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Partitioned Royalty: the Evolution of Hausa Chiefs in Nigeria and Niger

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

William F. S. Miles
Affiliation:
Assistant Professor of Political Science, Northeastern University, Boston, Massachusetts.

Extract

Amongst commentators and scholars of the turn-of-the-century partition of Africa, it has become virtually axiomatic to note the ‘artificial’ nature of the boundaries drawn up by the colonial powers. Cutting, as they often did, through otherwise homogeneous ethnic, religious, linguistic, and even geographic clusters, the European remapping of the continent is criticised, at least implicitly, for its allegedly blind or indifferent disregard for indigenous social and cultural systems prevailing at the time of the conquest.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1987

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References

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1 The author is presently working on a larger project which addresses other implications (economic, religious, educational) of the partition of Hausaland.

1 Crowder, Michael, West Africa Under Colonial Rule (Evanston, 1968), p. 211.Google Scholar

2 Cf. Deschamps, loc. cit.; Ikime, loc. cit; and Kiwanuka, loc. cit.

3 See, especially, Whitaker, C. S. Jr, The Politics of Tradition: continuity and change in Northern Nigeria, 1946–1966 (Princeton, 1970).Google Scholar

4 Crowder, West Africa Under Colonial Rule, p. 199.

1 Crowder, ‘Indirect Rule – French and British Style’, p. 199, my emphasis.

2 Fuglestad, Finn, A History of Niger, 1850–1960 (Cambridge, 1983), p. 85.Google Scholar

3 Ibid. p. 123.

4 ‘In Hausaland …the French had tried with some success to circumscribe the power of the sarauta [ruling class], and to “liberate” subdued entities’. Fuglestad, op. cit. p. 84.

1 Crowder, West Africa Under Colonial Rule, p. 193.

2 Fuglestad, op. cit. pp. 161–2.

3 A leftward swing in French metropolitan politics also facilitated this switch.

4 Cf. Hugh, and Smythe, Mabel, The New Nigerian Elite (Stanford, 1960).Google Scholar

1 These are only the two other largest ethnic groups, of which Nigeria has about 250.

2 Other important ethnic groups in Niger are the Tuareg, Buzu, bush Fulani, Toubu, and Kanuri.

3 Whitaker, op. cit.

1 Orewa, G. O., ‘The Role of Traditional Rulers in Administration’, in Quarterly Journal of Administration (Ile-Ife), 12, 1978, pp. 155–6.Google Scholar

2 Paden, John, ‘Aspects of Emirship in Kano’, in Crowder, and Ikime, (eds.), op. cit. p. 180.Google Scholar

3 Whitaker, op. cit. p. 374.

4 Ibid. p. 326.

1 Orewa, loc. cit. p. 156.

2 Ibid. p. 156.

1 Ibid. p. 159.

1 Sani, Habibu, ‘Traditional Rulers and Local Government’, in Kumo, Suleimanu and Aliyu, Abubakar (eds.), Issues in the Nigerian Draft Constitution (Zaria, 1977), p. 189.Google Scholar

1 Okoli, Enukora, ‘Revolution or Tradition in Kano?’, in West Africa (London), 4 01 1982, pp. 57.Google Scholar

1 Sani, loc. cit. p. 184.

2 Kontagora, Hassan, article in the New Nigerian (Lagos), 28 09 1983, p. 7.Google Scholar

1 Biaghere, Sunny, ‘Buhari Woos the Obas and Emirs’, in Africa Now (London), 03 1984, p. 65.Google Scholar

2 Message by Buhari to the Sultan of Sokoto. Africa Confidential (London), 04 1985.Google ScholarPubMed

3 Ibid. September 1984.

5 Biaghere, loc. cit. p. 65.

6 Africa Confidential, May 1986.

7 Ibid. April 1985.

1 Ibid. June 1985.

2 Ibid. May 1986. On 1 July 1987, President Babangida announced that the period of transition would be extended until 1992.

3 Ibid. July 1986.

4 West Africa, 29 September 1986, p. 2071.

5 Biaghere, loc. cit. p. 65.

1 The ambivalence of the current régime's relationship with the sarakuna was recently borne out by the controversy in Gongola State which pitted the Emir of Muri, Alhaji Muhammed Abba Tukur, against the Military Governor, Colonel Yohanna Madaki. In August 1986 the latter succeeded in dismissing the Emir for allegedly misappropriating money in a government land-acquisition deal, and for demonstrating ‘insubordination and disrespect to government directives’. Two months later, however, Madaki himself was not only stripped of his Governorship (having been transferred to another State), but dismissed from the army entirely. One of the main reasons for the demise of Madaki's career, it is believed, was ‘his earlier entanglement in the dethroning of [the] traditional Emir of Muri’, which prompted the other Emirs collectively to pressure the Federal Military Government. See West Africa, 25 August 1986, p. 1801, and 20 October 1986, p. 2230; and This Week, (Lagos), 9 03 1987, p. 19.Google ScholarPubMed

1 Fuglestad, op. cit. pp. 186–7.

2 Guillemin, Jacques, ‘Chefferie traditionnelle et administration publique au Niger’, in Le Mois en Afrique (Paris), 213–14, 1011 1983, p. 118, original text in French.Google Scholar

3 Ibid. p. 119.

1 Robinson, Pearl, ‘Traditional Clientage and Political Change in a Hausa Community’, in Robinson, and Skinner, Elliott (eds.), Transformation and Resiliency in Africa (Washington D.C., 1983), p. 106.Google Scholar

2 Whitaker, op. cit. pp. 454–5. The definition quoted is Robinson's version in Ibid.

1 Robinson, loc. cit. p. 115.

1 Guillemin, loc. cit. p. 120.

2 Horowitz, Michael et al. , ‘Niger: a social and institutional profile’, Institute for Development Anthropology, State University of New York at Binghamton, 1983, p. 1.Google Scholar

3 Ibid. p. 23.

4 Robinson, loc. cit. p. 122.

1 Frélastre, Georges, ‘Le Séminaire de Zinder (November 1982) et la nouvelle stratégie du Niger’, in Le Mois en Afrique, 211–12, 1983, p. 97.Google Scholar

2 Guillemin, loc. cit. p. 121.

1 Guillemin, loc. cit. pp. 122–3.

2 Ibid. p. 120.

3 Horowitz et al. op. cit. p. 22.

4 Ibid. p. 23.

1 Guillemin, loc. cit. p. 124.