Northern Nigeria

Bibliographic data

Monograph

Identifikator:: 863607721

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-45464

Document type:: Monograph

Author:: Lugard, Frederick John Dealtry http://d-nb.info/gnd/117667412

Title:: Northern Nigeria

Place of publication:: London

Publisher:: His Maj. Stat. Off.

Year of publication:: 1907

Scope:: 1 Online-Ressource (65 Seiten)

Collection:: Economics Books

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8 COLONIAL REPORTS—MISCELLANEOUS. uncultivated. Land thus became of little account, and the Head of the clan was of more importance than thp theoretical owner ship of the land, a title to which could be obtained for nothing, or for a nominal present. As a natural result, we see to-day that where land has increased in value, owing to the density of the population, the territorial claim tends to supersede the clan claim, as in the thickly inhabited Emirate of Kano. With the increase of population, and the creation of a less centralised system of rule, territorial jurisdiction must inevitably oust the clan jurisdiction, but at present the intensely conservative tendencies of the people render it advisable to allow this change to come about gradually, and not to introduce a drastic and hasty alteration of the existing relations. The scheme, there fore, of creating districts under headmen, was, subject to this difficulty. In some provinces it does not exist, in others only to <a small degree, in others—as in Kano—it existed, but the enhanced value of land, and the growth of a superior organi sation in administrative detail rendered it easy to sweep it aside, and reconstitute the districts de novo. In others it remained a potent factor, which only time can gradually alter. Allied to this system, and a natural outcome of it, was the fact that the officers of the native state, who held lands from the Emir under a system analogous to the fiefs of our own feudal system, were the owners or lords not of a self-contained area, with its towns and villages, but of individual towns scattered at great distances from each other all over the Emirate, which made residence in the fief impossible. The fief-holder, therefore, lived at the capital, where he held some high-sounding title, as an officer of State, and squeezed his fiefs to provide the means for his extravagance. With the-creation of ‘‘districts - ’ the fief-holder disappears as such. As far as possible these former fief-holders have been given “districts/’ and they now become officials recog nised alike by the Native and the British Government resident in their districts, and responsible for its taxation, and for law and order within it. This system of creating districts in lieu of scattered fiefs, or of towns or groups of villages owning a clan allegiance to a separate chief, I have termed throughout the attached memorandum “ consolidation of districts ” for the sake of brevity. Where a district is entirely under its territorial “district headman,” or practically so, I have, for lack of a better term, called it “ self-contained.” The fief-holders have thus, for the most part, become district headmen where they were willing to reside in their districts. In some cases the districts were already “ self-contained,” and the headmen resided there (as in Katagum, and to a great extent in Bornu), and their status, duties, and responsibilities are in some degree modified only. In others, as in Katsena, they were practically resident, and the change has been greatly approved. In others, again, as in Kano, they are reluctant to leave the capital entirely, and the rule has, for the present, been somewhat relaxed. In vSokoto some were resident, others not, and the latter have been sent

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