|
Nigeria Social Structure
About 70 percent of all Nigerians were still living in
farming villages in 1990, although the rural dwellers
formed a
shrinking proportion of the later force. It was among
these
people that ways of life remained deeply consistent with
the
past. People lived in small, modest households whose
members
farmed, sold some cash crops, and performed various kinds
of
nonfarm work for cash income. With the steady decline of
export
crop prices since the 1960s and the price rise in locally
grown
foods after the early 1970s, farmers shifted from export
crops to
local foods for their own subsistence and for sale to city
consumers through middlemen. Most farmers used traditional
hand
tools in smallholdings outside the rural village. Houses
in 1990
might have tin roofs instead of grass, and the village
water
supply might be a standpipe, or a hand pump. New practices
included the widespread acceptance of fertilizers; a few
new
crops, especially corn; the use of rented tractors; the
increased
dependence on paid labor; and the development of larger
commercial farms. Absentee city-based farmers also had
started to
buy up agricultural land.
Paved roads, better marketing procedures, and increased
extension services in 1990 were producing a change in the
rural
areas that was missing during the first decades of
independence.
Surveys indicated that improved transportation (paved or
dirt
roads and cheap, private minibus services) was felt to be
the
most important change, bringing almost all rural areas
into touch
with nearby cities and larger market towns. Still, for
most of
the 70 to 80 percent of the people who remained involved
in
agriculture, life was hard, and income levels averaged
among the
lowest in the country.
Western-style education was a necessary, albeit not
always
sufficient, means to gain better income and rank. Under
colonial
rule, literacy and educational qualifications were
required for
access to more powerful, better paying jobs. Education in
1990
was one of the most widely accepted criteria for job
recruitment.
Older education systems, especially in the Islamic north,
had
always produced clerics and judges, and some training for
the
populace. Long years of Quranic learning continued to give
high
status in religious occupations; this remained the case in
religious work, but to qualify for secular jobs in the
upper
salary scale required at least secondary and,
increasingly,
postsecondary schooling. Most rural families tried to get
at
least one child through six years of elementary school and
into
secondary school, if possible. In the cities, if a family
had any
stable income, all of the children attended school, tried
for
secondary level and even went on to university or other
postsecondary education if the youngsters could
successfully
compete for places. For the wealthy, there were private
preschools in all major cities that provided a head start
in
academic work, and private boarding schools that generally
followed the British model
(see Education
, this ch.).
By the 1980s, the education system was turning out an
increasing surplus of graduates. Dozens of university
graduates
lined up for a single opening, and many more for less
specialized
positions. Under such conditions, nepotism, ethnic
favoritism,
and bribery flourished in employment decisions.
Education requirements for work were known and widely
discussed. Job descriptions for government posts,
commercial
companies, and even factory work required set levels of
schooling
for applicants. Large factories and international
corporations
had training programs for future managers. In the 1980s,
however,
the vast majority of workers still learned their skills
from the
family or on the job. Outside the home, systems of
apprenticeship
produced cheap labor for the teacher and gave the trainee
skills,
along with a potential future network of customers or
employers.
Thus, truck drivers took on trainees, who worked as
apprentice-assistants and general laborers for several
years
before they took a license test and hired out as drivers
themselves. During that time, they learned about roads,
maps,
truck parks, markets, and vehicle servicing; they became
acquainted with customers and vehicle owners, who in turn
learned
about their trustworthiness and efficiency.
In contemporary Nigeria as elsewhere, occupation
differentiated people, incomes, and life-styles. In rural
areas,
smallholder farmers were the rule, but farmers often had a
nonfarm occupation to produce income during the nongrowing
season. The size of the farm was a function of family
size,
farming skills, inherited wealth, and nonfarm income to
provide
money for laborers. Some nonfarm work, such as trade, was
prestigious; some, such as butchering, was less so. The
most
prestigious work in rural areas was that of public
administration, either as local traditional headmen and
chiefs or
as rural representatives of government departments--such
as
teachers, district officers, veterinarians, extension
workers,
public works foremen, postal officials, and the like. Such
offices required formal educational qualifications. The
offices
offered steady salaries; the possibility of government
housing,
or housing and vehicle allowances. Unlike farming, such
work also
meant protection against the vagaries of climate and
economic
conditions. This situation lasted well into the late 1980s
until
inflation, recession, and government cutbacks destroyed
these
advantages.
