The Land Has Changed

Front matter

History, Society and Gender in Colonial Eastern Nigeria

IMT PTF

UNIVERSITY OF

Table Of Contents

List of Illustrations ix List of Tables x Foreword xi Acknowledgments xvii Introduction: Perspectives, Setting, Sources 1

1 “We Have Always Been Farmers”: Society and Economy at the Close of the Nineteenth Century 27 2 Pax Britannica and the Development of Agriculture 59 3 Gender and Colonial Agricultural Policy 97 4 Peasants, Depression, and Rural Revolts 123

6 The African Elite, Agrarian Revolution, and Sociopolitical Change, 1954-80 197 7 On the Brink: Agricultural Crisis and Rural Survival 243 Conclusion 271 Notes 283 Bibliography 331

Foreword

I consider it a distinct honour and privilege to have been invited to write a foreword for this book, The Land Has Changed: History, Society and Gender in Colonial Eastern Nigeria, which is a major and significant contribution to Igbo studies. In this volume, the author provides a vivid account of the patterns of socioeconomic change in the former Eastern Region of Nigeria, but focusing primary attention on present Imo and Abia states. The book deals with the transformations of agriculture during the colonial and postcolonial eras. It is certainly a study whose time has come, insofar as this genre, relating specifically to the Igbo, has been in the doldrums for too long. In other words, studies dealing with colonial agrarian policies and their impact on the indigenous peoples seem thus far to have been neglected by both indigenous and foreign scholars. Korieh’s book, therefore, fills an important gap in the existing studies dealing with British colonial innovations or changes relating to agriculture in Nigeria. As a remedy, Korieh examines and analyzes the transformations in agriculture in southeastern Nigeria with a special focus on the colonial and postcolonial periods.

In The Land Has Changed, a title borrowed from an agonized interviewee, the author confronts the problems of modernization as perceived by the British and challenges the notion that British colonial agricultural policies redounded to the benefit of the colonized. Rather, the transformations laid the foundation for decades of resistance, the decline of agriculture, and the onset of perennial hunger and poverty. In the author’s words, “The book xi centres on the British attempt to transform a colonial society (continued in the early postcolonial period) through the modernization of agriculture and the experiences, actions, and perceptions of the local population whom colonial officials often characterized as backward and unchanging.” In the final analysis, we are concerned here with, first, the dynamic processes of colonial and postcolonial socioeconomic engineering with their insidious consequences. Secondly, we witness the patterns of local/Igbo reactions towards the radical changes in the political economy.

Because of the accident of history, Nigeria (including Igboland) came under British direct rule from about 1900 to 1960. With the advent of the British, therefore, things literally fell apart with special reference to the political economy (agriculture). For example, Nigeria was brought inexorably under the vortex of the Western capitalist system, and ipso facto was engulfed in the capitalist economy. This meant that agricultural production for export became the foundation of the new economy. In a sense, agricultural products for the British industries became a British colonial economic preoccupation, and agricultural products now became the chief contributors to Nigeria’s gross domestic product. Put differently, Nigeria, as well as most parts of West Africa, entered into what A. G. Hopkins described as the “open” phase of colonial economic development, meaning the entry of the economy into the phase of the Western capitalist economic model of colonialism - exploitation. Of course, this implied changes in the patterns of production and commodity exchange (trade). The characteristics include the export of a range of agricultural and mineral products in exchange for a variety of British manufactures, chiefly consumer goods, the domination of some sectors of the economy by expatriates, and perhaps most importantly, the assertion of considerable influence and control over Nigerian economic policy by the British.’ These changes invariably heralded the age of British imperial control, or unequal relationship, and thus the basis of colonial exploitation and other forms of oppression.

