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The Political Economy of Disintegration in Nigeria

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

E. Wayne Nagziger
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Extract

Since 1949–53, when the Nigerian élite was first consulted by the British in a constitutional review, the peoples of Nigeria have engaged in a continual regional, communal, and class struggle for a share in the economic benefits resulting from decolonisation and independence, and the accompanying modernisation. The two coups d'état of 1966 and the civil war of 1967–70 were the most virulent of these struggles. This article analyses economic factors contributing to the Nigeria–Biafra conflict and the interrelated coups. Except for a brief discussion of the colonial economic legacy, the emphasis is upon the decade or two prior to the war.

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Articles
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The Journal of Modern African Studies , Volume 11 , Issue 4 , December 1973 , pp. 505 - 536
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1973

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References

Page 506 note 1 Crowder, Michael, The Story of Nigeria (London, 1962), pp. 165–9 and 178Google Scholar; and Whitaker, C. S. Jr, The Polities of Tradition: continuity and change in Northern Nigeria, 1946–1966 (Princeton, 1970), pp. 259–63.Google Scholar

Page 507 note 1 O'Connell, James, ‘Political Integration: the Nigerian case’, in Hazeiwood, Arthur (ed.), African Integration and Disintegration: case studies in economic and political integration (London, 1967), p. 156Google Scholar; and Mackintosh, John P., Nigerian Government and Politics (Evanston, 1966), p. 163.Google Scholar

Page 508 note 1 Skiar, Richard L., Nigerian Political Parties: power in an emergent African nation (Princeton, 1963).Google Scholar

Page 509 note 1 Diamond, Stanley, Nigeria: model of a colonial failure (New York, American Committee on Africa, 1966), p. 34Google Scholar; and Perham, Margery, Native Administration in Nigeria (London, 1962), p. 234.Google Scholar

Page 510 note 1 Melson, Robert, ‘Marxists in the Nigerian Labor Movement’, Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Political Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, 1967, pp. 35–84.Google Scholar

Page 511 note 1 For a more complete treatment of the political struggle in the West, see Skiar, Richard L., ‘Nigerian Politics: the ordeal of Chief Awolowo, 1960–65’, in Carter, Gwendolen M. (ed.), Politics in Africa: seven cases (New York, 1966), pp. 119–65.Google Scholar

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Page 514 note 1 The lower North (or ‘Middle Belt’) consists of present-day Kwara and Benue-Plateau States, and the southern provinces of North-Western and North-Eastern States (i.e. the Niger, Sardauna, and Adamawa provinces).

Page 516 note 1 The pattern of international trade with Britain in 1965 was close to that of the world as a whole, with secondary products accounting for 14·1 per cent of exports and 91·8 per cent of imports, and with primary products making up 85·9 per cent of exports and 8·2 per cent of imports. Office of Statistics, Annual Abstract of Statistics: Nigeria, 1967 (Lagos, 1968), pp. 87–90.Google Scholar

Page 517 note 1 There is not enough space here to discuss the disadvantages to Nigeria from holding virtually all her foreign exchange assets in British sterling. See Onitiri, H. M. A., ‘Nigeria's International Economic Relations: a survey’, in Nigerian Journal of Economic and Social Studies (Ibadan), III, 3, 11 1961, pp. 15–18.Google Scholar

Page 517 note 2 ‘Industrial’ refers to manufacturing, assembling, and processing. ‘Foreign large-scale manufacturing’ refers to firms with ten or more persons employed where all paid-up capital has been supplied by non-Nigerians. A. N. Hakam, ‘The Motivation to Invest and the Locational Pattern of Foreign Private Industrial Investments in Nigeria’, in ibid. VIII, 1, March 1966, pp. 49–65; Aluko, Samuel A., Fiscal Incentives for Industrial Development in Nigeria (New York, United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, 1967), p. 14Google Scholar; Lewis, W. Arthur, Reflections on Nigeria's Economic Growth (Paris, Organisation for Economic Cooperation: and Development, 1967), p. 26Google Scholar; and Nigeria, , Annual Abstract, 1967, p. 94.Google Scholar

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Page 518 note 2 Kilby, Peter, Industrialization in an Open Economy: Nigeria, 1945–1966 (New York, 1969), pp. 48–59Google Scholar; and Hakam, op. cit. pp. 49–65.

