The Politics of Tradition: Continuity and Change in Northern Nigeria, 1946-1966

by C. Sylvester Whitaker Jr.

Overview

Taking Northern Nigeria during the years 1946 to 1966 as an example, Professor Whitaker shows how modern institutions—parliamentary representation, a cabinet system, popular suffrage, and political parties—were introduced and how they resulted not in a displacement of tradition but in an astute absorption by traditional forces.

Originally published in 1970.

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Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780691648095
Publisher:	Princeton University Press
Publication date:	04/19/2016
Series:	Center for International Studies, Princeton University , #1673
Pages:	578
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.70(d)

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The Politics of Tradition Continuity and Change in Northern Nigeria, 1946-1966

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By C. S. Whitaker Jr.

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS

Copyright © 1970 Princeton University Press
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-691-03079-1

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CHAPTER 1

Perspectives on Reform

In this chapter I seek to trace the assumptions, interests, and experiences that led Nigerian policy-makers after World War II to decide that, rather than adopt British local political forms outright, it would be better to try to modify traditional emirate institutions to fit the functions and objectives of modern democratic local government. Significantly this policy was couched in terms of a doctrine of "gradualism".

In one sense the term served well as a rationale for the deliberate perpetuation of the local traditional emirate system into the new era of British-type parliamentary political institutions at the regional level. Preference for gradual rather than abrupt or revolutionary change is of course commonly associated with a genuine, concomitant interest in the fruits of stability and with the obvious desirability of preserving those benefits of an existing system that are compatible with the objectives of change. So understood, the Northern policy could hope to command general respect. Perhaps just as commonly, however, the profession of such a policy may serve to cloak a reluctance to undergo change at all, or to do so in any fundamental respects. In this sense, the Northern version of gradualism was motivated by considerations of both principle and expediency. These mixed motivations were related to two peculiarities of official policy that are important to note at the outset of this discussion — the substance of the policy, and the identity of its proponents.

As propounded in Northern Nigeria, the doctrine of gradualism was inherently ambiguous, in that it obscured the crucial distinction between questions of an appropriate pace of change and the degree or extent of change to be sought. To conceive of the course of change as involving a slow progression away from one state of affairs toward another is one thing; to regard it as entailing fusion or synthesis of two originally separate sets of arrangements is quite another matter. The validity of the fusion or synthesis approach depended strictly on the question of whether salient features of the British and emirate systems of "local government", respectively, are in fact compatible, and to what extent. Only through a careful and detailed comparison of these features can the answer to that question be determined; in Chapter 3 I undertake to do just this, in an effort to assess the dimensions and implications of the policy of gradual change within the framework of traditional emirate institutions.

It will be apparent from the statements below, made in behalf of the policy, that the official policy of gradualism did implicitly accommodate the two different meanings without trying to come to grips with the objective validity of the second connotation. The failure was no doubt partly explainable in terms of psychological comfort and convenience, but it also clearly offered certain tactical advantages, which brings us to the second important initial observation — the identity of the policy-makers.

In postwar Northern Nigeria, at least three distinguishable groups among the policy-makers espoused the doctrine of gradualism: senior British officers posted in the North, key traditional authorities, and the new group of Western-educated government ministers and NPC politicians. But each group had its own slant on the subject of reform, stemming from disparate goals and interests. Yet the second and third groups overlapped considerably in both background and outlook, while there were also certain significant differences of view within each of the three groups. It may be incidentally noted here that the leaders of radical parties in the North, like militant nationalist leaders in southern Nigeria, held still other views about the future of local government in the emirates, but these views were closer to revolution than reform, and in any case the leaders were unable to achieve the power necessary to become policy-makers. Thus, to understand how these multifarious elements found a mutually congenial rationale in the form of the doctrine of gradualism, the views of each group must be closely examined.

British Attitudes

As is true elsewhere in formerly British Africa, the initial major impetus toward democratization of local government in Northern Nigeria came from the Colonial Office in London, where officials were fairly sensitive to developments in the politically more restless parts of Africa, including southern Nigeria. But as is well known, it was characteristic of British colonial practice to allow maximum scope for interpretation and implementation of policy to the officials of each colony affected. And although the role of the Colonial Office in this instance appears to have been more aggressive than usual, the policy enunciated was very broad, and a large measure of discretion in its detailed formulation and application was permitted the various territorial administrations, including that of Nigeria. The Nigerian colonial administration, in turn, followed its usual custom of turning over a large share of responsibility to regional administrations. Thus the senior British officials of the Northern Provinces (as the Northern Region was then called) were bound, initially at least, to exercise a decisive influence on the course of change.

