy deficiencies towards the creation of a viable model for human development in Nigeria.