AFRICAN UNIOSUN JOURNAL OF HUMANITIES NEBULA February 2010 Volume 1, Issue 1 Power Politics Among Abeokuta Elites in the 19th Century Oluwatoyin Oduntan Page (1-17) Mapping Nigerian Literature Rotimi Fasan Page (34-43) Social Welfare Strategies in Colonial Lagos Tunde Decker Page (56-64) JANAfricanUARY 20 19 ISSUNebulaE NO. 10 ISSN 1837-7963 African Nebula Editorial Board Professor Siyan Oyeweso - Chairman, Editorial Board Dr. Ameh Dennis Akoh - Editor Dr. Olaoluwa Senayon - Editor Dr. Rotimi Fasan - Editor Dr. Tunde Decker - Editor Professor Olukoya Ogen - Editor in Chief Editorial Interns Olawale Farawe Idowu Waidi Akanji Yemi Balogun International Editorial Advisors Dr. Samar Habib, Editor in Chief, Nebula Dr Chris Fleming, University of Western Sydney, Australia Dr Joseph Benjamin Afful, University of Cape Coast, Ghana Dr Isaac Kamola, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, USA Dr Michael Angelo Tata, Creative Director, New York & Los Angeles, USA Opinions expressed in articles published in African Nebula reflect those of their respective authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the journal or its editorial or advisory board members. Content i Introduction 1 Power Politics among Abeokuta Elites in the 19th Century Oluwatoyin B. Oduntan 18 A Failed neo-Britain: Demography and the Labour Question in Colonial Zimbabwe Simeon Maravanyika & Frans D. Huijzenveld 34 Mapping Nigerian Literature Rotimi Omoyele Fasan 44 Hausa Literature as a Source for Studies in Cultural Boundaries Mariusz Krasniewski 56 Social Welfare Strategies in Colonial Lagos Tunde Decker 65 Conflicting Framings of Women in Nollywood Videos Agatha Ukata 76 Diplomacy and Emirate Formation: The Integration of the Igbomina into the Ilorin Emirate in the 19th Century E.O. Ibiloye 84 A Historical Overview of the Economic Foundations of States in the Nile Valley Region Michael M. Ogbeidi African Nebula Vol. 1, No. 1 (February 2010) Introduction The passion behind floating a learned journal like this in the 21st century is driven by the need to ensure that research across disciplines, space and time can engage in conversation without borders. This then explains why in producing the surface version of African Nebula, the editorial board also decided that the challenge of restricted circulation must be tackled by producing simultaneously an online version on a credible template. The A-rated journal Nebula: A Journal of Multidisciplinary Scholarship, a journal residing at the college of Arts at the University of Western Sydney, whose editorial team is led by the journal’s founder, Dr Samar Habib, provided the perfect template for African Nebula. We are therefore pleased to introduce to you the inaugural issue of African Nebula. We would also like to thank our international editorial advisers: Samar Habib, Chris Fleming, Isaac Kamola, Joseph Benjamin Afful and Michael Angelo Tata for agreeing to act as consultants with us about the journal’s operations. We thank in the same spirit, the Osun State University and all members of the local editorial board for their encouragement and support in making our dream a reality. In this maiden edition, there is a range of interesting articles from disciplines in the social sciences and humanities. They explore issues which verge on colonial history, demography, literature and the bourgeoning field of the Nigerian film industry otherwise known as Nollywood. E.O. Ibiloye’s paper, “Diplomacy and Emirate Formation” interrogates a tetchy and controversial historical issue about the evolutionary process in the integration of the Igbomina ethnic group into the formation of the Ilorin Emirate in pre-colonial Nigeria. Ibiloye concludes that in spite of the avalanche of accounts on the integration process, there is enough reason to argue that more than anything else, diplomacy accounted in the main for the success of the integration. On his part, Oluwatoyin Oduntan’s paper challenges the widely held view about hierarchy, exclusionism and absolute performance of power in pre-colonial Egba society. In driving home his point, the author demonstrates how the flexibility of power structure encouraged the emergence of various elite power structures which challenged and complemented one another. So much so, that the rendition of the transition from a pre- colonial power structure to a modern one can only be understood as a model in gradualism and not a sudden and total displacement of the traditional by the modern. In a manner that links the past directly with the present, knowing that the present often obtains from the past, Tunde Decker’s “Social Welfare Strategy in Colonial Lagos” provides vistas into how the advent of colonialism in Lagos brought with it a recrudescence of poverty. Conversely, much