It might be pertinent at this juncture to examine the impact of the transformations in agriculture in the context of culture and life. We should emphasize the fact that agriculture (farming) was essentially the principal occupation of the Igbo of southeastern Nigeria from time immemorial. In particular, agriculture was the core of the people’s source of livelihood, and xii THE LAND HAS CHANGED agriculture dominated the Igbo/Nigerian economy up to the 1960s. Virtually every adult household (family) was engaged in farming and, accordingly, food production (particularly yams, the king of foodstuffs) and other crops like cassava, corn/maize, and a variety of vegetables formed the basic staples of food. Not surprisingly, most people had enough food to eat, and quite correspondingly populations grew. Historically, therefore, Igboland was the land of plenty, where food production was ample and abundant, and people thus prided themselves as being blessed with surplus food and wealth. Is it any wonder that the elders still speak nostalgically of the “good old days,” in reference to when food was plentiful and poverty and starvation had no place in the land? In fact, studies show that agriculture was central to the evolution of the highly advanced Igbo civilization.’

Admittedly, there were times of food scarcity/shortages and hence temporary periods of hunger, known popularly as the period of Onwo. As Victor Uchendu explains: “By June, all the yams have been planted. A period of food shortage called onwo sets in.... Onwo is caused by lack of a well-developed system of storing surplus yams until the new crop is harvested. The chief staples then become cassava, cocoyams, and, in some parts of southern Igbo, the three-leaved yam locally known as eno.” These food crops are popularly referred to as “women’s” crops, while yam, the king crop, is known as “men’s” crop.

Production for exchange, of course, was an important component of the Igbo political economy. “Field studies in the eastern region [of Nigeria] have shown that the region possesses a highly developed system of distributive trade. This system is not recent in origin but appears to have been developed over centuries of slow and unimpeded growth.” Indeed, food production and trade significantly contributed to the dynamic process of population growth, therefore making Igboland one of the most densely populated regions of the African continent, if not in the world. Yes, Robert Stevenson affirms, “There can be little question that the I[g]bo region in south eastern Nigeria constitutes one of the greatest nodes of rural population density in all of sub- Saharan Africa.” Stevenson adds that, “the very nature of the density and the large area involved bespeak a rather respectable antiquity.”

The point of emphasis here is that in Igboland food was plentiful, and poverty and starvation had no place in the land. But sadly, as Korieh’s study

FOREWORD xiii illustrates, this supposedly pristine and prosperous country (land) was “spoiled by man” - arguably the British. The proverb/idiom, “A Country is spoiled by men,” or alternatively, “It is man who ‘spoils’ the country,” cryptically captures the Igbo ideological perception of change. Culturally and philosophically, the Igbo accept the principle/notion of change. In essence, they are fully aware that change is inevitable and can come from within or from without. But change, they also say, must be useful; otherwise, it must be rejected out of hand. Thus, in consonance with their cultural disposition that “life [hazards] must be faced and its problems overcome,” British colonial problems via agricultural changes had to be overcome. As illustrated in this book and in other studies, the British were the fundamental sources of trouble, with particular regard to the socioeconomic and political innovations that upset the apple cart. The female victims of agricultural change, for instance, resolutely challenged the oppressive regime, as evidenced in the Women’s War of 1929. In effect, British innovations triggered a variety of reactions, which were at times quite tragically violent in nature.

Also reacting specifically to the transformations in agriculture and the restrictions placed on trade, the aggrieved women expressed their discontent as follows:

Our grievances are that the land has changed and we are all dying. [Specifically,] since the white men came, our [palm] oil does not fetch money.

Imagine our suffering [as we are] restricted from exporting garri [cassava flour] to the north especially when the small profit accruing from the trade is being exhausted....

[And,] consider the lives of a family, which may perish as a result of the measures, which have been taken to restrict the garri trade.’

The introduction of the gender equation - voices of women - in this volume is critically important. It helps to call into question the assumption that African/ Igbo women were simply the silent victims of colonial oppression. But this and other studies clearly show that, because women, after all, were (and still are) the xiv THE LAND HAS CHANGED backbone of the extractive (farming) sector of the economy, they could hardly remain aloof over colonial intrusions into their sources of livelihood. Consequently, any study/studies of structural change(s) in colonial/postcolonial agriculture, which excludes women’s voices, must certainly be declared as truncated. The author, therefore, makes a major contribution in Africanist scholarship and historiography by approaching his subject from a holistic perspective.

Using primarily archival and oral sources (interviews), Korieh navigates the complex and, at times, conflicting perceptions/notions of change, as they relate to agriculture. In particular, he critically examines the transition from an essentially subsistence agriculture-based economy to a capitalist export-oriented economy. And he further focuses attention on how colonialism and the international economic environment created “poor terms of trade” for Igbo/Nigeria’s primary agricultural exports, and the onset and consequences of the dependency syndrome on developed economies.

