Robert L. Tignor

Political Corruption in Nigeria Before Independence

Political corruption is widespread in contemporary societies, and is regarded by some analysts of the Third World as the single most important obstacle to economic development and political integration. Certainly the frequent regime changes which have occurred in Africa in the last several decades have been accompanied by charges of gross administrative malfeasance and promises to introduce honest government. Perhaps no country in the continent has devoted more attention and energy to continuing allegations of corruption than Nigeria. Indeed, from the late colonial period up until the present, critics of those in power have lamented the level of venality, and numerous published reports have catalogued a wide range of iniquities and called for reform.

Colonial Chiefs in Chiefless Societies

THE proliferating literature on the emergent states of Asia and Africa stresses as its theme their newness and lack of political experience. New nation states have arisen often where none existed before, and their leaders have been confronted with a host of problems which they had not faced previously. Nowhere are such states thought to be more novel and inexperienced than in Africa, where a scant half century ago peoples lived in tribal communities, their economic and political context being demarcated mainly by family and kin groups. Lucy Mairs appropriately titled book, The New Nations, puts the problem pithily: The new African governments are recruited from new men...The relationship of the leader with his followers, of ministers with their colleagues, with bureaucrats, with the general public, are new relationships. 1 Not surprisingly, therefore, the major characteristics of independent African politics have been ascribed to the new conditions created at independence. Leaders were compelled to run bureaucracies which had been almost entirely in the hands of their former colonial rulers. The nations themselves had been created by the European powers, and during the relatively short period of colonial rule only faint loyalties to these new polities had been established. The new states lack political integration and are loosely grouped conglomerations of previously autonomous communities. There are few institutions, only shapes and patterns in the process of emerging. Political instability, violence, corruption, and personal enrichment are the order of the day.2 While I do not want to deny the validity of these views, I would like to suggest that contemporary analyses of African politics have not paid sufficient attention to pre-independence legacies pre-colonial and especially colonial inheritances. The colonial system resulted in the implanting of political behaviour in local communities. It left a legacy of action and attitudes which has been hard to supplant. There are significant parallels between colonial and independent Africa, and these

The Economic Activities of Foreigners in Egypt, 1920–1950: From Millet to Haute Bourgeoisie

Lord Cromer, British Consul-General in Egypt and virtual ruler of the country, was fond of arguing that Egypt could never become a homogeneous, unitary nation state, like Britain or France. Because of its location astride the Suez Canal and at the meeting point of Africa and Asia, the country, Cromer believed, would always attract large foreign populations and would be of vital importance to foreign powers. Its institutions must take account of diverse interests and peoples. To be sure Cromer used this vision self-seekingly, denying Egyptian nationalists many of their demands for increased self-government. But he had to heed the foreigners in Egypt, for they had become an influential group in the nineteenth century. A booming economy, peace and political stability, uninterrupted except for the short-lived UrabT revolt (1879-1882), the fashioning of European law courts, called the Mixed Tribunals, administering French law through foreign judges, and then the presence of British troops and administrators from 1882 onwards all conspired to make Egypt seem an attractive Middle Eastern country to British, French, Belgian, Italian, Greek, Armenian, and Syrian immigrants. Foreigners made significant contributions to Egyptian economic, social, and cultural activities, perhaps never so dramatically as they did after World War I. In the years roughly from 1918 until 1948, they began to reshape the economy. Certain individuals detached themselves from older loyalties to ethnic communities and began to coalesce as a self-conscious haute bourgeoisie. These persons played a dynamic role in diversifying the economy, creating new secondary, import-substitution industries. They reduced the countrys dependence on the export of a single crop-cotton. As they forged new pressure groups and as they created new industrial and commercial companies, men and women of different religious and ethnic backgrounds developed common political and economic outlooks and fashioned a homogeneous cultural life. Their local ethnic organizations,

The Maasai Warriors: pattern maintenance and violence in colonial Kenya

This article attributes early twentieth century Maasai conservatism to the Maasai social structure and in particular to the warrior ( moran ) age-grade. Modernizing changes meant different things to different groups. To some Maasai elders they meant increased political power and wealth. But to the warriors they constituted a threat to their already declining status and entailed new and onerous obligations like road work. Governmental efforts to transform and modernize the Maasai were met by small-scale warrior rebellions. There were three such uprisings–in 1918, 1922 and 1935. All three were carried out by the warriors in defiance of the wishes of the elders and occurred at times when the government was seeking to alter Maasai society. The 1918 rebellion was over the recruitment of children for school; that of 1922 over attempts to do away with essential features of the moran system; and that of 1935 in opposition to road work. The Maasai warriors were effective resisters of change because of their considerable autonomy within their society and their esprit de corps .

The Sudanese Private Sector: an Historical Overview

IN the decade of the I970S the Arab world, its resources swelled by surplus oil profits, looked to the Sudan to become the areas granary. Arab leaders knew that the country possessed abundant arable and pasture land, thought to be capable of supplying 40 per cent of the grain requirements of the region, and substantial fish and red meat supplies. They saw Sudanese development as leading to regional food self-sufficiency. In this vision of economic transformation they expected the Sudanese private sector to work in combination with Arab oil money and western technology. The effort to create a vibrant private sector in the I970S failed. No doubt Jaafar Nimeiri and his rapacious regime must assume a major share of the responsibility for the failure. But equally significant were the local and foreign economic planners, who lacked familiarity with the Sudanese private sector, and who were unable or unwilling to involve this group in the development push. A countrys development is conditioned by its economic traditions and institutions. Although dramatic structural changes occur, they rest on prior foundations. The hasty and ultimately abortive capitalist thrust of the I970s in the Sudan foundered because a well rounded and vigorous private sector had not been established during the first threequarters of the twentieth century. The Sudanese business community had some important strengths which were not recognised and taken advantage ofand some glaring inadequacies, which proved burdensome to the development effort. The Sudanese private sector had a paradoxical quality. Arguably it was one of the strongest in the Middle East, with a long and impressive historical experience. But its areas of economic expertise were restricted, and private enterprise was found wanting when called upon to diversify. The strengths and weaknesses of Sudanese business were palpable by the mid-twentieth century. In integrating the Sudan into the world economy as an exporter of key agricultural commodities (cotton and