British rule and indegenous, Organization in Nigeria: A case study in normative Institutional change

Abstract

The article examines administrative policy in Idoma (Northern Nigeria) as a response to two dilemmas confronting the colonial power: (1) how to reconcile a persistent, even if varyingly intense, commitment to indirect rule with a desire for institutional change; (2) how to reconcile a synthesis of the two with the long range objective of normative change, including ‘progress’ and ‘administrative efficiency’. While normative change remained a longrange colonial objective, institutional change assumed the highest short-range priority. Institutional change involved a pendular course of development: on the one hand, cultivation of strong chieftaincy and centralization based on the Fulani model; on the other, ‘democratization’, rooted first in traditional Idoma constitutionalism, and finally in Western notions of majoritarian local government. These developments are traced through three historical phases. (1) 1908–1930: occupation, pacification, boundary adjustment, and...