This paper attempts to explain the manner in which British colonial officials perceived the bases of authority of their subordinate African officials, whom they called chiefs, during the years of colonial rule in Uganda. Many studies have shown how the British used a hierarchy of appointed Africans to carry out day-to-day administration (early studies include Apter, 1961; Beattie, 1971; Burke, 1964; Denoon, 1968; Fallers, 1965; Low and Pratt, 1970; Richards, 1960). The degree of continuity between this imposed colonial structure and precolonial political systems differed greatly from one part of the Protectorate to another, the disjunction being greatest where people had formerly organized their affairs without rulers. The present study focuses on British attitudes as revealed in two such areas of extreme disjunction. Other scholars have noted in passing that officials tended to assume that the wide powers wielded by these appointed chiefs were based on custom, even in formerly acephalous areas. Pratt (1965: 489) refers to this assumption as “a happy and convenient fiction” while Tosh (1978: 246) speaks of self-deception and “the confusion which bedevilled the official mind.” Research among retired officials who had served in the Protectorate administration revealed a widespread perception of these appointed chiefs as in some sense representative of the Africans they ruled (Gartrell, 1979). Some of those interviewed maintained that representativity derived from continuity with precolonial chiefly roles involving mystical ties between chiefs and people. They believed that precolonial chiefs had ruled even in areas where research has found no such precolonial political roles.

Despite the increasing effort of Africanist scholars, and particularly historians, to decolonize African history by focusing greater attention on the role of Africans than Europeans in the unfolding of African history, historical interest in the influence of Europeans in Africa remains. This is perhaps reflected in the continuing appearance of studies devoted to European activities in Africa. However, there are those who, perhaps justifiably, question the need or value for such studies, given the trend in African studies today to de-emphasize imperial history and to accent “real” African history (Ranger, 1979; Bennett, 1981). Yet there are others who argue, rather persuasively, that studies of European activities in Africa should still be encouraged either because we do not as yet know all that we need to know about Europeans in Africa (Ranger and Weller, 1975), or because we now have ample data with which to reconsider aspects of European presence in Africa (Hopkins, 1976). Indeed, seen from this perspective of revisionist historiography, some of the recent studies of Europeans in Africa not only enhance our knowledge of the dynamics of African and European interaction but also enable us to either reject or modify many of the familiar assumptions and theories about Europeans in Africa (Hopkins, 1976; Ranger, 1979; Igbafe, 1979; Newbury, 1978).

It is indeed against this background of revisionist historiography that this present essay is attempted. It seeks, on the one hand, to reconsider the popular image of European colonial administrators as men who were characteristically genial, kindhearted, and unselfishly dedicated to the welfare of their African wards (Burns, 1949; Heussler, 1963; Bradley, 1966; Gann and Duignan, 1978).

In 1967, with the adoption of the Arusha Declaration, the government of Tanzania formally committed itself to a development path based on socialism and self-reliance. Major changes were made in national development objectives and the development strategy. At the outset the new policies “revolved around the inhibition of widening income differentials, the discouragement of the growth of a self-serving elite, and the seizure of control of major sectors of the economy” (Bienefeld, 1975: 249). In part, increased concern over the growth of income inequality between urban wage employees and the rural masses as well as among high-salary and low-wage urban employees themselves precipitated the Arusha Declaration. In light of this, a major objective of post-Arusha income policy was to ensure relatively equal personal consumption capacity between households and regions as well as between urban and rural areas.

The focus of this paper is the wage sector, where the government has directed its efforts toward reducing income inequality between the various groups of wage-and salary-earners. The period of analysis is 1968-80. The paper examines the major instruments of income policy used to reduce income inequality in the wage sector, the effect income policy variables have on real earnings of various income groups, and the resulting trends of real disposable earnings. In order to overcome data limitations and to facilitate the analysis, four representative income groups are selected. The use of these representative income groups permits an analysis of the effects that an accelerated rate of inflation, wage adjustments, and the increased progressivity in personal income tax rates have had on real disposable earnings of various groups in the income stratum.