as the colonial government adopted measures to stem the poverty rate emanating from this colonial administration, the strategies adopted proved to be ineffective, thus resulting in an aggravation of poverty. In similar vein, Simeon Maravanyika’s and Frans Huijzenveld’s paper examines the failure of imperial Britain in colonial Zimbabwe or Southern Rhodesia to establish an adequate and productive white settler population through her exclusionary measure of endorsing the migration of only “good quality” settlers. On account of this, the exclusionary measure resulted in the creation of a flawed labour demography and ultimately made the exclusionary measure adopted between 1890 and 1948 counter-productive. In looking at the economic history of the Nile Valley region, Michael Executive Editor’s Introduction African Nebula Vol. 1, No. 1 (February 2010) Ogbeidi centrally locates countries like Egypt, Ethiopia, Eritrea Sudan and Somalia, tracing the developments from the distant past to present times, concluding that much as the transformation in the economies of these states is evident, there is still “room for accelerated advancement”. Mariusz Krasniewski’s paper which underlines the role of literature as historical record is an exploration of the concept of border crossings via the vehicle of literature. His study of Hausa prose fiction is remarkable in its tracing and reconstruction of cultural borders as melting pots of diverse social and life practices. Agatha Ukata joins issue with Nollywood, Nigeria’s fast growing cinematic industry, interrogating its representation and portrayal of women in its manifold forms. Meanwhile, Rotimi Fasan’s paper follows in both diachronic and synchronic terms the contours of Nigerian Literature as a disciplinary practice, highlighting both the thematic and aesthetic features of the literature from the period predating literacy to contemporary times with its mainstreaming of female writings and concerns. We therefore, invite prospective readers into the world of African Nebula with this inaugural edition. Olukoya Ogen Executive Editor, African Nebula, Osun State University, Osogbo, Nigeria. Executive Editor’s Introduction Power Politics among Abeokuta Elites in the 19th Century Oluwatoyin B. Oduntan Dalhousie University, Halifax Nova Scotia [email protected] Abstract This paper challenges the idea that pre-colonial Egba society was hierarchical, immutable and stable by pointing to the struggles and contestations among elite identities over power. It challenges the myths of royal absolutism and underscores the fact that power was fluid with elite structures challenging and complementing one another. That power was fluid accounts for the relative ease with which educated Africans found space to carve an ambiguous elite identity and to participate in power. The paper concludes that such complex engagements among elites better explain the political history of Abeokuta than a transition model which sees the modern displacing the traditional. Introduction This paper is driven by two broad objectives. First, I intend to show the complex interactions among elite groups as they contested for power in 19th century Abeokuta. Second, I seek to show that Egba society in Abeokuta was formed as a consequence of these contestations and interactions among elite groups. This pursuit challenges assumptions and preconceptions about how African societies were formed and shaped, and the roles of African elites in the process. Existing writing is dominated by a displacement model which generally posits that modern Africa was shaped by colonial rule and according to European ideals. Central to this model is the notion that African society was pushed from its stable traditional past to an inevitable modern future by which a European-created elite progressively sidelined a traditional elite to inherit power in the post-colonial state. The European intrusion is depicted as destroying (or modernizing) stable hegemonies by displacing elite structures and conventions of power. However, the formation of elite groups and contestations over power predate and transcend European influence and colonisation. Far from stable hegemonies, pre-colonial societies in Nigeria (as elsewhere in Africa), witnessed changes in their politics which were fallouts of ideological discourses and contestations over the form of society and how to rule it. Similarly, the assumptions that colonial elites constituted a category apart, were counter- posed to traditional elites, or that they were exclusively equipped with modernist credentials and thereby easily secured social legitimacy, obscure a complex historical process of elite identity formation and search for power. That process pitched an amorphous educated elite with and against other