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Nigeria National Economic Interests in the Postwar Period
Starting in 1949, when Nigerian's recently emergent
labor,
commercial, and professional elites were first consulted
by the
British as part of a constitutional review, the peoples of
Nigeria engaged in ongoing debate over the pressure of
decolonization, independence, and modernization. The two
coups
d'état of 1966 and the civil war of 1967-70 reflected
economic as
well as political elements.
Between 1951 and 1960, the major political parties
played
leading roles in unifying and locally mobilizing the
economic
elite
(see Politics in the Crisis Years
, ch. 1). Elites
from
majority parties in the regional assemblies who cooperated
with
the ruling federal coalition dispensed a wide range of
rewards
and sanctions, thus retaining their own positions and
power and
keeping the masses subordinated. Positions in government
services
and public corporations, licenses for market stalls,
permits for
agricultural export production, rights to establish
enterprises,
roads, electrical service, running water, and scholarships
were
allocated by the governing group to its supporters. Each
major
party was backed by a bank, which assisted in the transfer
of
substantial public funds to the party.
At all levels--local and regional after 1951 and
federal
after 1954--political leaders could use a range of
controls,
extending over local councils, district administration,
police,
and courts, to subdue any dissident minority, especially
in the
far north, where clientage was the social adhesive of the
emirate
system. Political superiors offered protection, patronage,
and
economic security in exchange for loyalty and the
obedience of
inferiors.
The elites attracted clients and socially inferior
groups not
only in the far north, where Islam legitimized the
traditional
hierarchy, but even in Igboland, an area of southeastern
Nigeria
where power had been widely dispersed before the twentieth
century. The elites of the three regions preferred to
close ranks
to share the fruits of office and to prevent challenges to
their
positions, but by the time independence was achieved in
1960,
policies designed to enhance the security of one regional
elite
threatened the security of others.
Data as of June 1991
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