CAPÍTULO I. MARCO TEORÍCO
2.1. Política social de consenso y enfoques
Introduction
The developmentalist state of the 1940s was one that held promising hope not
only for the colonial governments but also for the Africans who became deeply involved
in it even before they acquired power.70 Planning development and implementing the
plans involved a series of negotiations between the metropole and the colonies. In the
colonies, the state and also the nationalist leaders, farmers, workers and petty
bourgeoisie, shaped the colonial plans. This was true of the 1945 Nigerian development
plan in which a series of negotiations took place between Nigeria and the CO. At heart
was the question of who should design and control development planning. Sidney Caine,
who was in charge of colonial development policy at the CO, argued that this form of
planning should be controlled from the CO because the local colonial governments “did
not have the time, and in many cases the experience and expertise, necessary to carry out
the daunting task of continuous, systematic planning.”71 While Caine’s view of a
metropolitan approach to development was under consideration, some other senior staff
of the CO believed that it was important to bring the local colonial governments to the
planning process because they had a better understanding of the local circumstances. In
order to bridge the gap between what was happening in the metropole and colonies, it
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70!Cooper,!African'Since'1940,!44\45.!! 71!Hodge,!Triumph'of'the'Expert,!199.!
was decided that a planning section should be created within the CO and there should be
a buildup of technical staff at the CO that would make regular visits to the colonies and
provide them expert advice. Also it was decided that regional development organizations
be created and the territories should set up planning councils or committees that would
carry out long-term planning.72 In this chapter, I look at how the 1945 Nigerian plan
came to be. I argue that the metropolitan-centered development mission favored by Caine
was limiting to development in Nigeria because the colonial administration in Nigeria
was the one that had to implement the plan and it knew better the needs and limitations of
the local conditions. The colonial state was under the critical purview of Nigerian elites
and the local press and this factor helped to limit and shape the development agenda of
the state.
I also argue that the Nigerian colonial officials were well intentioned in their
attempt to carry out development in the colony. They had given serious and considerable
thought to development in the colony and had setup institutions of development from the
district level through the provincial level to the central level. These institutions were
setup to generate ideas that would help to develop the colonies and also to help identify
schemes that would be most beneficial. Also, as a sign that the colonial state was well
intentioned in its goal of developing the colony, the Nigerian officials saw agriculture as
a key to the economic success and so at the beginning of the plan’s implementation, they
wanted to invest heavily on agriculture through extension and colonial personnel in order
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to stimulate production and generate revenues which would help to sustain the plan
beyond ten years.
Despite the strengths of the 1945 plan, I argue in this chapter that it had serious
limitations and shortcomings. One factor that affected this plan was that it was not well
funded. The CO had grossly underestimated the financial resources that were needed in
order to achieve the level of development that they had envisioned. The figure that both
the CO and British Treasury agreed upon for development of the colonies was at best an
educated guess. Two reasons were responsible for this: planning was still very new and
they had not devised a way of measuring effectively needs and outcomes. The second
reason was because Britain did not have the financial resources as it was emerging from
the Second World War and was undergoing reconstruction and reinvestment. And the
other important factor that affected the planning process was the lack of involvement of
Nigerians in the planning bodies that were set up and in the government services, such as
the development officers. At the heart of the colonial state was racial bias. This prevented
Nigerians, who could have served in different capacities, from directly promoting
development. This systemic racism that clouded the colonial state hindered progress both
in the development and implementation of the plan.
Colonial Development Before 1929
Prior to the Great Depression, Britain was engaged in some form of development
in the colonies. The person who put imperial development on the table was Joseph
Chamberlain. When he became S of S for the colonies in 1895, he was aware of the fact
the key to the restoration of Britain’s power, wealth and prestige, which he feared were
waning, was imperial union and development.73 He was also aware of the fact that plenty
of resources would be needed in order to maintain and defend an empire so big as that of
Britain. The solution to this problem was the need for “prosperous and contented subjects
within all parts of the empire, Crown colonies as well as dominions, which were capable
of raising sufficient revenues, both to contribute to the defense of their territories, and to
generate sufficient investment capital to set their domestic economies on a path of self-
continuing growth.”74 Chamberlain’s vision was that imperial funds should be made
available for the development of the colonies both for the betterment of the colony itself
and the empire as a whole. His efforts were constantly fought back by the Treasury,
which saw it as an anathema to spend imperial funds in the development of the colonies.