Korieh notes, however, that from the 1970s Nigeria’s socioeconomic woes began with the collapse or decline of agriculture, even though ambitious large-scale agricultural development projects had been attempted, e.g., Operation Feed the Nation, the importation of fertilizers, etc. But “Despite the heavy financial investments ... agricultural productivity remains abysmal.” Several reasons are suggested for the colossal failures, including corruption and the crisis of governance, and the role of external factors — international agencies such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. In the final analysis, Korieh attributes the ominous decline of agriculture to the shift from agriculture as the base of Nigeria’s economy to reliance or dependence on petroleum as the principal source of revenue from the 1970s. His words:

The discovery of oil at Oloibiri in 1956 and the production [of oil] that began in 1958 made Nigeria the largest oil producer in Africa and the eleventh in the world. The 1970s coincided with the rise in the world oil price, and Nigeria reaped instant riches from petroleum. The emergence of petroleum economy [thus] ushered in an important new phase in Nigeria’s economy. Agriculture, which earned significant revenue for the [Eastern] region and the country before the oil boom, suffered from low investment, leaving

FOREWORD xv the rural population vulnerable. Rural regions witnessed a major crisis, with social, infrastructural, and economic collapse in the 1980s.°

The Land Has Changed: History, Society and Gender in Colonial Eastern Nigeria, based on carefully researched archival and oral sources, provides us with a wealth of knowledge about changes in the Nigerian economy during the colonial and postcolonial eras. Although this volume presents a rather depressing picture of contemporary Nigeria faced with problems of dire hunger and poverty because it seems no longer self-sufficient in food production and now depends on the importation of food, it offers some ray of hope. Economic recovery under more patriotic and committed leaders might still bring Nigeria back to its lost reputation as the giant of Africa.

Felix K. Ekechi

Professor Emeritus Kent State University xvi THE LAND HAS CHANGED

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This book has been long in the making. The impetus for the book stems from my study of gender relations focusing on widowhood practices among the Igbo of Eastern Nigeria in 1996. During that research, I found that various aspects of rural life, including social and cultural practices, were interlinked with the economic life of the people. The research also raised important questions about the economy and rural livelihoods in a transforming society. Although I was interested in the cultural aspects of widowhood, it was apparent that widowhood practices had been influenced by external factors, including colonialism, Westernization, and new economic structures that had their origins in the increased commercialization of agriculture in the early parts of the twentieth century. The increased importance of palm produce (oil and kernels) for the European market in particular led to significant changes among the Igbo, including the commoditization of land and changes in gender relations of production. The changes that emerged and the impact of colonial construction of new economic and social formations necessary to achieve increased export production, as well as the responses of rural people in a predominantly agrarian economy, piqued my interest. How did official policies and attitudes influence the nature of agricultural change among the Igbo of southeastern Nigeria? I sought to answer this question by exploring official agricultural policy and its influences through a multi-layered study of the Igbo of southeastern Nigeria. I was convinced that official perceptions about the local agricultural environment, the mode of production, and the role of colonial subjects - male and female - represented a narrow understanding of the local production system of the Igbo and how the culture affected economic life. The structure of the local production pattern was more complex than officials conceptualized it. By examining the historically important role that agriculture played in the encounter between the Igbo and the British colonial government, I sought to clarify the ways state policies transformed agriculture and, in particular, how local people responded to the transformation of the local society.

I owe a huge debt of gratitude to several people who made this book possible. Let me start by expressing such gratitude to Professor Martin Klein. His support when I was a graduate student at the University of Toronto gave me xvii the courage to pursue this dream. He read the early drafts of this book and offered useful insights. Marty and his wife Susan shared their home with me on many occasions and I remain grateful for their continued friendship. I would also like to express my thanks to Professor Michael Levin. The Levins offered me accommodation for a full semester on my return from field work in 2001. I thank them immensely for their assistance.