Page 519 note 1 The counterpart to a high degree of integration within the world capitalist system is a low degree of inter-regional economic integration (e.g. trade flows and migration), a partial determinant of the extent of political cohesion. I have examined aspects of this question in ‘Economic Aspects of the Nigerian Civil War’, in Higham, Robin (ed.), Civil Wars in the Twentieth Century (Lexington, 1972), pp. 187–8,Google Scholar and ‘Inter-Regional Economic Relations in the Nigerian Footwear Industry’, in The Journal of Modern African Studies (Cambridge), vi, 4, 12 1968, pp. 535–41.Google Scholar

Page 519 note 2 Adedeji, Adebayo, Nigerian Federal Finance: its development, problems, and prospects (London, 1969), pp. 122–4Google Scholar; Okigbo, P. N. C., Nigerian National Accounts, 1950–57 (Enugu, Federal Ministry of Economic Development, 1961), pp. 52–9Google Scholar; and Hakam, op. cit. pp. 59–60. Cf Frank, André Gunder, Capitalism and Underdevelopment in Latin America: historical studies of Chile and Brazil (New York, 1969), pp. 3–6,Google Scholar who argues that Latin America's underdevelopment stems from a satellite position in the international capitalist system, and not from legacy of domestic feudalism.

Page 520 note 1 Stolper, Wolfgang F., Head of the Economic Planning Unit 'at that time, discusses 'The Main Features of the 1962–1968 National Plan', in Nigerian Journal of Economic and Social Studies, IV, 2, 07 1962, pp. 85–91.Google Scholar Sayre P. Schatz, ‘Nigeria's First National Development Plan (1962–68): an appraisal’, ibid. V, 2, July 1963, pp. 221–35, and Reginald Green, H., ‘Four African Development Plans: Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, and Tanzania’, in The Journal of Modern African Studies, III, 2, 08 1965, pp. 253–74,Google Scholar provide cogent criticisms of the plan.

Page 520 note 2 Lewis, op. cit. pp. 37–9.

Page 521 note 1 Ministry of Information, Second National Development Plan, 1970–74 (Lagos, n.d.), pp. 11–14.Google Scholar

Page 521 note 2 Ayida, A. Akene, ‘Development Objectives’, Conference on National Reconstruction and Development in Nigeria, University of Ibadan, 24–2903 1969, p. 10.Google Scholar

Page 522 note 1 Mackintosh, op. cit. pp. 188–9; and Post, K. W. J., The Nigerian Federal Election of 1959: politics and administration in a developing political system (London, 1963), p. 23.Google Scholar

Page 524 note 1 Friedland, William H., ‘Paradoxes of African Trade Unionism: organizational chaos and political potential’, in Africa Report (New York), x, 6, 06 1965, pp. 6–10Google Scholar; Melson, loc. cit. pp. 30–87; and Kilby, op. cit. pp. 202 and 267.

Page 524 note 2 If the average wages of the daily-paid workers in government service are assumed to be equal to the average of all such workers, their annual wages were 3·7 times the G.D.P. per capita in 1963–1964.Google Scholar (Aluko estimates that comparable ratios between wages and income per capita were 2:1 in the U.S. and 1·51 in Western Europe.) However, the ratio of these workers to total members in their households is I:3, if it is assumed that this ratio is equal to that of the total number in the labour force to the total population. Aluko, S. A., ‘Wages, Costs and Prices’, Reconstruction and Development Conference, p. 18Google Scholar; and Population Census of Nigeria, 1963 (Lagos, 1968), vol. III.Google Scholar Agricultural workers include ‘farmers, fishermen, hunters, loggers and related workers’, ibid. p. 39.