In 1990 a growing number of medium-sized towns (with
more
than 10,000 people) were spreading out across the country.
They
contained branch banks; branches of larger urban-based
trading
companies; smaller stores; and trade, building, and
transport
enterprises whose owner-managers formed a rural middle
class of
semiurbanized households. Often such individuals owned and
operated nearby commercial farms as part of their
diversified
business interests. Their incomes were higher than those
of usual
farm families; their education level was quite low,
ranging up to
completion of primary school; and they were often active
as local
political party representatives with links to more
important men
and organizations in nearby cities.
In a number of special situations, government had
invested in
a rural area, creating peri-urban conditions surrounding a
large
town. Government involvement might result in a state
university
or a large irrigation project, for example, or on a
smaller
scale, where a secondary school had been sited with
appropriate
housing, electrification, and transportation links to a
nearby
urban center. In some instances, such as the Tiga Dam in
Kano
State or the massive irrigation project on Lake Chad,
entire
communities had sprung up to provide housing for the
technical
staff; new schools and markets also were built to meet the
increased consumer needs of the farmers whose incomes rose
as the
project went into production.
Because of high inflation and sluggish salary increases
throughout the 1980s and into 1990, rural officials were
obliged
to moonlight, usually by farming, to maintain real wage
levels.
Extension workers had been observed spending their days in
a
nearby city on a second job and carrying out visits to
farmers in
the evenings and on weekends. The wives of officials set
up
poultry sheds behind their houses and raised chickens and
eggs
for local and nearby city markets. By contrast,
traditional
chiefs, who had less formal education and often received
much
lower salaries than government representatives, were able
to sell
services, especially access to land purchases; to
adjudicate
disputes; and to keep a small portion of taxes. This
shadowy
income allowed them to maintain or even increase
consumption
levels more easily and set the pattern for the sale of
public
services that was quickly picked up by other officials
living in
rural areas. In the late 1980s, these well-established
"corrupt"
practices were viewed widely as essential for rural
officials
because real incomes had fallen so drastically.
In the cities, occupations were highly differentiated.
Unskilled traditional work was more common in the northern
cities
but not yet extinct in southern areas. Such workers
included
water carriers, servants, women and young girls selling
cooked
foods on the streets, and hawkers of all kinds linked to
patrons
who supplied them and took part of the proceeds. The move
to
cities involved vast numbers of unemployed, who sought any
type
of work. In the modern sector, the unskilled were taken on
by
manufacturing plants, wholesale or retail establishments,
hotels,
and government departments. Such people lived in crowded
rented
rooms, often several families in a room with a curtain
down the
middle. They cooked in a common courtyard and used a
latrine that
might serve a number of families; the compound might or
might not
have a source of water. They barely managed even when
their wives
and children also sought work daily.
Lower-level skilled workers in the traditional sector
were
employed in house building, and a variety of crafts from
pottery
to iron and brass smithing, leather work, tanning, and
butchery.
They generally had better incomes, lived in several rooms
or even
a small house or compound, practiced their craft in the
household
itself, and sent children to school. Their counterparts in
the
modern sector were clerks, store attendants, mechanics,
carpenters, and factory workers who had some schooling and
had
managed to get into the lower levels of the wage system.
The two
groups often lived in the same neighborhoods, although the
education of those in the modern sector set them somewhat
apart.
Their incomes, however, provided them with similar
amenities: a
standpipe for household water; electricity; a latrine or
even a
flush toilet; a bicycle or motor scooter, or a motorcycle
for the
slightly better off; a radio; and, for a few, a small
black and
white television set, and a bank account. Such households
often
had an extra kin member or two from the country who had
come to
seek their fortunes.