I would also like to thank the African Research Center, Leiden, Netherlands, for a visiting fellowship in 2007 that enabled me to complete the manuscript. The British Academy fellowship at Oxford University in 2008 gave me the opportunity to explore additional resources at Rhodes House and to revise the manuscript. I am grateful to my hosts: the African Studies Center and St. Anthony’s College for supporting me during the period of my fellowship. Professor David Anderson, the Director of the African Studies Center and Dr. David Pratten, made the trip possible, and I thank them immensely.

Several people read my proposal and early drafts of the manuscript. I am particularly grateful to Professors U. D. Anyanwu, John Inikori, Toyin Falola, the late Ogbu Kalu, Dmitri van den Bersselaar, Dorothy Ukaegbu, and Faye Harrison, for their insightful comments and criticism. I owe a lot of debt to the staff of Enugu and Calabar archives. I have used both archives over several years and have developed enduring friendships. I thank the former director of the Enugu archives, Dr. U. Esse, and the current director, Chief Nsoro, for their assistance. Other staffs of both archives have been of immense assistance during my research and I thank them. At Marquette, the chair of the history department, James Marten, and my other colleagues have offered encouragement and support.

Finally I want to thank my family for their support. Akunna and Chidi deserve my sincere gratitude for putting up with my frequent absences while I conducted the research and wrote this book. I cannot repay such a debt. My father was an inspiration and I dedicate this work to him. My mother and siblings gave me more love and support than I could ask for. I especially want to thank my sister Adanna, her husband Mazi Onuegbu, and their children; my uncle, Rev. T.A.U. Iwuh, his wife Kate, and their children, for their hospitality during my many research visits to Nigeria. I am grateful to my research assistants, Mrs. Kate Emmanuel and Henry Onyema, for assistance during fieldwork in Nigeria. I benefited from the support of many other family xviii THE LAND HAS CHANGED members and friends in the process of writing this book: Bobby, Mama Charity Thediwa, Uloaku and Niyi Adesun, Raph Njoku, Ebby Madera, Bright and Ijeoma Okoronkwo, Ifeanyi Ezeonu, Anayo Okorie and his family, Naomi Diptee, Ndu Life Njoku, Dr. Ugwuanya Nwosu and Patience, Bill Carrigan and Emily Blanck of Rowan University, and Christopher Obiukwu. I thank them sincerely for their support and enduring friendship.

I am very grateful to the staff at University of Calgary Press for their enthusiasm and for the insightful comments of my editor John King throughout the production of this book.

In the process of writing this book, I have come to respect the men and women I met and interacted with in the Igbo countryside. Their tenacity and resilience and their ability to cope amidst significant stress on their households and communities amaze me. I learnt valuable life lessons from them, especially the importance of listening to other voices — those often at the margins of society - in reconstructing the history of rural societies. The voices and criticism I received from readers helped to improve the manuscript, but I remain responsible for the imperfections that it contains and its contribution to the scholarship.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xix

Map of Igboland

INTRODUCTION: PERSPECTIVES, SETTING, SOURCES

Few attempts have been made to teach the native more modern methods of farming, but in this direction the native has so far shown himself to be quite unteachable in this part of Nigeria. - Edward Morris Falk, British District Officer, Aba, 1920

Our grievances are that the land has changed and we are all dying. It is a long time since the chiefs and the people who know book [Western-educated people] have been oppressing us. We are telling you that we have been oppressed. - Female Witness, Aba Commission of Inquiry, 1930

“The land has changed!” This is how my father began when I asked him in the year 2000 to relate his experiences of the nature of change since the colonial period in my village, a small rural community in central Igboland. Many rural dwellers shared similar sentiments. However, when African people tell stories about the colonial period, some talk about a period of plenty while others talk about a period of deprivation. Grace Chidomere, a rural farmer and small-scale trader, looked back on the colonial era with nostalgia, describing it as the “good old days.” Eighty-year-old Francis Eneremadu, who served as a tax assessment officer in the colonial period, remembers, with a degree of sadness,

2 « a period when “things were very good.”* “People lived off what they earned from produce sales, trading, and farming,” said Comfort Anabalam, a rural farmer in Mbaise.?

