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A Study of Income and Expenditure in Northern Zaria

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 August 2012

Extract

The Province of Zaria, in Northern Nigeria, has a population of some 540,000.The central portion of the Province, covering the largest part of the area, is sparsely populated and contains some pagan tribes who have little to do with the economy of their Hausa neighbours to the north. There is a southern fringe, more thickly peopled, where Christian missions are established and where the people buy and sell with neighbouring communities to the south. This paper is not concerned with these parts. We shall deal only with the northern part of the Province. Its area is about 7,400 square miles. The African population of this area which we are considering amounts to some 323,000, of whom about 40,000 are Fulani cattle people, about 10,000 southern clerks and workmen, and the rest Hausa farmers and traders. The European and Syrian population, comprising about 360 civilians and about 120 military personnel, is fairly evenly divided between the two towns of Zaria and Kaduna. The country stands on the northern edge of the ‘middle belt’ of orchard bush, and extends in places into the southern fringe of the great savannah belt of the western Sudan. Its climate is therefore a good deal kinder than that of the barer lands of Kano and Sokoto, and more suitable for intensive peasant cultivation than the wetter countries to the south where the tsetse and other insect pests have held back indigenous development. The economic activities of the African population will be described in detail hereafter.

Type
Research Article
Information
Africa , Volume 18 , Issue 4 , October 1948 , pp. 259 - 271
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 1948

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References

page 259 note 1 The author is indebted to Professor Daryll Forde and Miss Phyllis Deane for suggestions concerning the analysis and presentation of this material.

page 260 note 1 Forde, and Scott, , Native Economies of Nigeria, p. 145.Google Scholar

page 260 note 2 Produce Inspection Dept. records, unpublished.

page 260 note 3 Prices in this paragraph are taken from government and commercial records seen by the author.

page 260 note 4 Estimate based on commercial records.

page 261 note 1 Empire Cotton Growing Corporation Report 1947, p. 21.Google Scholar

page 261 note 2 Estimate based on commercial records.

page 261 note 3 Produce Inspection Dept. records.

page 262 note 1 Estimate based on commercial records.

page 262 note 2 Estimate based on Produce Inspection Dept. records of railments and Zaria market prices for nine months, Oct. 1946 to June 1947.

page 262 note 3 Government figure.

page 263 note 1 The Govt. and N.A. figures are extracted from data kindly furnished by the Resident, and relate to the financial year 1946–7: the railway figures are secured by multiplying the actual disbursement in July 1947 by 12: the firms' figures are an estimate for the crop-year 1946–7 based on figures kindly supplied.

page 263 note 2 For the figures in this paragraph I am indebted to the courtesy of the army authorities in Zaria.

page 264 note 1 Government livestock census.

page 264 note 2 For information about donkey transport, see , Forde and , Scott, Native Economies of Nigeria, pp. 140, 148, 152.Google Scholar

page 264 note 3 Government figures.

page 264 note 4 Estimate based on Produce Inspection Dept. figure for nine months.

page 265 note 1 Forde, and Scott, , Native Economies of Nigeria, p. 134.Google Scholar

page 265 note 2 See p. 264, n. 4.

page 265 note 3 Forde and Scott, op. cit., p. 157.

page 265 note 4 Estimate based on Produce Inspection Dept. figures.

page 265 note 5 Figures kindly supplied by the railway authorities, Zaria.

page 267 note 1 Forde, and Scott, , Native Economies of Nigeria, p. 123.Google Scholar

page 267 note 2 Ibid., p. 168.

page 268 note 1 The data for working out this figure were kindly supplied by an African who is well acquainted with these schools.

page 268 note 2 Forde and Scott, op. cit., p. 160.

page 269 note 1 Estimates based on Produce Inspection Dept. figures.

page 270 note 1 Nigeria Annual Report, 1946.Google Scholar