The middle-level income groups in traditional jobs
consisted
of higher-level skilled workers and entrepreneurs. They
included
dye pit owners with a small work force, middlemen who with
financing from larger traders bought food and export crops
in
rural areas for sale and storage in the cities, and
wholesalers
and retailers of traditional goods and services, as well
as
transporters of such items as kola nuts, craft goods,
specialty
crops, and cattle for sale in southern markets. This group
was
larger in the north than the south because of the larger
traditional economic sector in the region. Modern-sector
skilled
jobs ranged from machine operators and skilled craftsmen
to
accountants; teachers; lower-level managers of service
stations;
small to medium-sized storekeepers, who owned or rented
and
operated a canteen; owners of a truck or two, or of a
small
minibus used as transport for people and goods; and the
middle
ranks of the vast public services that, until the
shrinkage of
the 1980s, made up more than half of the salaried jobs in
Nigeria.
This group lived in small to medium-sized houses with
Western-style furniture, a refrigerator, and electronic
receivers; the better-off had color television sets.
Housing was
sometimes owned by the worker but more often rented.
Younger
members had motorcycles; more mature ones, cars; and
entrepreneurs, a pickup truck. Modern-sector middle-level
people
generally had some secondary education, which allowed them
to
spend time filling out applications and to dream of
someday
attending a university or other postsecondary institution
to
qualify for higher paid jobs.
At the middle-income level, a number of factors began
to
separate traditional and modern households. Traditional
work did
not demand literacy in English, but most jobs at the
modern
middle level did. The amount of Western-style education
and
acculturation to more international tastes affected the
life-
styles of modern-sector workers, although ethnicity, kin,
and
possible patrons in the more traditional sector meant that
connections were not severed. At the same time, both
groups had
connections upward and downward in both the city and rural
areas.
For members of the traditional middle group, this meant
the
possibility of someday becoming wealthier and diversifying
their
economic activities; for members of the modern group, it
most
often meant more education, better jobs, and, ideally,
entry into
the elite level of society in either the public or the
private
sector. By the late 1980s, a number of middle-income
workers and
small businessmen in both north and south were putting
greater
effort into farming in natal or nearby villages, as food
prices
escalated in the cities and as government policies favored
the
private acquisition of land and provided farm credits to
would-be
commercial farmers.
Above the middle rank were the elites. Traditional
chiefs in
the
south had been losing power to business and government
leaders
for decades. In 1990 they still received respect and
officiated
at ceremonial occasions, but unless they had taken
positions in
business or government, their status declined. This
situation was
less true in the north, where emirs and other titled
officials
continued to have considerable power and authority. Even
there,
however, the modern sector produced city and township
governments
that were eroding the power of local officials. State
governments
were becoming more important as centralized federal
functions
carried out by parastatals were being sold off to the
private
business sector during the 1980s. In the rural areas of
the
north, however, traditional district and village chiefs
remained
influential. In the modern sector, public service jobs and
incoming top management in corporations required
university
degrees. Wealthy business leaders might lack formal
education,
although more and more business leaders, especially in the
south,
were university graduates. Entry-level salaries for elite
jobs
were fifteen to twenty times those of the bottom salary
scale
(compared with two to three times in more developed
economies).
Added to the basic salary was hidden income in the form of
car
loans and allowances, often with housing subsidized to
such an
extent that only 7 percent of salary was charged for
rents, and
maintenance was free. Housing for holders of elite jobs
was
generally of the standard of the middle class in a
developed
country, ranging up to huge mansions in exclusive housing
estates
for the very rich.
In the late 1980s, inflation and wage controls had
drastically eroded the incomes of the salaried elites and,
in
most cases, they had to moonlight in the private sector
through
farming, trade, consultancy, or business. It was not
unusual to
find a professor's campus garage used as a warehouse for
his
trucks and the equipment in his construction business, and
behind
the house pens, where his wife conducted a poultry
business.
Others sought to emigrate, especially highly skilled
people, such
as doctors, lawyers, and professors, who realized they
could do
much better abroad. The sudden decline in the income of
the
elites resulted from Nigeria's belt-tightening policies.
Business
people, especially those in trade, were less affected by
inflation, but the recessionary effects of the SAP had cut
into
their incomes as well, by lowering demand or by
controlling
imports and exports more tightly. By the late 1980s,
however,
many of the elite and even the middle classes were being
obliged
to adjust to a lower standard of living.
Data as of June 1991
|
