Imperial Citizens or Economic Nationalists? An Analysis of Colonially Restructured Northern Nigerian Economy in the 1940s

Abstract

One of the resultant effects of British colonial rule in northern Nigeria was restructuring and incorporating the indigenous economy into the newer capitalist oriented system through the introduction and expansion of cash and exportable crops cultivation, use of single currency, and imposition of a new system of taxation among others. This led to rural–urban migratory flow to offer labour for cash. The advent of the Second World War and the economic recession that preceded it threw the economy of this area in crisis. Instead of attending to the labour question, the colonial regime used the war to canvass for support from the colonized people by encouraging intensive labour recruitment and conscription in various fields as well as confiscation of foodstuffs, pay cuts and compulsory contributions towards winning the war project. These policies gave rise to a drastic reduction in the price of labour and widespread protest in the 1940s, a development Toyin Falola among other scholars conceptualized as a form of economic nationalism which signified the advent of a new force in the anti-colonial nationalist movement that was entrenched in the struggle to dismantle the colonial regime. Through a careful examination of primary and secondary sources which are accessible in both colonial and post-colonial archives and libraries, the paper will explore the factors that culminated in the labour unrest and demonstrate the ways the colonial state took advantage of the war to combine coercion and consent in its dealings with workers