The reaction of British officials in the north to the proposition of democratic reforms in the emirates was strongly conditioned by the type of colonial policy they were pursuing long before the war. Indeed, the history of indirect rule helped shape the British attitude in at least three respects. First, the policy of indirect rule had embodied certain preconceptions regarding the process of reform or change — especially how change could and should be brought about in the Northern emirates. Thus, as might be expected, British officials, most of whom had spent their entire careers observing certain well-defined procedures in relation to the emirates, continued to apply them in their approach to the process of democratization, even though in content such reforms were novel. Second, indirect rule had rested on the assumption that the basic goals of traditional emirate government might be altered or supplemented without destroying traditional forms and institutions. The officials had always worked on the premise that to assure that this result was both necessary and desirable. They were to cling to these assumptions after the war, being partly encouraged by an indecisiveness on the part of the Colonial Office regarding the future position of the emirate Native Administrations under the new dispensation. Finally, the mere fact that the conceptions, assumptions, and premises of indirect rule had been operative in the past meant that the British officials in Northern Nigeria had already taken certain steps and shunned others in relation to the traditional political system, steps and omissions which now seemed to set limits on what could or should be done about democratization. At the very least, these realities influenced official estimates of the pace at which democratization should and could occur, but they probably also prejudiced their view of the proper extent of change.

The special conditions that led Lugard to develop for Northern Nigeria the administrative technique or system known as indirect rule were noted in the introduction — severe restrictions in funds and personnel; the grip of indigenous monarchs whose authority rested on conquest backed up by effective occupation and the popularly accepted claim that they were indispensable guardians of religion; the emirs' command of an impressive apparatus of administration, including well-developed procedures of direct taxation and an institutionalized judiciary. All this made it prudent for Lugard to uphold indigenous authority as an instrument of British rule.

Yet the rationale of the British conquest was that British suzerainty would lead to the eradication of what the British regarded as evils of traditional government. British efforts, the officials believed, would gradually alter the system to conform with basic British standards of justice, public integrity, and popular welfare. This rationale, of course, implied that British control and supervision were essential, that British rule was necessary to instill virtues which the traditional system could not or would not otherwise assume. The rationale therefore rested on a profound contradiction.

The nub of the difficulty was that the British proposed to rely on the continuing efficacy of the very system they sought to transform. Ultimately British administration meant to impose its own standards, but immediately it had to support traditional norms and techniques of traditional government, for these imparted the required stability and popular compliance. In the beginning, Lugard's officers were up against the dilemma in the form of the problem of law and order. Without the physical resources necessary to assure the rudiments of effective administration, they were obliged to assess each proposed innovation in terms of its probable impact on the disciplined relation of subject to ruler, and to refrain from measures that might impair that discipline. In the very early years the British were deeply uncertain of being able to retain their hold should the emirs themselves undertake to mobilize resistance; the initial reception by the emirs hardly encouraged British officers to be sanguine about the longer range reaction to British rule. Thus due regard had to be paid to acquiring and maintaining the goodwill of the traditional rulers. British misgivings over basic physical security, as such, later subsided, but the awareness remained, that whatever the objective of administration success eventually required the acquiescence if not active cooperation of the peasants with their overlords, and that of both vis-à-vis the British Administration. The more a given British innovation was a departure from tradition, the more attention had to be paid to these realities of fundamental dependence. Thus a conflict between the twin goals of stability and progress lay at the heart of the colonial edifice, bedeviling nearly every major venture into reform, from the very first days of Lugard on.

A crucial proviso to Lugard's original dictum that traditional customs were to be respected, stated, "insofar as they are not repugnant to natural justice." Accordingly this yardstick was summarily brought to bear against traditional practices blatantly at odds with British ideals, such as slave-raiding and bartering and the punishment of certain offenses by physical torture of mutilation. But Lugard was bound to acknowledge that the peasants, if not the British, would be weighing the political strength of their emirs by traditional standards.

Measures which evidently were compromises with British ideals inevitably resulted. Lugard's policy on slavery was a striking instance. Slavery as such was not abolished. A proclamation gave slaves the right to manumit themselves by petition to a court. But those who could be induced to continue the relationship with their masters were confirmed in their status. Lugard reasoned that since slavery had been the principal source of wealth among the ruling classes, to end it abruptly would undermine their position. Emirs were repeatedly assured that the British did not intend to "interfere with domestic slavery", while Lugard explained to the Colonial Office that his policy was necessary to mitigate "complete dislocation of social conditions," but that the policy would permit the institution to expire gradually. Lugard similarly defended his decision to maintain flogging as a penalty for specified offenses, on the grounds that customary usage had made it an especially effective device. Corporal punishment was in fact retained throughout the colonial period, in spite of the efforts of high officials in postwar Britain to have it abolished.

