Showing papers in "Journal of Modern African Studies in 1982"

The Sharia Debate and the Origins of Nigeria's Second Republic

Abstract: From 1977 to 1979, Nigeria prepared itself for the coming Second Republic. Most important on the agenda was the writing of a new Constitution. The Supreme Military Council (S.M.C.) appointed a Constitutional Drafting Committee, and its Draft was debated by the Constituent Assembly, which included elected members from all 19 States, as well as a number nominated by the S.M.C. The Draft, along with the changes proposed by the Constituent Assembly, were presented in September 1978 to the S.M.C. which made further alterations. That Constitution provided the basis for the subsequent elections of July and August 1979, and the formal inauguration of the Second Republic took place in October.

Popular Reactions to the Petro-Naira

Abstract: During the last decade, the flow of oil revenue into Nigeria has expanded spectacularly, dwarfing other sectors of the economy. Its implications for development, for the growth of a commercial capitalism, and for the corresponding emergence of a more defined class structure are crucial issues about which much has been written. What we have heard less about, however, is how the ordinary people of Nigeria react to the floods of petro-naira which they themselves cannot reach. Fortunes are being made out of oil, but the living conditions of the rural and urban masses deteriorate as agriculture declines and the urban centres become overcrowded with the jobless and the impoverished. What are the attitudes of these people to the petro-naira? The answer to this question is no less important than an analysis of the hard economic data for our understanding of what is actually going on in Nigeria today.

Africa and the Ideology of Eurafrica: Neo-Colonialism or Pan-Africanism?

Abstract: This article is an inquiry into the major causes of the continued state of underdevelopment and dependency of Africa in spite of its enormous wealth and tremendous economic potential. It constitutes a follow-up to earlier, historical queries on the present state of African economies:

Beyond Neo-Colonialism: Varieties of Corporatism in Africa

Abstract: Although the essential character of Africa's dependence on the world system changes very slowly, if at all, particular aspects of it are always in flux. For whilst dependence continues to generate underdevelopment, some growth has occurred in several countries at particular periods with important implications for certain classes. The incorporation of the continent into the world system is an ongoing process that reflects shifts in (i) the nature of the world system, and (ii) the nature of Africa's political economies. The sub-structure of the periphery – the capitalist and extractive modes and relations of production – evolves slowly, but the super-structure – the politics and ideology of the state – are considerably more volatile. Given the organic links between the sub- and super-structure, the instability of the latter affects the continuity of the former.

Cleavage, Conflict, and Anxiety in the Second Nigerian Republic

Abstract: Democratic politics embraces, inevitably and inescapably, an uneasy tension between conflict and consensus. If liberal democracy is defined as the institutionalisation of regular competition for political offices and policies, then clearly, there cannot be democracy without conflict. On the other hand, precisely because constitutional democracy is the institutionalisation of conflict, it is vulnerable to the decay of political order – and of the very political liberties that distinguish it from other governmental forms – that may result when conflict becomes to intense. The containment of political conflict within certain boundaries of behavioural restraint has, therefore, long figured prominently in the writing of theorists on the conditions for stable democracy.

Food Deficits and Agricultural Policies in Tropical Africa

Abstract: Hunger is the most immediate, visible, and compelling symptom of a continent-wide agricultural breakdown in tropical Africa. The crisis of food deficits has now become so perennial and so widespread that it can no longer be understood as the outcome of particular political or climatic occurrences such as wars, ethnic strife, or drought. SubSaharan Africa is the only region in the world where food production per capita has declined during the past two decades. As a result, the average calorie intake per capita has now fallen below minimal nutritional standards in a majority of African countries. By current estimates, approximately 150 million out of Africa's 450 million people suffer from some form of malnutrition originating in an inadequate supply of foodstuffs. This abysmal picture is further highlighted by the fact that the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations recently indicated that no fewer than 28 African countries were faced with food shortages so critical that further famine might occur imminently. This stark reality challenges fundamentally our earlier assumptions about the possibility of economic devlopment.

World War I and the Rise of African Nationalism: Nigerian Veterans as Catalysts of Change

Abstract: The enlistment and conscription of combatants and non-combatants in Nigeria during World War I represented an unprecedented mobilisation of the country's labour force. In September 1914, the Nigeria Regiment supplied shock troops for the Cameroons Expeditionary Force, and in December 1917 the Nigeria Overseas Contingent entered the campaign in Tanganyika. By September 1919, when Nigeria's military recruitment drive ended, 17,000 combatants, 2,000 enlisted carriers, and some 35,000 non-enlisted carriers had participated in the Southern Cameroons and German East Africa campaigns. In addition, the British recruited thousands of Nigerians for military service along Nigeria's northern and eastern borders, and for related duties inside the country.

