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The Limits of Federalism: and Examination of political Institutional Transfer in Africa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

Donald Rothchild
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Extract

While Africa was in the throes of the decolonisation process, many of its leaders considered classical federalism an effective way of reconciling unity and diversity.1 Along with their counterparts in Europe, they reasoned that federalism would compensate for the nation-state's inability to meet modern political, economic, and strategic demands without at the same time threatening the special interests of the constituent parts. Federalism would avoid the extreme of overcentralisation seemingly implicit in unitary government as well as the risks of disintegration which continually threaten multilateral economic and military communities. Such a system had worked for political craftsmen in earlier times; now it was to be extended to the needs of Africa.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Modern African Studies , Volume 4 , Issue 3 , November 1966 , pp. 275 - 293
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1966

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References

Page 275 note 1 Throughout this article, federalism is used in Dicey's, A. V. sense of a constitutional system which distributes ‘the force of the state among a number of co-ordinate bodies each originating in and controlled by the constitution’. Introduction to the Study of the Law of the Constitution (London, 9th ed., 1952), p. 157.Google Scholar See also Wheare, K. C., Federal Government (London, 4th ed., 1963), pt. 1.Google Scholar

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Page 277 note 1 Nkrumah, Kwame, Africa Must Unite (London, 1963), pp. 214–15.Google Scholar

Page 277 note 2 On Lumumba's hostility to federalism, see Gérard-Libois, J. and Verhaegen, Benoit, Congo 1960 (Brussels, 1961), vol. I, pp. 36–7.Google Scholar

Page 277 note 3 Evening News (Accra), 19 04 1961.Google Scholar

Page 278 note 1 Daily Times (Lagos), 30 09 1961;Google Scholar and Brett, Lionel (ed.), Constitutional Problems of Federalism in Nigeria (Lagos, 1961), p. 1.Google Scholar

Page 278 note 2 West Africa (London), 3 03 1962, p. 243.Google Scholar

Page 278 note 3 On the circumstances involved in the adoption of Nigeria's federal system, see my Toward Unity in Africa: a study of federalism in British Africa (Washington, D.C., 1960), pp. 151–77.Google Scholar

Page 278 note 4 Dr M. I. Okpara, the Premier of the Eastern Region, expressed these feelings in 1960 when he described the federal system as having many drawbacks (i.e. expense and lack of strength). At the same time he observed that it was ‘better to have a united country with a federal system of government than to disintegrate. We as a party have not found favour with the federal system of government. We prefer the unitary system where the little tribalist will be eliminated.’ Daily Times, 25 03 1960.Google Scholar

Page 278 note 5 For the purposes of this article, the Bantu nomenclature is used throughout. Thus the place is Buganda and the people are the Baganda.

Page 279 note 1 For a more detailed description of Obote's relations with Kabaka Yekka, see Rothchild, Donald and Rogin, Michael, ‘Uganda’, in Carter, Gwendolen M. (ed.), National Unity and Regionalism in Eight African States (Ithaca, N.Y., 1966), pp. 359–60 and 400–2.Google Scholar

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Page 279 note 3 With the publication of the Western Kingdoms and Busoga Act soon after independence, the quasi-federal nature of Kingdoms other than Buganda became apparent to all. See my ‘Majimbo Schemes in East Africa’, in Boston University Papers in African Politics (Boston, 1967).Google Scholar

Page 279 note 4 Uganda Argus, 20 02 1963.Google Scholar

Page 280 note 1 Uganda Argus, 17 07 1961, and 12 05 1965.Google Scholar

Page 280 note 2 The same preference for unitary government was evident among Soudanese leaders of the Mali Federation. See Foltz, William J., From French West Africa to the MaliFederation (New Haven, 1965), p. 179;Google Scholar and see p. 183 for subsequent Senegalese disillusionment.

Page 280 note 3 Young, Crawford, Politics in the Congo: decolonization and independence (Princeton, 1965), pp. 504 and 511.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Also see Lemarchand, René, ‘The Limits of Self-Determination: the case of the Katanga secession”, in The American Political Science Review (Menasha), LVI, 2, 06 1962, pp. 412–16.Google Scholar

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Page 281 note 1 Informations et Documentation Africaines, ‘The Federalist Vocation’ (Brussels, , INDAF, n.d.), pp. 2–3.Google Scholar

In a letter to the Prime Minister of Belgium of 14 October 1959, Tshombe and J. B. Kibwe had written: ‘The position of our association on CONAKAT which groups 905 of the autochton population of the Katanga, has always firmly approved an integral federal structure for the Congo, which would grant to each of the federate regions the most extensive powers, especially in budgetary, social (including education) and economic matters, as well as in respect of administrative services, the total devolution of which would relieve the administrative machinery which weighs too heavily upon the federal capital.’ Ibid. pp. 1–2.

