Northern Nigeria

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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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TAXATION OF NATIVES IN NORTHERN NIGERIA. 7 which had been responsible for much of the oppression and extortion. In future the district headman would be in close touch with the chiefs of towns and villages, and with the peasantry under his rule, and in order that he might not become an independent autocrat, he was required to attend at the capital at least twice yearly on the occasion of the Mohammedan festivals, in order that the Emir might maintain his touch with the districts, and his control over the headmen. The Emir could also send his messengers into the district (who, however, were no longer to have any duties in connection with the collection of taxes), and could, if occasion arose, summon the district head man to the capital. In order to check any extortion or abuses every village headman is to be provided with a statement in Hausa and Arabic of the amount at which his village is assessed. The villagers, on the one hand, could demand to see this list if their headman collected more than the authorised tax, and on the other hand, the district headman could not claim from the village more than this sum. In the event of any excess demand, village headmen and peasantry alike had a right of appeal to the Assistant Resident of the division. These safeguards have been welcomed by the people, and it is reported that little or no extortion now exists. As the scheme becomes more and more effective and recognised, I trust that extortion will disappear, and the maximum of administrative control, which is com patible with the machinery at the disposal of a Protectorate Government, will have been attained. The system here out lined is now in process of creation. In some provinces it is already in effective operation, in others it is still being com pleted. Consolidation of Districts. G. The headmen thus appointed are, it will be seen, territorial magnates, appointed to the charge of a specified area of terri tory, in which they would exercise control up to the limit of the executive powers conferred upon them,—judicial powers being vested in the Native Courts. But in practice it was found that in every district there were a considerable number of towns which had been founded by immigrants from some distant parent city, or which consisted of a portion of a clan, the parent stock of which was located outside the district, or which con sisted of a settlement of people of a race alien to the bulk of the population of the district. In all these cases the town in question would decline to acknowledge the authority of the local headman, and would claim to pay their tax to the clan from which they had emanated. The unit, in fact, through a great part of the Protectorate, was not territorial, e.g., a specified district or area, but a group of individuals—a tribe or a clan— however scattered. This was not unnatural in a country where the population had been devastated by decades of slave-raiding and inter-tribal war, so that fugitive remnants of tribes were scattered in various directions and vast areas of land remained

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