This paper had its genesis in the soul-searching of the now-famous Montreal ASA annual meeting of 1969 and in constructive discussions at the Boston annual meeting of 1970. At the latter meeting, I chaired a panel discussion (under the rubric of “New Directions in Area Programs”) in which a troublesome topic was ably probed by Olu Fadahunsi of Nigeria, John Povey, and Rodger Yeager. Their insights, together with those of others, are here brought to bear on the very real crisis which confronts so-called area studies programs in general and so-called African studies programs in particular.

As Gray Cowan (1970, pp. 346-347) has noted, “We are entering upon a decade, or perhaps longer, in which it has become clear that the resources and opportunities for area study in the United States will be undergoing substantial reduction from those of the previous decade.” He joins others in warning that both the Federal government and the foundations are curtailing their support levels and that other impediments are rising including the growing reluctance of African host governments to allow freewheeling research by expatriates. Far from being unsubstantiated cries of alarm, such warnings are prompted by trends which are all too real. Moreover, the trends may best be regarded as symptomatic of a much deeper crisis--a crisis of concepts much more than merely of such limitations as funding or access to the field.

The subject of colonialism is still imbued with emotive overtones, and it is perhaps too early to expect complete agreement in the description and evaluation of the impact of colonial rule on Africa. This article utilizes an important indicator of government activity, public expenditure decisions, to aid in describing the nature of British rule in the Gold Coast from 1901 to 1939. The intention is twofold: first, to check the validity of certain propositions about British colonialism and, second, to investigate how well the apparent uniqueness of one particular Governor, F. Gorgon Guggisberg (1919-1927), is supported by this information source.

The descriptive strengths of government expenditure data are readily apparent. Expenditure is quantified and thus fairly comparable both over time and cross-nationally. Moreover, expenditure provides an empirical measure of nearly the entire range of government activities. Consequently, changes in governmental goals might be expected to be reflected in expenditure allocations.

There are, however, several problems which may impair the usefulness of government expenditure as a descriptive tool. First, every government, even the wealthiest, must operate within the constraints placed on it by the size of the revenue and, more fundamentally, the structure of the national economy. Strongly desired programs may, therefore, languish because of a shortage of funds. As is the case elsewhere in the social world, objective acts are often imperfect measures of subjective motivations. Second, the distribution of funds among various sectors is not always amenable to rapid restructuring, so that a change in goals may be sluggishly reflected in government expenditure.

By the end of the second decade of the twentieth century a new nationalist movement had emerged in British West Africa which was significant of a new political awakening in that part of the world. This was the National Congress of British West Africa (NCBWA), which differed in important respects from earlier “nationalist” movements in the area. The NCBWA, unlike previous movements, envisaged a united British West Africa as a political objective to be attained, was organised on a scale that simultaneously embraced all four colonies of British West Africa, and was led almost exclusively by the educated elite of the area.

A study of the background to the emergence of the NCBWA reveals not only that the germ of the movement was rooted in a fairly distant past but also that a variety of interesting forces of a fairly recent occurrence “conspired” to ensure its birth. The incipient nationalism which the movement embodied reflects a line in a chain of reactions to the British advent into and “colonization” of West Africa. British involvement in this area was chiefly the result of her need to safeguard her trading interests. In the establishment of her regime in West Africa, educated Africans were regarded as allies in the task by the colonial master. Consequently from the 1840's to the 1880's Africans rose to high positions in the colonial service. In Sierra Leone, for example, William Ferguson, Afro-West Indian by origin and a medical graduate of Edinburgh, was appointed its governor in 1844, while John Ezzidio, a Nupe ex-slave who had become a wealthy trader and a pillar of the Colony's Wesleyan Church, was appointed a member of the Sierra Leone Legislative Council in 1863 (McIntyre 1966, pp. 155-156; Fyfe 1962, pp. 229-232 et passim).

No doubt, social problems cannot be fully understood by a mere comparison between any present situation and that prevailing in the past, say even sixty or seventy years ago. Nevertheless, there seems to be no little justification for the tendency, frequently seen in important research works on Africa, to make a parallel between the status and fight of the working classes in Europe at the end of the last century and those of the emancipating nations in general and in the African continent in particular.

