I am grateful to Dr F. S. O'Brien for pointing out my error in interpretation of Nigerian gross domestic product (G.D.P.) during the war. His correction also helps to resolve a contradiction between my treatment of Biafran territory and my statement that ‘Other factors accounting for the slow growth were the drop in oil and manufacturing output in the secessionist East.’

The shortage of capital has always been viewed as one of the crucial bottlenecks in the process of economic development, although recently the emphasis seems to have shifted to the shortage of skilled manpower. Whether it is defined to be only physical or also human – i.e. training, education, and health – capital formation still constitutes the cornerstone of the theory of, and plans for, economic development. Almost by definition, underdeveloped countries are short of capital.

With the expulsion of Ibos from Northern Nigeria and Asians from Uganda, the intriguing question of ethnic commercial specialisation and adaptation has increasingly occupied the minds of many scholars. One aspect of economic continuity from the pre-colonial period onwards has been an ethnic dominance in certain occupations and enterprises. Although some groups have lost their traditional commercial specialities, others have continued to be disproportionately influential in a particular sector, and have often maintained an effective monopoly, despite major changes in commerce and local political control. During the November 1972 African Studies Association meeting in Philadelphia, these developments were analysed by a panel organised by Barbara Lewis of Livingstone College. As she pointed out in her paper on ‘The Adaptation of Commercially-Specialised Ethnic Groups to Colonial and Post-Colonial Political Economics’:

In almost any analysis of contemporary African society, ethnic affiliation is an important independent variable. A wide range of behaviour, particularly of a political nature, has been explained and understood in terms of presumed intra-tribal solidarity and inter-tribal tension. Most of the evidence of ethnically-oriented behaviour is drawn from the actions and public rhetoric of political and journalistic élites or, if concerned with the phenomenon on a mass level, is indirect – e.g. inferences from patterns of voting behaviour. There is relatively little in the way of‘hard’ data on the ethnically oriented perceptions of Africans, and it is important that we collect direct evidence of their existence, so as to confirm our inferences based on indirect and impressionistic methodological techniques. One method of obtaining such evidence is by survey research.