Not all, however, hold the view that the colonial period was a time of plenty. Some associated the colonial period with mere “survival” because it included several periods of crisis for the rural population. The depression of the late 1920s and early 1930s and the economic difficulties it engendered in low export prices for palm oil and kernels and high costs of imported goods generated a crisis in the local economy for which the rural and urban populations paid the price. Reacting to the colonial restrictions imposed on African traders during the Second World War, for example, A. Jamola, a trader in Aba, who had been refused a permit to trade in gari (a local staple produced from cassava), expressed the following sentiments in his petition to the district officer on 21 July 1943.

Imagine our suffering, Sir, during this period for which I am restricted from exporting garri to the north especially when the small profit accruing from the trade is being exhausted. I can assure you, Sir, that I do appreciate your point of view in this rather difficult question, but at the same time I would very respectfully and humbly ask that in addition to your viewing the matter from the official stand-point, you may consider the lives of a family which may perish as a result of the measures which have been taken to restrict the garri trade.’

Jamola’s request was an act of desperation, but such sentiments were widespread and reflected the diverse outcomes of colonial encounters from the native viewpoint. One woman’s view of the society and economy during this period supports this perspective: “since the white men came, our oil does not fetch money. Our kernels do not fetch money. If we take goats or yams to market to sell, court messengers who wear a uniform take all these things from us.”

From the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries onward, African societies underwent significant transformations. This is evident both in the regions where the attempt to transform rural agriculture was enforced through rural peasants and in colonies where commercial production by a white settler community left indelible inequality between the settlers and the African population. In both cases, production for export worked to link African societies to the industrialized societies of Europe and provided opportunities for some and a struggle for others. Yet the history of agriculture in the twentieth century was one of growth and prosperity that was followed by progressive decline from the 1970s in many areas. In many parts of Africa at the beginning of the century, the agricultural sector was demographically larger, wealthier, and more productive than most other sectors of the economy. The agricultural sector had become demographically smaller, poorer, and less productive than ever before by the end the century. Farmers at the end of the century had declining incomes and were worse off, on average, than those who did not farm. There is considerable agreement among scholars and other commentators that the rapid decline and disintegration of the rural economy accelerated under the pressure of state policies and modernization.

In Igboland, as in most of colonial Africa, agricultural production was an instrument and focus of colonial governance, and high productivity was the ambition of officials, since government revenue depended largely upon peasant taxes, export duties, and import duties. From its establishment in 1910, the Nigerian Department of Agriculture pursued a policy of encouraging indigenous development of the palm oil industry as a means of achieving economic development and drawing rural folk into the cash economy. Colonial policies and European demand for palm oil and kernels led to an expansion in the productive capacity of Igbo households and drew them closer to the capitalist market. Until recent times, the Igbo region was largely dependent on rural agriculture, and palm oil was the most important agricultural produce and an important source of accumulation. Household members participated in the formal economy as producers and marketers of palm produce, and, for most of the colonial and early post-colonial period, they built substantial wealth until the agricultural decline that set in from the late 1960s. How is this change reflected in the history of the region and the memories of those who witnessed these changes?

This book addresses this historical problem. The context for rural change varied across much of Africa and the decline and crisis that have occurred were not generally related to state policies alone. Structural changes, over which the rural population as much as the state had little control, the people themselves, and their activism, were also powerful forces of change, as this book suggests for the Igbo society. Rather than concentrating on state policies alone, the book will instead focus on the complex processes through which an African society responded to state intervention during the colonial and early post-colonial period. While I do not attempt to describe local life in its entirety, I use agricultural change as a lens through which to view socio-economic change, political struggle, cultural change, and colonial hegemony. The book centres on the British attempt to transform a colonial society (continued in the early post-colonial period) through the modernization of agriculture and the experiences, actions, and perceptions of the local population whom colonial officials often characterized as backward and unchanging. Such perceptions of African societies’ attitudes toward official ideas and about development and change would come to reflect the top-down approach in the attempt to modernize agriculture.