It is pointed out in these works that in both cases the revendicatiohs made by the working classes in the first instance, and by whole nations in the second, were prompted by the desire for a fuller democratization of the society, an amelioration of their economic situation and legal status. Such changes were and are being achieved, amongst others, by the abolition or through reform of discriminatory legal, political, and socioeconomic systems which had previously been imposed by privileged ruling classes to the detriment of the other classes, on a national scale, where poor classes of the population were concerned in countries that now rank among the most developed ones, and on an international scale, where it is a question of peoples who have only recently passed from a state of slavehood to national independence.

Thanks to a political and social legislation containing elements of social compromise, most Western countries have become modern, democratic, affluent welfare states, with at least a minimum of social justice and no expropriation of the means of production. But in those countries where the ruling classes were uncompromising, refused to make concessions, and caused revolutions, they were completely chased from the political scene, as was the case in Eastern Europe, which gave birth to an altogether new regime (Roling 1960, p. 56).

The African states, as they emerged into international politics, did so with certain well-defined common goals. These goals were shaped in large part by the experiences and ideologies of their independence movements. The achievement of most of these goals, particularly those which conflict with interests of other more powerful states, still remains a dream owing to the realities of the international political system which tend to place more powerful states in a better position to realize their goals than do the less powerful states. The African states, because of their lack of material power--economic and military in particular--have been forced to rely greatly upon the United Nations for the realization of their goals. It is possible that in the long run the moral force of the United Nations resolutions might accomplish what the African states are seeking, but so far they have had very little or no material effect. This African experience, at least for the short run, appears to confirm the theory that material power, economic and military in particular, determines in a large degree the extent to which states or group of states can achieve goals in international politics (Rosenau 1964, pp. 170-174, 334-349). States or group of states with relatively little power can realize their goals only if they accord with the interests of other more powerful states. This essay is an analysis of the goals of the African states toward Southern Africa and how the realization of these goals has been frustrated by the realities of the international political system.

Two primary goals are commonly shared by the African states with respect to Southern Africa. The first is the eradication from the area of colonial and settler rule in order for their fellow Africans, numbering about 30 million in the area, to achieve “national self-determination.”

We have thought it necessary to write this paper in order to define the basis of the concepts and philosophy of democratic African socialism. It has been necessary because of the prevailing misinterpretation and suspicion of this philosophy as seen in the eyes of many people outside the continent of Africa, who, as we conjecture, have held the view that the philosophy is but a blueprint of communist ideology transplanted into the continent of Africa. We are aware of this view because time and again many people outside Africa, and we mean those of the western hemisphere, have been heard calling it “socialism in Africa,” which to us in Africa would indicate a mere transfer of the same from one hemisphere to that of Africa. We dismiss this terminology as completely untrue because in fact “socialism in Africa” and African socialism are two different concepts. The former is nothing more than a borrowed philosophy whilst the latter means that which is itself indigenous carrying with it the African heritage with, of course, some modification to march with the world's transition. However, we do accept the fact that our views are not conclusive as we do not officially represent any one government in Africa, but notwithstanding, this is almost the same view we have heard many African leaders such as Jomo Kenyatta express in various circles. Therefore, the explanations expressed here are designed to dispel suspicion and misinterpretation.

The expression “democratic African socialism” is actually meant to convey the African roots of a system that is itself African in its characteristics. In other words, “African socialism” is a term describing an African political, economic, and social system that is positively African (see Markowitz 1967). Precisely, the whole system is based on African traditions.

Even the casual reader of African history is struck by the fact that significant shifts in focus and approach have occurred during the past decade. As is presently the common trend in African historiography, contemporary writers focus more upon the role of Africans-their institutions, their attitudes, and their internal forces--than upon the activities of Europeans in Africa. This has become possible because the African past has been more adequately researched and because well-trained African scholars are now writing. The new men of African historiography are devoted to the task of unveiling the past of their own people and are equipped by training and by cultural continuity with their ancestors to use the special tools necessary to reconstruct the past.

One important group of African historians who have emerged as prominent writers and lecturers clusters around the new universities. At Ibadan University Dr. Kenneth Onwuka Dike, formerly Vice Chancellor of the University; Dr. Joseph C. Anene; and Dr. E. A. Ayendele have all made important contributions to Nigeria's histpry. Dr. Jacob Festus Ade Ajayi, professor of history at Ibadan University, is a figure in this group whose work deserves special attention for a variety of reasons.