Page 524 note 3 Aluko, loc. cit. p. 16; and Adede ji, op. cit. p. 188. Teriba, O. and Philips, O. A., ‘Income Distribution and National Integration’, in Nigerian Journal of Economic and Social Studies, XIII, 1, 03 1971, pp. 91–4,Google Scholar present evidence indicating that the personal income distribution is less equitable in Nigeria than in the U.S., the U.K., and the ‘average’ less.deveboped Country.

Page 524 note 4 The real growth rate in G.N.P. was 6·6 per cent per annum, while an educated guess for population growth was 2·5 per cent per year. Office of Statistics, Gross Domestic Product of Nigeria, 1958/59–1966/67 (Lagos, 1968), pp. 25 and 30Google Scholar; Second National Development Plan, 1970–74, p. 77; and Eke, Ifagun I. U., ‘Population of Nigeria, 1952–65’, in Nigerian Journal of Economic and Social Studies, VIII, 3, 11 1968, pp. 308–9.Google Scholar

Page 525 note 1 Contrary to the myth, there was a substantial amount of inequality in wealth and income per head among those engaged in agriculture; see Polly Hill, ‘The Myth of the Amorphous Peasantry. A Northern Nigerian Case Study’, in ibid. x, 2, July 1968, pp. 239–60. However, in part because of a lack of education and urbanity, peasants were not as restive about inequality as workers.

Page 525 note 2 Population Census of Nigeria 1963, III, pp. 54 and 57.

Page 525 note 3 I have discussed these factors in The Journal of Modern African Studies, December 1968, pp. 532–3, 537, and 540.

Page 526 note 1 Paden, John N., ‘Communal Competition, Conflict and Violence in Kano’, in Melson, Robert and Wolpe, Howard (eds.), Nigeria: modernization and the politics of communalism (East Lansing, 1971), pp. 1212Google Scholar; and Dudley, B. J., Parties and Politics in Northern Nigeria (London, 1968), p. 219.Google Scholar

Page 526 note 2 Kilby, Peter, ‘Technical Education in Nigeria’, in Bulletin of the Oxford University Institute of Economics and Statistics (Oxford), XXVI, 2, 05 1964, pp. 183–4.Google Scholar

Page 527 note 1 Dudley, op. cit. pp. 220–1.

Page 528 note 1 Aluko, S.A., ‘Displaced Nigerians’, in West Africa (London), 15 04 1967, PP. 495–8.Google Scholar

Page 528 note 2 Paden, John N., ‘Northern Region: relations with Southern Nigeria’, Conference on Problems of Integration and Disintegration in Nigeria, Northwestern University, Evanston, 1 03 to 2 04 1967.Google Scholar

Page 528 note 3 James O'Connell, ‘Authority and Community in Nigeria’, in Melson and Wolpe, op. cit. p. 633.

Page 529 note 1 The Ibos, partly as a result of their control of the levers of power in the Eastern Region, dominated entrepreneurial activity and jobs in the modern sector in many of the non-Ibo communities of the East. This was an irritant especially in the Rivers area, where Ibos obtained much of the employment connected with the rapidly expanding oil sector.

Page 529 note 2 ‘Matchet's Diary’, in West Africa, 29 January 1966, p. III; Gutteridge, W. F., The Military in African Politics (London, 1969), p. 93Google Scholar; and Luckham, op. cit. pp. 188–90, who suggests that, since the educated Ibos arrived on the scene later than the Yorubas, they were driven to seek advancement in occupations like the army where others were not already entrenched.