On the Category ‘Civilised’ in Liberia and Elsewhere

Abstract: In any society, and in any period, there are likely to be certain key concepts into which are condensed the prevailing assumptions and attitudes of dominant interest groups. Such collective representations vary both in their cultural specificity, and in the extent and duration of their appeal. They may derive from pre-existing terminologies, with or without contextual modification, or they may appear unheralded in the popular vocabulary of the age. They may appeal to sectional interests or they may, with variable degrees of success, reflect the values and aspirations of the society at large. Yet, whatever their various origins and associations, they tend to have in common two characteristic qualities: a strong normative content, and — perhaps more surprisingly — a formidable resistance to conceptual clarification. There is, then, a mythic element in such terms, in the way that they both harbour ambiguity and obscure its resolution.

Contra-Coup: Civilian Control of the Military in Guinea, Tanzania, and Mozambique

Abstract: ONE of the more popular topics in the social science literature of the late g96os was coups d'etat in Africa. Authors developed sophisticated social, political, and economic measurements that were meant to be of explanatory, if not predictive, value. Military coups often succeed because of conditions that are universal to African countries: poor institutionalisation, over-dampening of demands, economic shortfalls, failure of political leadership, competition among elites including army officers, as well as dissatisfaction specific to the military. With no long-standing indigenous and successful tradition of legitimate civilian national government, African countries are particularly vulnerable to abrupt successions of leadership. Endemic though the coups have been, such articles could not account for the countries that conformed to the 'proper' coup-prone profile, but which had maintained civilian governments. Not all regimes are the hapless victims of successive military takeovers. I shall argue that a number of countries are making systematic and sustained efforts to control the armed forces and to subordinate them to the legitimate government. It is important to look at their efforts. There are examples of the military voluntarily returning the government to civilian hands. In the long run it may even be that the vast majority of military coups in Africa simply mark a period of Africanising, nationalising, and integrating the army, a segment of the public service that had alien roots, alien leadership, and alien character, but which was deemed important to the life of the nation. It must be remembered that very few African armies fought for independence: mostjoined the metropole either in non-African wars or in anti-liberation struggles. Many were commanded by Europeans after the granting of autonomy, and most stood by manners and methods that were foreign. When the military takes over the state it is acting to nationalise itself.

The Policy of National Integration in Zaïre

Abstract: National integration continues to be a matter of considerable debate and experiment among those concerned with the administration of Zaire, but has attracted little attention elsewhere, even within the country. It is not to be confused with another policy – or alleged policy – that of suppressing tribalism in favour of national solidarity. Although ‘tribalism’ and ‘regionalism’ are constantly denounced by President Mobutu Sese Seko and other officials, they are major sources of corruption which the Government, by its practice, actively encourages by frequently reassigning all personnel in the higher ranks of the public service, and making sure that an ethnic mix is maintained in every agency. Officers commonly complain that the only thing that matters is one's tribal designation, not one's ability or performance. Engineered ‘tribalism’ of this sort has nothing to do with ancestral traditions and communal habits.

Ethnicity and Leadership in Africa: the ‘Untypical’ Case of Tom Mboya

Abstract: This article seeks to relate a biographical case-study to some ‘liberal’ and ‘radical’ ways of thinking about ethnicity. The Kenyan political leader Tom Mboya, who was active in labour and political affairs from 1951 until his death in 1969, was widely regarded as genuinely non-tribalist in his politics. Yet he exercised successful leadership within a political system characterised very strongly, according to a great many observers and participants, by the play of ethnic forces. His would appear to be a strikingly deviant case, and hence may be seen as a useful point of departure for a reconsideration of ideas about ethnic factors in political leadership.

In Lieu of Orthodoxy: the Socialist Theories of Nkrumah and Nyerere

Abstract: A quarter-century after its inception, the diversity within ‘African socialism’ remains astonishing. This category now includes development strategies which range from traditional capitalism with limited sectoral planning to collective forms of national autarky. Although it is generally agreed that none of the forms of African socialism incorporates an ‘orthodox’ type of Marxism, the tremendous intellectual impact which Marx and Lenin have had on all aspects of social, economic, and political thought means that it is impossible to construct a theory of socialism which is totally outside their shadows. In effect, Marxist orthodoxy inevitably serves as a tool for the evaluation of socialist theory.

