The imbalance in the sizes of the former regions of Nigeria (Table 1) had been frequently cited as one of the main reasons for political instability of the federation. For example, the Premier of the Eastern Region and leader of one of the political parties which contested the federal elections of 1964 declared during the election campaigns that

One fact that has emerged from a study of the existing literature on the techniques for recording the oral histories of African societies since the last decade is that these societies, even where they possessed similar structural models, still exhibit several complex variables. This raises the question as to whether or not the available methodological studies can suffice to provide a generally acceptable model for interpreting the totality of African history. The answer is, of course, that historians ought to be encouraged to publish descriptive, analytic, or reflective materials arising from their specialized research interests. Such studies would not only prove invaluable for comparative analysis but would also be useful as working tools for the graduate student or the beginner in research. Indeed, anyone with field experience is aware that the art of collecting oral data is acquired mainly through trial and error. The technique that has proved successful for Vansina (1960) in dealing with Bakuba, for example, may prove disastrous in dealing with Banyoro. The importance of the existing studies is that they enable the young researcher to minimize the number of his errors and maximize the use of time available to him. In the final analysis, however, he learns by experience. And his experiences, if put down in print, may prove of significance for other researchers.

Collecting oral traditions in the field is like learning to drive a car. No amount of lectures and films can make a nondriver into a driver. He must attempt to drive it himself and learn from his mistakes. And when eventually he becomes a driver, his technique, efficiency, or inefficiency will be determined by many personal considerations: courage, physical condition, public relations, courtesy, temperament, integrity, alertness. So with the field worker. He is constantly adjusting to new situations and to different personalities. And he ought to be a person capable of responding to these situations without losing his equanimity.

For centuries nearly every European who visited Sierra Leone was struck by the great potential for trade to which the area seemed geographically suited. Caravans from Kankan and Segu, and even from as far away as Bamako and Timbuctu, came down through Siguri and Faranah, passed through the dispersal points inland of the forest at Timbo, Bunban, and Samaia, and carried the gold, ivory, hides, and produce of the interior down to the tidewater towns, of Temneland (Canot 1854, p. 89). From Kambia, Mange, Port Loko, and Magbeli the trade accumulated with local produce, and the caravans ferried their goods by canoe and “Bullom Boat” to the European ships waiting off the mountainous peninsula in West Africa's deepest and largest natural harbor.

Anyone familiar with the map will note that much of Temneland is well situated to command this inland trade from the Futa Jallon and the upper Niger. The northwestern Temne control the navigable reaches of the Scarcies and of Port Loko Creek. Likewise, the southeastern chiefdoms are astride the Rokel and command the approaches to Freetown. Ijagbemi has noted how the major trade routes going inland from the coast “took a north-easterly direction, which, though hilly, was only partially forested and so afforded a relatively easy access to the interior (1970, p. 45).

Slave traders recognized the strategic value of controlling the estuaries, and some of the earliest “slave factories” were built right in the Sierra Leone River.

It is now more than twenty years since the Rome Treaty (1958) creating the European Economic Community (EEC) was signed. Eighteen African States were also associated with EEC at the signing of the Treaty. However, during that period numerous views have been expressed either for or against the special preferential treatment that was arranged for these eighteen African nations. Some of the arguments have been made without a proper understanding of the background leading to the association of these African States with the EEC. As a result, these viewpoints have been misleading to those people who are interested in African development problems and to observers in general.

In view of this unsatisfactory situation and the author's concern, this paper will be devoted to examining the economic background to the association, with respect to French economic and financial policies in Africa. It is hoped that this exercise will help create a better understanding of the position in which French African states found themselves at the time the Rome Treaty was signed and, therefore, the rationale for their association with the EEC.

Indeed, the African countries were justifiably concerned with their world trade position, because for all of them international trade had been very important as a source of foreign exchange and capital, which are essential for their economic development and also for raising the living standards of the masses of the people.

Most countries of Black Africa started independence with the parliamentary democratic system. At the time, two versions of the system existed: the Westminster model and the Western European, typified by the French experience. While it is true that some regimes had been moving in the direction of pseudo-monopolistic arrangement, the tacit agreement between the nationalist and colonial elites was that the new rulers of Black Africa would accept and implement parliamentary democracy.

The orthodox parliamentary system is typified by the Westminster model. At the formal headship of the system is a monarch whose functions are symbolic and integrative rather than political and administrative. Executive authority in the parliamentary system is invested in a council of ministers, also known as the government. A small and inner committee of this council, designated as the cabinet and comprising the most influential and intelligent ministers, is the effective forum for governmental authority. The cabinet as a structure, then, combines executive and legislative functions. At the head of the cabinet is the prime minister. Appointed nominally by the monarch but in reality by the majority party in parliament, the prime minister is the chief executive and chairman of the cabinet. Because he is conventionally the equal of his colleagues, the effective power of the prime minister over the cabinet is a function of his personality, intelligence, and experience.

Political philosophy is concerned with the ends and purposes of government. It involves a conception of “the good life” and is primarily, though perhaps not exclusively, concerned with human beings. A conception of the good life presumably implies a view of how to attain that end. In this view, then, political philosophy is also concerned with the question of means, or how is the good life to he won and secured for the members of a particular community or society or state? Of those people of African ancestry who have done systematic thinking about the ends and purposes of government in Africa in the period since the end of World War II, there are few who measure up to the stature and originality of Frantz Fanon. (For biographical sketches on Fanon, see Caute 1970; Geismar 1969, 1970; Césaire et al. 1962; de Beauvoir 1965, Ch. 5, especially pp. 583, 591-597, 606-607.)

A rejected evolué in both Martinique and France, Fanon came to realize the extent of his own depersonalization and that of other blacks. It was this awareness which, in Geismar's words (1969, p. 24), led him first to make “a revolutionary carthartic break with the past,” and then to “a more definite African revolutionary ending.” His life, as Aimé Césaire (1962, p. 119) pointed out, was short, active and full of personal tragedy.