Page 530 note 1 I. I. U. Eke (an economist, later Commissioner for Information for Biafra), ‘Unemployment in Nigeria: a study of the strategy of development for Nigeria’, Economic Development Institute, University of Nigeria, Enugu, 1967; Callaway, Archibald, ‘Creating Employment for Nigeria's School Leavers’, in Administration: the quarterly review of the Institute of Administration, University of Ife (Ibadan), III, 1, 10 1969, pp. I–II,Google Scholar and ‘Education Expansion and the Rise of Youth Unemployment’, in Lloyd, P. C., Mabogunje, A. L., and Awe, B. (eds.), The City of Ibadan (London, 1967), pp. 198–203Google Scholar; and Yesufu, T. M., ‘Manpower and Educational Objectives for Nigeria's Reconstruction and Development’, Reconstruction and Development Conference, 1969.Google Scholar

Page 530 note 2 Ukpabi Asika, ‘Rehabilitation and Resettlement’, ibid. p. 11.

Page 530 note 3 Pearson, Scott R., Petroleum and the Nigerian Economy (Stanford, 1970)Google Scholar; and Nafziger, E. Wayne, ‘The Economic Impact of the Nigerian Civil War’, in The Journal of Modern African Studies, X, 2, 07 1972, pp. 233–6.Google Scholar

Page 531 note 1 Ibid. p. 231; and Nigerian Institute of Social and Economic Research, ‘Economic and Social Survey, 1958 to 1968’, Reconstruction and Development Conference, 1969.

Page 531 note 2 Pearson, op. cit. pp. 137–52; and Nafziger, op. cit. pp. 233–6, who cites Aihaji Yahaya Gusau, the Federal Commissioner for Economic Development during the war, on the relationship between oil and secession. The East may have been encouraged to take an independent course because of the potential economic vulnerability of the landlocked North in the event of secession by the Southern States. In May 1967 the Western Region consultative assembly indicated that if the East seceded, the West should also become a sovereign state. If the whole South had seceded, it would have had a strong bargaining position, since the North depended on it for an outlet to the sea and a market for its agricultural products. For a discussion of the reasons for the failure of this strategy, see supra and my chapter, ‘Economic Aspects of the Nigerian Civil War’, pp. 190–1.

Page 532 note 1 No other country had the stake in Nigeria's petroleum that Britain did. It would be too speculative to suggest that potential oil supplies were the primary considerations in the Soviet Union's backing of the Federation even prior to the war, and French assistance to Biafra beginning in July 1968. Nafziger, , The Journal of Modern African Studies, 07 1972, pp. 234–5Google Scholar; and Schwarz, Walter, ‘Foreign Powers and the Nigerian War’, in Africa Report, 02 1970, pp. 12–13.Google Scholar

Page 532 note 2 Adedeji, op. cit. pp. 151 and 253–4.

Page 532 note 3 Pearson, op. cit. pp. 542–5; and Nigeria, Digest of Statistics (Lagos), xvii, 4, 10 1968, p. 87.Google Scholar

Page 533 note 1 Adedeji, op. cit. pp. 55–6, 63, 151, and 252–4.

Page 533 note 2 For a more complete treatment of the subject, including analyses of post-war relief and rehabilitation, see my chapter on ‘The Political Economy of Reconstruction and Reconciliation in Postwar Nigeria’, in Higham, Robin (ed.), Ending Enmities (Lawrence, Kansas., 1973).Google Scholar

Page 534 note 1 Baker, Pauline H., ‘The Politics of Nigerian Military Rule’, in Africa Report, 02 1971, p. 20.Google Scholar

Page 534 note 2 Dudley, B. J., ‘The Military and Development’, in Nigerian Journal of Economic and Social Studies, XIII, 2, 07 1971, pp. 163–74.Google Scholar

Page 534 note 3 Nafziger, , ‘The Economic Impact of the Nigerian Civil War’, p. 231Google Scholar; and Ministry of Economic Development and Reconstruction, Economic and Statistical Review, 1971 (Lagos, 1972), p. 11,Google Scholar and Second National Development Plan, 1970–74: first progress report (Lagos, 1972), pp. 53–6.Google Scholar

Page 535 note 1 Nevertheless, there is some evidence that in the long run the industrious Ibos, like the Germans in post-war Europe, may have sufficient resilience to resume their rapid economic growth of the pre-war period.