The view obtainable at the time was that the colonies needed to develop themselves
economically through private capital.
Though Chamberlain had placed colonial development on the table in the late
nineteenth century, it was only by the 1920s that attempts were made at institutionalizing
colonial development. Early in the 1920s, L. S. Amery, who was the Parliamentary
Under-secretary of State for the Colonies, and Lord Milner, who was the S of S,
championed colonial development. They saw the economic development of the colonies
as the only answer to Britain’s economic problems. After the First World War, Britain’s
debt was rising greatly and it cost £210 million to service that debt annually. There was
need for fresh sources of revenue in order to reduce the burden of taxation that was going
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73!Havinden!&!Meredith,!Colonialism'and'Development,!87.!! 74!Ibid.!!
to be placed on industry and the investment class. A corollary benefit to this was full
employment for British workers.75 Amery argued for the “extension of tariff protection
with imperial preferences and the sustained funding of empire settlement programs.”76
However, the Treasury ministers and officials opposed Amery’s views on colonial
development. These officials argued that money invested in the colonies by way of
development would never be recovered. Nevertheless, the CO pushed its plans. The
policy at the time was that colonial development aid should be in the form of loans rather
than grants.77 The struggle between the CO and the Treasury was so fierce that in 1928,
Amery then S of S, sent a letter to Stanley Baldwin, the prime minister, in which he
wrote, “Four years bitter experience have convinced me that any attempt to help the
employment situation here by accelerating Colonial development is hopeless as long as
matters are left to the Treasury, which is at bottom against all expenditure, whether on
development or on anything else, and whose powers of obstruction are infinitely greater
on an Imperial subject than on a domestic issue where there is constant parliamentary
pressure.”78 This was the period shortly before the Great Depression.
The 1929 Colonial Development Act
During the Great Depression, the economic importance of the empire was
heightened. Empire was seen as a “safety cushion during hard times, a domain to be
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75!Stephen Constantine, The Making of British Colonial Development Policy, 1914-1940 (London: Frank
Cass, 1984), 36-37. !
76 Ibid., 164.
77 Neal R. Malmsten, “British Government Policy Toward Colonial Development, 1919-39,” The Journal
of Modern History 49, 2 (1977): 1250.
78 Amery to Baldwin, 26 November 1928, The National Archives, Kew, Colonial Office Records (Hereafter
TNA CO) 323/1016/51165, Quoted in Constantine, The Making of British Colonial Development Policy, 168.
isolated from global economic competition in the interest of Britain.”79 Prior to the
economic depression, the colonial state in Nigeria, for example, was able to balance its
budget through the export of agricultural products and tin mining. In the 1920s, half of
Nigeria’s exports were palm products.80 The depression affected both the agricultural
industry and the mining industry. World demand for primary products fell by 50 percent,
which led to falling prices for exports. Price reductions had a devastating impact on the
economy of Nigeria and the colonies that were primary producing economies. L. J. Butler
writes, “the price paid to Nigeria’s palm-oil products dropped by almost 80 per cent
between 1928 and 1934, and the total value of Nigerian exports fell from £16,927,000 in
1928 to £8,560,000 in 1933.”81 The depression also affected imports. European goods
were no longer imported in the same quantities that they had been imported before the
depression. The revenues of the colonial state that were derived from custom duties on
imports and exports, as well from the taxation of Africans through the hut and poll tax,
dried up. The limited revenues acquired through export trade were used to pay debt
charges. The local governments could not get help from London because colonies were
expected to be financially self-sufficient. The implication of these factors was that
colonies like Nigeria did not have the revenues to develop their territories. Most
important for this study, two major problems were emerging at this time: the
unemployment in Britain and the lack of development that was taking place in the
colonies.