Constraints to Women and Development in Africa

Abstract: Although women produce more than 60% of the food crop in much of Africa less than 1 in 5 has found employment in wage earning occupations. The authors examine the hypothesis that there are 2 primary constraints to the improvement of the economic status of women (in addition to tradition and culture): lack of access to education and capital. Access to land and information is seen as secondary. Examination of available data indicates there is sufficient evidence that a pattern of discrimination exists against females in both formal and informal (as in agricultural training) education in Africa. In regard to financial credit commercial banks have allocated less than 5% of their lending portfolios to the agricultural sector while government sponsored development banks lend primarily to men. In the informal sector a variety of savings mechanisms have been involved that generate mutual support and other social benefits offering credit to women and men--although with higher losses and lower earnings than formal institutions. The need for government interventions to improve educational facilities and opportunities for women and to help informal groups mobilize traditional savings and more credit for women is emphasized.

The Colonial Legacy of Salary Structures in Anglophone Africa

Abstract: THE distribution of personal incomes in contemporary African societies is powerfully influenced by public-sector salary and wage structures. Even where capitalist and hence pro private-enterprise development strategies have been openly pursued, as in Kenya, the public service accounts for over 40 per cent of total employment in the modern sector. Where more statist, quasi-socialist strategies have been adopted, as in Ghana and Tanzania, this percentage rises to over 70. Clearly, then, any discussion of income distribution and the potential role of incomes policy hinges on an adequate understanding of the processes that determine remuneration in the public sector. And this in turn requires a comprehensive historical analysis of the political economy of each society in particular, the process of class formation and the role of the state. While the compartmentalisation of recent African history into colonial and post-colonial periods can be disputed on both theoretical and empirical grounds, nevertheless the most useful starting point for our purposes is an examination of the significance of the historical legacy of the administrative structures and related remuneration philosophies and policies of the former colonial powers. It has often been found that while important changes do occur in the size of income differentials over relatively long periods of time, the basic pattern of remuneration remains fundamentally unaltered. For example, according to Guy Routh's detailed and comprehensive study of occupation and pay in Great Britain between i906 and i960:

Can Education Be Used as a Tool to Build a Socialist Society in Africa? The Tanzanian Case

Abstract: By the time most African countries achieved independence in the early 1960s, education had become a sacred cow for both the governments and the people. For the former, education represented a major tool for nation-building and development which, in those days, meant essentially rapid industrialisation; for the latter, education–especially at the post-primary levels–was the main vehicle for social mobility, primarily because it made possible the acquisition of a well-paid job in the modern sector. For a few years it looked as if there was no contradiction between the aspirations of the people and the goals of the governments, on the one hand, and the socio-economic realities, on the other. Soon the bubble burst, however: industrialisation turned out to be no panacea; the limits of Africanisation were rapidly reached in the civil service, but proved to be a protracted affair in the economy. As the ugly scourge of youth unemployment started to spread in Africa by the mid-1960s, attention was focused on educational systems which began to be perceived as ‘dysfunctional’–i.e. as incompatible with the social and economic realities which were largely agricultural and rural. But more ominously, schools came also under attack as serving mainly the interests of the emerging bourgeoisies.

Eritrean Refugees in the Sudan

Abstract: OF the rising tide of refugees in the world, the greatest number originate from Ethiopia. The largest continent consists of those from the Ogaden who have fled to Somalia, followed by Eritreans who have sought refuge in the Sudan. Out of a total of 520,000 refugees in the Sudan at the end of I98I, approximately 425,000 are Ethiopians or Eritreans, with the much larger number being Eritreans. The Eritreans have fled their homes to escape the prolonged warfare between the Ethiopian forces and the Eritrean liberation movements, a conflict which dates back to 1962. Even before refugees from this war began to cross into the Sudan in 1967, a sizeable group of Eritreans found the Sudan to be attractive for a variety of reasons. The Beni 'Amer regularly moved from one side of the border to the other, grazing their herds and marketing their produce. Prostitution in the Sudan has been dominated since the I 920s by women from Eritrea and Ethiopia, while in the early I950s, as a result of local recession, men from these two countries entered the Sudan to become water carriers and truck drivers. Prior to I967 a total of 6o,ooo Eritrean and Ethiopian migrants had made the Sudan their home.1 Economic motives have not, however, stimulated the periodic waves of Eritreans entering since I967. Most were far better off economically in their home country than in the Sudan; they fled for survival.

