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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:Coercing Old Guard Emirs in Northern Nigeria: The Abdication of Yakubu III of Bauchi, 1954
Author:Yakubu, Alhaji M.ISNI
Year:1993
Periodical:African Affairs: The Journal of the Royal African Society
Volume:92
Issue:369
Period:October
Pages:593-604
Language:English
Geographic terms:Nigeria
Northern Nigeria
Subjects:indirect rule
Bauchi polity
heads of State
Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups)
Politics and Government
colonialism
History and Exploration
External link:https://www.jstor.org/stable/723240
Abstract:During the 1950s, the British colonial administration in the emirates of Northern Nigeria undertook a panic reform of the Native Authority system. The philosophy and practice of indirect rule introduced at the turn of the 20th century by F.J.D. Lugard, under which emirs exercised a monopoly over the local government system, was hastily inverted in favour of a more broadbased system. The hitherto despised Western-educated elites were now to be involved in emirate local government as equal actors with emirs in policy formulation and execution. A number of senior rulers were either deposed or forced to abdicate. Using the example of Bauchi emirate, where the emir, Yakubu III, abdicated under duress in September 1954, this article demonstrates that in undertaking the purges of the 1950s the colonial administration was moved less by a concern for reform of the native administration system and more by an anxiety for the security of colonial rule. The emirs fell victim to new circumstances in which they could not operate in their Lugardian purity. Notes, ref. (Comment by A. Trevor Clark in African Affairs vol. 94, no. 376 (1995), p. 399-406, with a reply by Yakubu on p. 407-409.)
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