Colonialism by Proxy: Hausa Imperial Agents and Middle Belt Consciousness in Nigeria

294 Pages·2014·2.09 MB·English

by  Moses E. Ochonu

COLONIALISM by PROXY
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COLONIALISM by PROX Y
Hausa Imperial Agents and
Middle Belt Consciousness in Nigeria
Moses E. Ochonu
Indiana University Press
Bloomington and Indianapolis
This book is a publication of
Indiana University Press
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© 2014 by Moses Ochonu
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means,
electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any
information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from
the publisher. The Association of American University Presses’ Resolution on
Permissions constitutes the only exception to this prohibition.
∞ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the
American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for
Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48–1992.
Manufactured in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Ochonu, Moses E., author.
Colonialism by proxy : Hausa imperial agents and Middle Belt consciousness in
Nigeria / Moses E. Ochonu.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-253-01160-2 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-253-01161-9 (pbk. : alk.
paper) — ISBN 978-0-253-01165-7 (e-book) 1. Middle Belt (Nigeria)—Colonial
influence. 2. Middle Belt (Nigeria)—Ethnic relations. 3. Middle Belt (Nigeria)—
Politics and government. 4. Great Britain—Colonies—Africa—Administra-
tion. 5. Muslims—Political activity—Nigeria—Middle Belt. 6. Hausa (African
people)—Politics and government. 7. Fula (African people)—Politics and govern-
ment. I. Title.
DT515.9.M49O25 2014
966.903—dc23
2013032679
1 2 3 4 5 19 18 17 16 15 14
for my Mother
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Contents
Preface ix
Acknowledgments xiii
Introduction: Understanding “Native Alien”
Subcolonialism and Its Legacies 1
1 The Hausa-Caliphate Imaginary and Ideological
Foundations of Proxy Colonialism 22
2 Zazzau and Southern Kaduna in
Precolonial and Colonial Times 45
3 Emirate Maneuvers and “Pagan” Resistance in
the Plateau-Nasarawa Basin 77
4 Hausa Colonial Agency in the Benue Valley 106
5 Fulani Expansion and Subcolonial Rule in
Early Colonial Adamawa Province 129
6 Non-Muslim Revolt against Fulani Rule in Adamawa 157
7 Middle Belt Self-Determination and Caliphate
Political Resurgence in the Transition to National Independence 179
Conclusion: Subcolonialism, Ethnicity, and Memory 207
Chronology 223
Glossary 225
Notes 227
Bibliography 253
Index 263
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Preface
W
hen I began this book project in 2007, my aim was to explain why the co-
lonial form practiced in the Nigerian Middle Belt deviated so drastically from
the familiar, fetishized British system of indirect rule. I wanted to engage in a
simple corrective scholarly endeavor to highlight the limitations of the indirect
rule paradigm and point scholars in the direction of less familiar but equally
consequential forms of colonial rule.
One question in particular framed my initial inquiries and reflections: how
is it that Northern Nigeria is seen in the Africanist colonial studies literature as
a bastion of indirect rule when, all over the vast Middle Belt region, a system of
colonization that violated the foundational rationale of indirect rule held sway?
What began as a modest effort to supply evidence that mitigates the status of
Northern Nigeria as an elaborate theater of indirect rule morphed into a huge
scholarly undertaking. This required the collection and dissection of several
genres of evidence, multiple research trips to Nigeria and Britain, oral interviews,
informal discussions, archival adventures, immersion in relevant secondary lit-
erature, and many zigzags and detours that took me into several comparative
geographical fields.
Another question that inspired my early quests is whether one could concep-
tually and empirically posit African groups as colonizers even in a circumscribed
sense, given the overbearing influence of nationalist historiography, which
frowns upon conceptual constructions that are outside the European colonizer/
African colonized binary. Or whether one could demonstrate that subalternity
was not always a bar to colonial, and in this case subcolonial, initiatives.
I recognize that I was not only going against the established, if problem-
atic, premise of nationalist African history but also against a conceptual archi-
tecture of empire studies in which the notion of subalterns as subcolonizers and
self-interested drivers of the colonial enterprise often gets a hostile reception. I
pressed on only because I was convinced that the Middle Belt story, which ad-
vances a conceptual and empirical counterpoint to these scholarly consensuses,
was worth telling on its own narrative merit as an exploration of an unorthodox
colonial form. The main arguments and conceptual interventions in this volume
then took shape around this important story, an unfamiliar story that compels
one to rethink colonization in this and several other parts of Africa.
Once I actually began to collect and read archival materials and to conduct
and examine oral interviews, the stories told in this volume emerged with clarity
and coherence. The book also took a turn in a direction that I had not antici-
ix