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Ibo Chiefs and Social Change

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

Samuel O. Okafor
Affiliation:
Department of Politics, University of Dundee

Extract

Did Dr Robert Tignor in this recent article on ‘Colonial Chiefs in Chiefless Societies’ in this Journal, IX, 3, October 1971, not overstate the contribution of certain African chiefs ‘in forcing the pace of social change’?

My aim is to answer this question briefly as far as Ibo chiefs are concerned. It has been argued that they helped with the introduction of taxation, especially since this was not traditional. But the historical records show that most of them were actually opposed to its introduction,1 and that they were not an effective factor in its collection until after the reorganisation of the Native Authority system in the South-Eastern Provinces in the 1930s.2

Type
Africana
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1972

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References

Page 128 note 1 For example, see Confidential Letter of 17 August 1931 from D. Cameron to the Secretary of State for the Colonies; CO/583/177, Public Records Office, London.

Page 128 note 2 See Jones, G. I., ‘Chieftaincy in the former Eastern Nigeria’, in Crowder, Michael and Ikime, Obaro (eds.), West African Chiefs (New York, 1970),Google Scholar and Colonial Annual Report No. 1435 for 1928 (London, 1929).

Page 128 note 3 Nigerian Legislative Council Debates (Lagos), 4 April 1927, pp. 27–8.

Page 129 note 1 Colonial Annual Report No. 1114 for 1921 (London, 1922).

Page 129 note 2 See, for example, Lugard, F. D., The Dual Mandate in British Tropical Africa (London, 1922; reprinted 1965), pp. 401–3.Google Scholar

Page 129 note 3 See Akpan, N. U., ‘Have Traditional Authorities a Place in Modern Local Government Systems’, in the Journal of African Administration (London), VIII, 3, 1955, pp. 109–16;Google Scholar also the Letter of 3 January 1899 from R. Moor to the Under-Secretary of State, Foreign Affairs; CO/444/1, P.R.O., London.