August 1928 saw the beginning of a short and bitter conflict between the ‘die-hards’ of Tamale and the supporters of ‘indirect rule’. The first casualty of the war was the newly arrived acting Chief Commissioner, Major F. W. F. Jackson (deputising for Walker-Leigh, who was absent on leave). Jackson was disturbed by the coolness of his reception in the offices and bungalows strung out along Watherston Road, Tamale, and noted in his diary that he had been made to feel ‘like a Thief in the Night’. Relations between Tamale and Accra had, indeed, reached a critical point, as another ‘southern’ officer observed: ‘there was… in the Northern Territories a definite attitude of hostility to the Coast emanating from the N.T.s headquarters and permeating the whole of its soil. Officers were allowed to speak and write openly of “Accra” (the name by which all authority was known) in a most contemptuous way.’ The war raged around the question of indirect rule -what it meant, whether it was necessary, how it should be applied -until, effectively, December 1929, when Walker-Leigh left, preceded, and followed, by several of his equally die-hard supporters. Thereafter Tamale was firmly in the hands of newly appointed officers, mostly ‘southerners’ and all enthusiastically dedicated to the application of the doctrines of Lugard and Cameron to the unsuspecting Northern Territories.

The dispute was set in train by the removal of Guggisberg from the governorship in April 1927.