The focus is the central Igbo region in southeastern Nigeria, defined as the areas included in Owerri Province in the colonial period or contemporary Imo State and parts of Abia State. The area lies within the oil palm belt, which includes, roughly, the area west of the Cross River and south of the region between Onitsha and Afikpo. This was one of the most important centres of palm oil production in the colonial and early post-colonial periods, and it is, therefore, an important case study in the impact of agricultural change and local responses. The region is also characterized by high population density, significant out-migration, and relatively poor soil.” This was also an area that witnessed major political agitations during the colonial period, including the tax revolts of 1929, that were deeply rooted in the agrarian economy as described in chapter 4. In chapter 5, I also examine the link between the rural economy and the forms of political consciousness that emerged as this economy was threatened by the depression caused by the Second World War. These unique characteristics presented peculiar challenges to the population in this part of Igboland, but they also provide an opportunity to assess how local historical contexts mediate major societal transformations. The advantages of this regional approach include the opportunity to collect data in depth, to provide comparative perspectives on how different parts of Igboland responded to varying ecological niches, and to explain the varying responses to the transformation that came with colonialism.

The forms and patterns of change addressed in this book have occurred throughout Igboland, but it would be a mistake to assume that these transformations occurred uniformly and that there were no variations. Although different parts of Igboland experienced unique circumstances due to diversity in population, ecology, and socio-economic structures, this book stresses that there is some level of homogeneity and continuously draws upon the collective experiences of the territory historically known as southeastern Nigeria, where the Igbo remain the dominant population. Therefore, I have not confined myself to the central region alone.

While the book covers the period from the middle of the nineteenth century onward, its central concerns revolve around the periods of substantial growth in agriculture - the beginning of European colonization and the subsequent colonial period (1880s-1960), and the (1960s—1970s), which witnessed a gradual but significant decline in agricultural output. These were periods when the majority of the population made their living from agriculture and the trade in agricultural produce. My study illuminates the changing nature of agricultural production and the rural economy over different historical periods and shows how the rural population responded to these changes.

In most of colonial Africa, agricultural commodity production was seen as an essential engine of growth upon which the development of African farmers and societies depended.’ Colonial intervention increased the pace and scope of agricultural change in several parts of sub-Saharan Africa, leading some commentators to characterize this period as an era of agricultural revolution.’ The degree of social and economic changes had fundamental implications for agricultural sustainability and rural subsistence.” Development and economics-oriented studies have concluded that economic reforms driven by cash crop production in both the colonial and the post-colonial period led to agricultural decline and threatened rural survival. They have blamed contemporary agricultural decline on colonialism, government mismanagement of resources, and the effects of a global economy.” These factors constitute the general explanations for the forms of agricultural change that have taken place in most parts of Africa, but they do not provide explanations for regional experiences." The responses and actions of the local population, the social context in which they produced crops, demographic factors, environmental factors, and political changes undoubtedly contributed to the pace and forms of changes that occurred - for government policies did not function in a vacuum. The policies pursued by colonial officials, at times through coercion, on the one hand, and the response of local farmers to the opportunities created by the new economy, on the other, account for the pace, scope, and nature of the transformations that occurred in the twentieth century.

Scholars are still struggling with how to explain these changes throughout Africa and how to characterize African producers like the ones described in this study. Two major perspectives have been used to explain Africa’s disappearing farming population. At one end of the spectrum, scholars posit that Africa’s agricultural decline was the result of the incorporation of African economies into the world capitalist system. At the other end of the spectrum are scholars and international agencies such as the World Bank, the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO), and the International Monetary Fund who argue that the causes of agrarian breakdown are rooted in the internal economic policies of African governments since independence.”

The externalist argument has focused on the adverse effects of colonialism and an international economic environment that created poor terms of trade for Africa’s primary agricultural exports and dependency on developed economies. This line of thought suggests that the dependency of African countries on the export of primary products has proven risky for both state and peasant revenue as the high cost of imports and very low prices for export produce lead to economic stagnation and poverty. Agricultural decline, therefore, is seen as a legacy of colonialism, which continues to support the economies of the developed countries to the detriment of primary producers in Africa.’® Indeed, Marxist-informed analyses blame the plight of African societies on colonialism and neocolonialism. The plethora of work in this area is grounded on dependency theory. There is widespread agreement within the dependency school that the infrastructure in colonial Africa was built to facilitate the exploitation of local resources, particularly agricultural raw materials that were essential to the industries of Europe.” This development pattern disrupted indigenous economies and political structures and rendered them dependent on Europe and the developed world.”