Page 281 note 2 ‘Report to the Secretary-General from the Officer-in-charge of the United Nations Operation in the Congo on Developments relating to the Application of the Security Council Resolutions of 21 February and 24 November 1961’;U.N. Doc. s/5053/Add. 13, 26 November 1962, Annex ix, p. 2.

Page 281 note 3 Ibid. Annex III, p. 3.

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Page 282 note 1 The Federalist (New York, n.d.), no. 10, p. 61.Google Scholar Some of the material in this part is the result of collaboration with Professor J. David Greenstone of the Univeristy of Chicago.

Page 282 note 2 See Tarlton, Charles D., ‘Symmetry and Asymmetry as Elements of Federalism: a theoretical speculation’, in The Journal of Politics (Gainesville), XXVII, 4, 11 1965, p. 873.Google Scholar

Page 283 note 1 See Johnson, Willard R., ‘The Cameroon Federation: political union between English- and French-speaking Africa’, in Lewis, William H. (ed.), French-speaking Africa: the search for identity, (New York, 1965), pp. 206–11.Google Scholar

Page 284 note 1 In February 1966, the military régime appointed Francis Nwokedi as Commissioner on Special Duties, charged with establishing an administrative machinery for a united Nigeria. Sunday Times (Lagos), 13 02 1966.Google Scholar The possibility of some new type of federalism was not precluded for, some weeks after Nwokedi's appointment, General Ironsi appointed a nine-man study group to make proposals on a new constitution. This study group included Dr T. O. Elias, Chief F. Rotimi Williams, Professor E. U. Essien-Udom, and other well known scholars and administrators. Daily Times, 1 03 1966.Google Scholar

Page 284 note 2 Ethiopian Herald (Addis Ababa), 16 11 1962.Google Scholar

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Page 285 note 3 A statement of the working party disagreements on the nature of federal structure was published by the East African Standard (Nairobi), 3 06 1964.Google Scholar

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Page 287 note 1 For a statement of the advantages of coalition government in Africa, see Lewis, W. A., ‘Beyond African Dictatorship,’ in Encounter (London), xxv, 2, 08 1965.Google Scholar

Page 287 note 2 ‘The Crisis in Nigeria’, in The World Today (London), XXII, 2, 02 1966, p. 44.Google Scholar

Page 287 note 3 In April 1965, Prime Minister Balewa did include five members of Chief S. L. Akintola's Nigerian National Democratic Party in his cabinet. However, because the Action Group was excluded from the federal government, a significant proportion of Yoruba opinion remained outside the system.

Page 288 note 1 See the discussion by Birch, A. H., ‘Opportunities and Problems of Federation’, in Leys, C. and Robson, P. (eds.), Federation in East Africa: opportunities and problems (Nairobi, 1965), pp. 6–9.Google Scholar

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Page 290 note 1 A situation ‘where any gain by one or more players must be equal to the loss of one or more rivals’. Deutsch, Karl W., The Nerves of Government (New York, 1963), p. 66.Google Scholar

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Page 290 note 3 The same anxieties were evident in the discussions over the proposed East African federation, not only among the spokesmen for traditionalist Buganda or the moderately conservative Kenya African Democratic Union but also, more significantly, among such leaders as Prime Minister Obote of Uganda. A comment on this might be the statement of the Kenya Minister of State, Joseph Murumbi, at the height of the federation debates: ‘ I feel that in Uganda, we have this difficulty of the leadership there fearing they will be absorbed into an East African Federation. Some of the Uganda leaders feel they might become non-entities overnight.’ Uganda Argus, 25 10 1963.Google Scholar

Page 291 note 1 In 1964, Tanganyika, which had domestic exports totalling £70, 111, 861, sold £4,109,794 worth of goods to Kenya and £1,020,935 worth to Uganda. Such trade patterns are likely to foster a sense of national self-interest rather than trans-national community, a tendency apparent in recent Tanganyikan trade restrictions and quotas. Reporter (Nairobi), 9 04 1965, p. 37.Google Scholar

Page 291 note 2 Etzioni, Amitai, Political Unification: a comparative study of leaders and forces (New York, 1965), p. 252.Google Scholar

Page 291 note 3 See Haas, Ernst B. and Schmitter, Philippe, ‘Economics and Differential Patterns of Political Integration: projections about unity in Latin America’, in International Organization (Boston), XVIII 4, Autumn 1964, p. 726.Google Scholar See also Haas, Ernst B., The Uniting of Europe (Stanford, 1958), pp. 291–9.Google Scholar

Page 293 note 1 West Africa, 3 09 1966, p. 992.Google Scholar