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79 Ochonu, Colonial Meltdown, 27.
80 L. J. Butler, Industrialisation and the British Colonial State: West Africa, 1939-1951 (London: Frank
Cass, 1997),15.
It was thus not surprising that these imperatives found expression in the first
attempt to institutionalize colonial development in the form of the 1929 Colonial
Development Act. The act was a public works program with the aim of alleviating the
problem of unemployment in Britain. As the 1929 elections drew near, there was pressure
on Winston Churchill, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, to support the policy of colonial
development as the Conservative Party would be severely criticized by the opposition
parties for doing nothing to reduce unemployment. While Churchill, a former S of S,
dismissed the CO’s pressure, by May of 1929, Baldwin “included Amery’s
recommendation of a colonial development fund and advocated the extension and
expedition of development policy in Africa, but in accordance with a cabinet decision he
left open the question of the machinery for the administration of the fund.”82
However, Baldwin’s government suffered defeat in the elections and had to resign
on 4 June 1929. The Labour Party, which formed a minority government, had
campaigned on the platform of tackling the problem of unemployment. The colonial
secretary of Labour’s government, J. H. Thomas, was an enthusiastic supporter of the
idea that colonial development would alleviate unemployment in Britain. Amery found
an ally in Thomas and drew his attention to a Conservative Party proposal, which called
for the creation of a development fund. The Labour Party picked up this proposal and
quickly turned it into legislation.83 The CO under Thomas defined what they considered
an acceptable colonial development fund scheme. Stephen Constantine writes: “Since the
purpose of the scheme was to induce colonies to undertake works, with which they would
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82 Malmsten, “British Government Policy,” 1265.
otherwise not at present burden themselves, in order to accelerate the revival of industry
at home, it was essential that there must be an element of free gift to the territory. This
should take the form of a contribution of the whole or part of the interest on a loan for a
certain number of years.”84 The Treasury remained skeptical of the value of this scheme
in reducing unemployment. Nevertheless, Thomas on 24 June 1929, requested the CO,
the Treasury, and parliamentary counsel to prepare a bill. This bill was complete by 26
June 1929. The bill moved fast through the parliament and received the Royal Assent on
26 July 1929.85
The resulting 1929 Colonial Development Act was a failure. It failed primarily
because of poor planning and limited funding. Only £1 million was available annually to
fund the ten colonies that were part of the scheme. Between 1930 and 1940, Nigeria
received about £330,000. Of this amount, “£114,450 (or 34.7 percent) was granted to pay
interest on loans for the construction of the Minna-Kaduna railway, £51,000 funded the
organization of ground facilities for air services, and £95,000 facilitated research and
treatment of sleeping sickness. Agriculture received £3,400 to encourage mixed crop
farming and another £1,500 on tsetse fly research, while the rest went for other small
expenses.”86 True to its intention, it was a job program for the British and not an act that
brought about any significant development for the colonies. £330,000 for a colony the
size of Nigeria was a paltry sum. This act is in stark contrast to the 1945 legislation that
saw the approval of £55 million to Nigeria for a ten-year period.
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84 Ibid., 184. 85 Ibid., 185.