State Structures in New Nations: the Case of Primary Agricultural Marketing in Africa

Abstract: There are nations and there are states. There is, for example, an Armenian nation but no state, and it is the aim of some Armenian nationalists to set up a state. This example follows a liberal European paradigm; that a sense of nationhood creates unity of purpose that allows the state to come into existence, and creates a consensus of popular acceptance that enables it to function. The state may be carved out of something larger, as in the Greek case, or out of smaller units, as in the German case. There is plenty of evidence, ancient and modern, that without a consensus of acceptance, it is very difficult for a state to prosper economically or to be free of repression and crippling internal conflict.

The Marxist Origins of Qadhafi's Economic Thought

Abstract: My aim is to provide an exposition and a critical analysis of Mu'ammar al-Qadhafi's economic theory as derived from Part II of his Green Book, and since it is basically an essay of conclusions, sweeping generalisations, and ‘final’ or ‘ultimate’ solutions to man's political, economic, and social problems, my primary interest is to examine his intellectual sources.

The Mano River Union

Abstract: Of the four current schemes for international economic integration in West Africa, the operation of the Communaute economique de l'Afrique de l'Ouest has been recently reviewed, the Economic Community of West African States continues to be widely discussed, while the agreement of the Presidents of Senegal and Gambia in Dakar on 17 December 1981 to establish a Senegambian Confederation, and to develop an economic and monetary union between the two countries, is as yet in its formative stages This article examines the structure, progress, and potential of the Mano River Union (MRU) about which little has been published

South Africa in Namibia: Persistence, Misperception, and Ultimate Failure

Abstract: Peaceful resolution of the international conflict over Namibia has been a significant preoccupation of the United States and its four partners in the western contact group since April 1977, but neither the efforts led by the Administration of Jimmy Carter nor the very different approach taken by Ronald Reagan has succeeded. To the contrary, prospects for peaceful change in Namibia are ebbing. The present stalemate in negotiations is unlikely to be resolved before the end of Reagan's first term in January 1985. In the meantime, the territory's political, economic, and social circumstances will continue to stagnate, and the low-level and intermittent fighting in the northern operational areas will probably expand in scope and costs.

Black and White American Opinions Towards South Africa

Abstract: The erudition of the late W. E. B. DuBois was never more prophetic than in 1903 when he issued his famous dictum that ‘The problem of the 20th century is the problem of the color-line – the relation of the darker to the lighter race of men in Asia and Africa, in America and the islands of the sea.’ The United States of America, for its remarkable technological achievement and democratic example, despite decades of difficulty in race relations; and the Republic of South Africa, for its unique violation of human rights: each represents in its own special way both the best and the worst in human history, and are fitting testaments to DuBois's clairvoyance.

Food and Dependency: P.L. 480 Aid to Black Africa

Abstract: In a recent study of 90 developing countries by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation, 52 of them were found to have more than 15 per cent of their populations undernourished. This figure was determined using the F.A.O. minimum intake of 1,600 calories per day, only about half of that of the average diet of citizens in the ‘First World’. In Black Africa, 29 of the 33 independent nations included in the F.A.O. study fall into the category of undernourished. Contributions of aid in the form of food and food-production technology are therefore extremely important to this region. Obtaining an adequate supply of food for their people must be high on the priority list for governments in sub-Saharan Africa, and is the focus of this article.

Finance and Development: the Case of Botswana

Abstract: It is still frequently asserted that the economic sluggishness plaguing most Third-World countries stems from a general lack of resources. The scarcity of capital in both the public and private sectors, it is claimed, prevents the investment needed to achieve development. On the other hand, a fewdeveloping countries with highly profitable exports – notably those that export oil – reap large financial surpluses, including foreign exchange, but do not invest them locally in productive activities. The problem here is supposed to be insufficient ‘absorptive capacity’ due to the absence of skilled personnel and inadequate physical and social infrastructure, restricting the translation of financial resources into real investment. The situation in Botswana provides a test for both these hypotheses, making possible a deeper understanding of the potential role of financial resources in the development process.

Trade and Growth in West Africa in the 1980s

Abstract: The classical school regards international trade as the main engine of growth. But modern empirical studies have failed to show any simple and generally consistent correlation between foreign trade statistics and macro-economic aggregates such as savings, Investment, consumption and growth1. The more generally accepted view is that development through trade where it occurred was partly the consequence of favourable internal environment. What are the prospects for growth through trade in West Africa in the 1980s?