Not least among such reasons is that he has followed his passion for historical inquiry with energy and thoroughness. By both his vigorous leadership among historians of his university and within the Historical Society of Nigeria and by his publication of the results of his historical research, he has made substantial contributions to the remarkable growth of our knowledge of Nigeria's past.

This paper is designed to explore the theory which relates the one-party state ideology to the class conditions prevalent in African societies. It is not my intention to argue against the one-party state and for the multiparty system because the latter seems inappropriate for Africa at its present stage of development. This article is an attempt to analyze critically one aspect of the African one-party state ideology rather than to evaluate the whole doctrine that only one-party states can lead African states toward rapid development and national unity.

Many African leaders defend the one-party system on the Marxist ground that political parties are part of the political-social super-structure which articulates basic economic class interests. They argue that there are no distinct economic classes in Africa and that, therefore, there is no justification for the existence of more than one party. Multipartyism in Europe, the United States, and even such developing countries as India is regarded as an outgrowth of class struggles which took place in the past and continue today.

African leaders suggest that in Africa there never were classes in the Marxist sense nor do they exist today. The Nigerian priest B. Onuoha states: “The idea of social classes, of a closed group, whose privilege it was to enjoy the best of everything and an underprivileged group for whom anything was good enough is foreign to Africa” (Onuoha 1965, p. 34). Most African leaders agree with him. Even the General Federation of African Trade Unions, which would presumably represent a specific working-class interest, declares that there is no class differentiation in Africa and that there are no large discrepancies between the living standards of Africa's major social groups (Friedland and Rosberg 1964, p. 22).

In his article published in this review's December 1970 issue, Alan R. Waters proposes to the reader what he calls “A Behavioral Model of Pan-African Disintegration.” His main point seems to be that there are going to be (if there are not already) too many university graduates in humanities and legal training for African economies to absorb. This excess supply is wanted by Africans and the system adjusts to it more or less automatically: “This is what the educatees want, and this is, therefore, what the system provides” (p. 416). These educatees, according to the author, want these kinds of degrees because of their expected earnings which are too high in the African administrative system. Since this education is freely provided for by the government through taxation, the author asserts that “this high return on educational investment amounts to a transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich” (p. 415). However, the author recognizes, these high rewards are inherited from colonial systems where colonial elites were selected and rewarded on the basis of their metropolitan education and incentive systems. Despite these high rewards, “the colonial and educational systems could remain fairly efficient over time due to the existence of alternative occupations and a parallel education system in the metropole” (p. 420), while in the new systems these conditions have disappeared. To make the exploitation of the poor by the rich (understand, both Africans) clear, the author, in footnote 8 on page 20, shows that “a university graduate in the United Kingdom was paid about the same as a miner in 1967; in Nigeria he was paid four times the salary of a miner or nine times the income of a farmer.”

Mr. Ntalaja's summary of my article (December 1970 issue) omits the essence of my argument: that a distorted system of incentives, which is unlikely to be seriously altered, makes Pan-Africanism purely academic and points the way to eventual upheaval and anti-intellectural revolution. Furthermore, because a disproportionate part of government revenues in Africa are obtained from the relatively poor, an expanding government bureaucracy implies an expanding system of exploitation of the poor and the productive by the rich certified elite who “administer.” In my abstract model I have defined certified elite as the people who hold certificates and diplomas from the existing educational system. The degree to which these certified people do control the governments of Africa is open to empirical verification; I have merely gone on the basis of my own casual observation in a number of African countries over the past eighteen years and decided to assume that they do for the purposes of my model. I obviously believe that my assumption is the only relevant one. The administrative or corporate state appears to have arrived in several African nations and to be well on the way in others.

The international comparison of absolute salary levels, Nigerian certificate holder versus British certificate holder, has no true economic meaning as long as productivities also differ. As I pointed out (p. 420), the British administrator may be supported by a capital investment which enables him to produce more than his less well-supported Nigerian counterpart. What is useful, and to a degree comparable, is the ratio of salaries and wages within each nation. Comparison of absolute salary levels is usually found as an argument by the certified elite to support government exploitation of the poor.