Planning Development, the 1940 Act
The economic depression that started in 1929 created deplorable conditions in the
colonies. As the depression deepened, the social and economic conditions in the colonies
were getting worse rather than better. Joseph Hodge writes that, “Deteriorating conditions
in the colonies, critics charged, were evidence of years of complacency, neglect and
exploitation. New attitudes were taking shape that by the end of the decade would usher
in a far-reaching process of colonial reform, symbolized by the passing of the Colonial
Development and Welfare Act of 1940.”87 These social and economic conditions led to
unrest and riots in the colonies and questions were asked in the metropole about the
conditions in the colonies. The attempt to find solutions to the conditions in the colonies
formed the backdrop of the 1940 act. Unlike the 1929 act, the word “welfare” was now
added. The significance of this was that colonial development now had as part of its
mission, the improvement of the social conditions of colonial people. The 1940 Act
marked a major shift in colonial development policy. With this act, the British
government placed importance on tackling the problem of colonial poverty. Thus, this act
emphasized welfare provisions over economic development. Alleviating colonial poverty
became a major goal designed to inoculate Britain from the United States’s critique of
colonial rule. It is important to note that despite the fact that this act was intended to be
more humanitarian than mercantilist, measures that would bring about economic
development were still promoted at the insistence of the Treasury. Treasury’s argument
was that economic development would enable colonial governments to provide essential
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social services. Butler argues that this idea did not please many at the Colonial Office.88
Unlike the 1929 act that allocated only £1 million annually for the development of
colonies, the 1940 act allocated £5.5 million annually for the colonies. Of this amount,
£500,000 per annum was allocated solely for research in the colonies.89
The Governor of Nigeria, Sir Bernard Bourdillon, was excited about the passage
of the 1940 Act. He had been instrumental to the vigorous debates that were taking place
in the CO on the nature of the Act. He had sent a long dispatch to the CO blasting “the
established notions of financial self-sufficiency and damned the Colonial Development
Act [of 1929]for its inefficacy. He lamented the problems of poor territories like Nigeria
which, were burdened by debts, could not raise enough extra local revenue to meet the
interest on new loans or to face the recurrent expenditure which development works often
entailed.”90 Bourdillon concluded his dispatch by requesting that development loans
should be granted by London on reduced interest rates and the development of the
departments of agriculture, forestry, veterinary, geological survey and co-operatives be
fully financed by the Imperial Government.91
His excitement is understandable because this was the first time that the British
imperial government committed substantial financial aid to the colonies for their
development and welfare. He had long disdained the philosophy that the colonies had to
be self-sustaining. He wasted no time promoting the legislation among his officials and
asking the various Residents of the provinces to submit proposals for development. Not !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
88 Butler, Industrialisation and the British Colonial State, 21.
89 Falola, Development Planning and Decolonization in Nigeria, 24-25. 90!Constantine, The Making of British Colonial Development Policy,!244.! 91!Ibid.!!
much guidance was given on how to proceed. The Residents in turn asked for statements
of needs from the departments, district officers, etc. These initial proposals were
ambitious and not very well planned.
It was only after the CO established the Colonial Economic Advisory Committee
(CEAC) in September of 1943 to advise the S of S on development in the colonies that
guidelines were written on how to proceed with development planning. These guidelines
encouraged the formation of economic advisory committees in the colonies.92 In August
of 1943, the Nigerian colonial state established the Advisory Committee on Economic
Development and Social Welfare. This committee, which was headed by T. Hoskyns-
Abrahall, had its first meeting on August 5, 1943. The committee assisted in coordinating
the different proposals that would later form the bulk of the ten-year development plan.
Besides this committee, which was headquartered in Lagos, there were other committees
that worked at a more local level. Provincial development committees were present in all
twenty-three provinces of Nigeria. These committees were comprised of both official and
nonofficial members. The official members were heads of departments while the
nonofficial members, who were mainly Nigerians, were chosen by the Residents to
represent the different interest groups.93 The role of the provincial development
committee was to “coordinate the activities of the various departments, reduce the
workload of the Resident in matters relating to the Colonial Development Fund, make
suggestions on projects and prepare schemes on its own initiative.”94 The provincial
development committees were not at the bottom of the bureaucracy. There was still !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
92 Falola, Development Planning and Decolonization in Nigeria, 26-28. 93 Ibid., 29-30.
another level below. This was the divisional development committee. The District Officer
usually chaired this. Members of this committee included “a few high-ranking chiefs, the
District Officer, and senior officers of the Health, Agriculture, and Public Works
departments. The divisional development committee also involved interest groups, such
as the Christian missions, foreign firms, and a few educated elites.”95
This bureaucratic structure was in place by the end of the Second World War, and