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British Rule and Indigenous Organization in Nigeria: A Case-Study in Normative-Institutional Change*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2009

Alvin Magid
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Extract

The article examines administrative policy in Idoma (Northern Nigeria) as a response to two dilemmas confronting the colonial power: (1) how to reconcile a persistent, even if varyingly intense, commitment to indirect rule with a desire for institutional change; (2) how to reconcile a synthesis of the two with the longrange objective of normative change, including ‘progress’ and ‘administrative efficiency’. While normative change remained a long-range colonial objective, institutional change assumed the highest short-range priority.

Institutional change involved a pendular course of development: on the one hand, cultivation of strong chieftaincy and centralization based on the Fulani model; on the other, ‘democratization’, rooted first in traditional Idoma constitutionalism, and finally in Western notions of majoritarian local government. These developments are traced through three historical phases. (1) 1908–1930: occupation, pacification, boundary adjustment, and the quest for an indigenous leadership; (2) 1931–1945: systematic implementation of, and subsequent retreat from, the policy of Indirect Rule; (3) Post-World War II: centralization and ‘democratization’ of the Idoma Native Authority or local government establishment. Paradoxically, ‘democratization’ promoted the centralization of authority in Idoma.

By 1960, when Nigeria became independent, it could fairly be said that the colonial power's culminating exercises in institutional change were successful. Politically and administratively, Idoma was centralized as never before. That it had yet to experience the efficiency which might have resulted from longrange normative change did not detract from that achievement.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 9 , Issue 2 , April 1968 , pp. 299 - 313
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1968

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References

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6 Approximately 225,000 Idoma reside in sixteen of the twenty-two districts of Idoma Division (Benue Province). That division is bordered by the Benue River (north), Tiv Division, Benue Province (east), Igala Division, Kabba Province (west), Enugu, Abakaliki, and Ogoja Provinces, Eastern Region of Nigeria (south).

7 Miss Perham notes that European personnel tended to emphasize institutional change rather than Lugard's ‘primarily educative’ function or normative change. Perham, op. cit., ch. 10; Lugard, , op. cit. 228–9.Google Scholar

8 This section summarizes material presented in my ‘District Councillorship in an African Society: a study in role and conflict resolution’ (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Political Science, Michigan State University, 1965), ch. 4.Google Scholar

9 The clan headship rotated among senior members of the constituent lineages. The oche in clans of central and northern Idoma combined spiritual and secular authority; in the clans of southern Idoma his authority was exclusively secular.

10 Less systematic penetrations of the area were made as early as 1899. Northern Nigeria, Bassa Province, ‘Note on general and political developments in the area of Bassa Province’ (unpublished manuscript, Ca. 1910).

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17 This policy was abandoned for two reasons: (1) Idoma hostility toward ‘stranger chiefs’, and (2) the generally hostile attitude of the Northern Provinces Administration toward the ‘Warrant Chief’ policy adopted in the Southern Provinces.

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29 Northern Nigeria, Benue Province, Idoma Native Authority, ‘Memorandum from Idoma Senior District Officer to Benue Province Resident on Idoma Tribal and Social Organization’ (unpublished, 31 08 1931).Google Scholar

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33 In fact, European officers continued to control the appointment and dismissal of scribes, police, and so forth.

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45 Many youths, including literates in the Idoma Hope Rising Union, supported centralization under a divisional chieftaincy in order to break the political stranglehold of traditionalist District and Clan Heads. By 1949, however, many IHRU members opposed the formal inauguration of an allegedly conservative and corrupt Och'Idoma.

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54 Technically, the Portfolio Councillor is merely a consultant, in contrast to the Administrative Councillor who is an executive. In Idoma the distinction is a meaningless one. Northern Nigeria, Ministry for Local Government, Duties of Councillors (unpublished circular no. MLG. 42/82, 12 09 1962).Google Scholar

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57 In order to prepare for the newly adopted penal code, the six Court Presidents and several Court Members were dispatched to the Legal Branch, Institute for Administration (Zaria). There they received intensive training in substantive law and court procedure.

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59 The Administration conceded the lag between institutional and normative change on the eve of independence. It was particularly sensitive to administrative inefficiency in Idoma. Northern Nigeria, Benue Province, Idoma Native Authority, ‘Memorandum from Idoma Senior District Officer to Benue Province Resident’ (unpublished, 5 09 1958).Google Scholar