The fact that the system of traditional taxation was already institutionalized later permitted services and projects of a modern public welfare nature to be introduced, but it is interesting to note that Lugard originally recognized the institution primarily in order to allow traditional rulers to live up to their accustomed material standards. He was seeking, in fact, to compensate the emirs for the decline in their wealth and prestige which the British pacification had inevitably caused. Thus the proportion of public revenue he originally allotted the emirs as "personal emolument" (in some cases as high as 40 percent of the total for an emirate) was emphatically more in keeping with prevailing Hausa notions of the proper level of remuneration for public office than with those current in Lugard's own society. In like manner, one of Lugard's successors, C. L. Temple, was to justify his inauguration of a beit-al-mal, or "native treasury", possibly the most significant of all colonial innovations, on the grounds that "the only alternative to some such system ... is a Civil List, and the eclipse for all practical purposes, of the Native Administrations as responsible rulers under the guidance of the Protectorate Administration". Temple's apprehension was that as technical services and personnel expanded, emirs stood to lose their traditionally all-important power of appointment and promotion in favor of some type of "outside" agency, and also to forfeit the popular esteem which would inevitably be accorded the agents of popular benefits unless the emirs themselves attained control of some of the new dispensations. And indeed, the beit-al-mal did in time enable the Native Administrations to enjoy a substantial measure of fiscal independence in relation to the center, which gave concrete expression to a dualism of authority in the Northern governmental system.

Lugard himself held with the modern notion that economic reward should be dispensed in accordance with social utility, and he sought to make this a principle of Native Administration. Here again however, he had to face up to some unwelcome consequences of upholding tradition. An emir's conduct had to meet certain demands and expectations. While Lugard deplored what he regarded as a useless "palace clique" (idle princes, title-holders without office, eunuchs, palace slaves, and other members of the royal entourage), he nonetheless concluded that to cut them off precipitately might embitter the emirs — and what would be worse — spawn an entire class of influential malcontents. Lugard was content to rely on the hope (a vain one on the whole, it would appear) that the emirs themselves would in time come to regard nonofficial camp followers as an unwanted drain on steadily dwindling purses.

Other relevant instances might be adduced. Important policies which reflected constant temporizing included the severely restricted scope afforded Christian missions in the emirates by the administration, the special design of educational curricula and techniques of teaching, and the quality of justice and legal processes. But undoubtedly the most poignant of all the adjustments the British made was in the traditional relationship of ruler to subject. Its essentially despotic features had been revealed to Lugard and his officers in the course of investigating the incidence and techniques of taxation current at the time of their arrival. Their early reports and memoranda refer repeatedly to the prevalence of various extortionary practices, and more recent official interpretations of British objectives in Northern Nigeria have reiterated the indictment. Immediate steps were taken to eradicate arbitrary exactions nakedly supported by force or the threat of it; in time the steps were largely successful. But subtler, less visible forms of corruption, such as embezzlement, bribery, and many variations emerged even as the British stamped out the old excesses. The ubiquity of corruption continued, as we shall see, to constitute the greatest drawback from a modern vantage point — the "sting in the tail", as the future Prime Minister of Nigeria was to call it, of Native Administration. In this context, Margery Perham's biography of Lugard describes how the dilemma of indirect rule tended to lower British standards with respect to the conduct of traditional officials: "The gap between the two standards, British and traditional, was narrowed partly by forcing the emirs to act according to British standards. But it was sometimes closed by the administrators themselves meeting the emirs half-way, by partially suspending their own ideals, by supporting at times a corrupt and selfish aristocracy and teaching themselves to regard as irremediable a measure of abuse. Some of the early Residents, while admitting the danger, urged upon the writer that direct rule being quite impracticable, some acceptance of abuse was inescapable if the whole structure of indigenous society were not to break down."

(Continues...)

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Table of Contents

• Frontmatter, pg. i
• Contents, pg. vii
• Acknowledgments, pg. ix
• The Theoretical Context and Setting, pg. 1
• Chapter 1. Perspectives on Reform, pg. 37
• Chapter 2. Devising the Framework, pg. 75
• Chapter 3. Ilorin: Revolution, Counterrevolution, pg. 121
• Chapter 4. A Survey of the Central Bureaucracies, pg. 177
• Chapter 5. The Subordinate Councils, pg. 231
• Chapter 6. The Position of the Emirs, pg. 259
• Chapter 7. An Anatomy of Parliamentary Leadership, pg. 313
• Chapter 8. The Dynamics of Political Parties, pg. 355
• Chapter 9. Popular Elections and Neman Sarautu: A Case of Institutional Convergence, pg. 415
• Chapter 10. Conclusion, pg. 458
• Appendix A. A Selected Biographical Directory of Northern Nigerian Political Leaders: 1946-1966, pg. 471
• Appendix B. The Native Authorities (Customary Presents) Orders Publication Notice, 1955, pg. 498
• Appendix C. Questions for Administration Officers on Certain Aspects of the Development of Native Authorities, pg. 503
• Selected Bibliography, pg. 509
• Index, pg. 547