Artists in Liberia and the United States: a Comparative View

Abstract: In summary, six striking parallels have been found between the artist archetypes in Liberia and the United States, each of which appears to be rooted in some structural similarity between the two societies at the material and social levels. The structural factors which have been suggested as pivotal in determining the nature of the artist archetype have included: (1) the atypicality of the carver/artist/s labour process via-a-vis that of other workers; (2) the development of an alternate value profile congruent with that atypical process; (3) the need for itinerancy/migration to ensure a large enough market for self-support; (4) dependence on the elite class for patronage; (5) relative economic insecurity; and (6) a definition of the product which necessitates solitary labour. These factors combine to create in the general public the image of the artist described earlier.Some carvers and artists may appear to exhibit the traits imputed to them, and even ‘play into’ their expected image; but this phenomenon can be explained without invoking some innate ‘artistic temperament’ or transcultural ‘artist's role’. Rather, we can conclude that carvers and artists, like other human beings, are subject to specific material and social constraints that shape their own consciousness and that of their public. Though individuals make art, it is as true of art as of history, that ‘they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly encountered, given, and transmitted from the past’.

The Lomeé Convention: an Evaluation of E.E.C. Economic Assistance to the A.C.P. States

Abstract: TH E P RIMARY purpose of this article is to offer a critical, multifaceted evaluation of the economic assistance extended by the European Economic Community (E.E.C.) to the African, Caribbean, and Pacific Group of states (A.C.P.s) under the terms of the Convention of Lome.1 The first agreement was concluded in I975, followed by the second in I979, which runs until March I9852. Both, of course, were signed in the capital of Togo. The Lome Convention is largely a product of the E.E.C. association policy, included as Articles I31-I36 in the Treaty of Rome,3 primarily at the insistence of France. This led to the Implementing Convention of 1958 which governed the aid and trade ties between the E.E.C. and the 17 colonial dependencies of member states. Specifically, the Implementing Convention instituted a free-trade area between the associated dependencies and the Community, and created the European Development Fund (E.D.F. or Fund) as a source of supplementary aid. With independence the Implementing Convention was replaced by the Conventions of Association between the Community and the Association of African and Malagasy States Yaounde I of 1963, and Yaounde II of 1969, as they came to be widely known. These retained the trade regime of their predecessor, with slight modifications, but substantially increased E.D.F. aid. Essentially, the Lome Convention consolidates and improves upon the Yaounde Conventions, the Commonwealth System of Preference, and a host of lesser agreements between the ex-colonial powers and mainly their former dependencies.

Analysing the Ethiopian Revolution: a Rebuttal

Abstract: The Africana section of The Journal of Modern African Studies, Vol. xix, No. 4, December I980, pp. 685-91, features a 'cautionary tale' written by John M. Cohen that is devoted to a critique of published treatments of the Ethiopian revolution. In particular, Cohen purports to show that important data on post-coup food production had neither been consulted nor considered in a previously published study of the impact on the nation's agricultural sector of the radical legal and policy measures introduced by the Derg.1 He further introduces estimates of food-grain production based on Ethiopian Government and U.N. F.A.O. sources which he finds 'probably more reliable' than those cited in the earlier article. On the basis of these official statistics, Cohen then disputes the conclusion that the Derg carried out sweeping land reforms without inducing a short-run decline in domestic harvests. He concludes with a call for 'more thorough research in government and donor archives'.2 This rebuttal to Cohen's piece takes a hard look at available crop production data for Africa, and reconsiders the crucial issue of the impact of political changes on food production in Ethiopia. Our main concern is that the criticisms found in Cohen's provocative short article have been misdirected. While we concede the importance of consulting all available evidence, we believe that his preoccupation with official statistical reporting deflects attention from the more fundamental methodological and analytical flaws inherent in many 'authoritative' treatments of African food-production systems. These shortcomings are displayed in Cohen's own discussion of the Ethiopian case. Cohen rests his critique on 'empirical evidence' culled from Ethiopian Government materials that are in limited circulation. Specifically, he makes extensive use of the results of crop-production surveys conducted by the Ministry of Agriculture with assistance from 'a team of F.A.O. specialists'.3 These findings, Cohen admits, are based upon surveys that covered an extremely small total number of rural households. On this basis alone, the estimates he presents 'may... be subject to quite wide margins of error, especially in relation to totals and year-to-year changes'. Cohen also concedes that 'It is probably correct to observe that every type of sampling error is