The popular view of military activities in Africa is one of a continent gripped by political chaos, uncontrolled conflict, and in the vise of an arms race. The U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency recently reported that military expenditures among African countries rose 154 percent in the decade 1969-1978. To the inexperienced observer it appears that the African peoples have descended into a Hobbesian abyss, and that misguided governments are squandering their national resources on armaments rather than on programs for human development.

This article suggests otherwise: there are heartening signs amid disheartening news. Empirical evidence indicates that most African countries are engaged neither in conflict with neighboring states, nor in an arms race; indeed, there emerges, for whatever reasons, a pattern of military restraint. This is not to deny the presence of conflict in Africa. Fifty-three sovereign and semi-sovereign newly emerging states are not likely to coexist without contention, and this compounded by extraordinary border problems, the legacy of a century of conflict and compromise among the colonial powers. Rather, it is suggested here that while some African states may be squandering some national resources on armaments, many are not.

There must be reasons why many African states, newly emerging into an imperfect, often hostile world, renounce large security systems. It appears that some form of arms limitation is functioning among many African states and that rapid growth of armaments is confined to a few countries.

Nigerian educational administrators find themselves engulfed by a tidal wave of swiftly swelling pupil enrollment. The rapid rate of growth poses the challenging question of how much time is left for solutions. Niger State is one example. In April 1976, 244 primary schools offered instruction to 15,796 pupils. Four months later, the state needed 931 primary schools for an additional 63,384 pupils: a growth rate of almost 400 percent. In 1978 there were 1,091 primary schools to serve 179,861 children. This amounted to a real growth of over 1000 percent in two years. This experience was repeated across a number of states. The comparison of enrollment in the first year of primary school between 1975/76 and 1976/77 school years, for example, shows a percentage increase of 557 percent in Niger, 491 percent in Kano, 442 percent in Kaduna, 263 percent in Benue. The smallest increase was 11 percent in Gongola State. Parallel to the pupil enrollment was the percentage increase of the number of primary schools between 1975/76 and 1976/77, 301.3 percent in Niger, 227.1 percent in Kano, 196.4 percent in Kaduno, 142.9 percent in Benue. The smallest increase reported was in Imo State, 1.5 percent.

This recent explosion in Nigerian primary school enrollment was the direct result of the Universal Primary Education (UPE) scheme launched in September 1976. It marked the dawn of an educational revolution with pervasive social and economic implications (Bray, 1981). The political expectations were that universal free primary education would enable the nation to overcome the hurdles caused by unbalanced educational and economic development which resulted in southern dominance and educational imbalances of urban opportunities over the rural, and the preponderance of male over female enrollment in schools.

In November 1978 a witch-purge crusade led by Edem Edet Akpan (alias Akpan Ekwong) took place among the Ibibio people of the Cross River State in Nigeria. Edem claimed that all the evils which afflicted the Ibibio were attributable to the malevolent forces of witches and that he possessed supernatural powers to detect witches. Assisted by a few lieutenants, Edem began his crusade to eradicate witches and witchcraft. He would send messengers to a village to inform its residents that on a certain day of the week all were to assemble at the public square. Members of the village were forbidden to leave, and letters were sent out to those who were already out to return.

On the appointed day Edem or one of his lieutenants would arrive and go around picking out those he believed were witches. The suspects had their hands tied together and red pepper (which the villagers referred to as powder) sprayed all over their bodies and into their eyes, ears, and noses. In addition, large quantities of black ants were poured on the suspected witches. Under agonizing pain, they were asked to confess all those they had killed, those whose money or other property they had bewitched, their rank in the witch society, and so on. They were untied after they confessed. There were others, not selected by the crusaders, who voluntarily went to the village council to confess that they were witches and paid the fine stipulated for them. In this way they were able to avoid the ordeal meted out to those accused of witchcraft by the crusaders.

The past three decades have witnessed far-reaching changes and a revolution of sorts both in the Third World countries and in the theoretical frameworks employed in the study of development and underdevelopment. The methodological achievements which have accompanied these theoretical innovations have in many respects approximated the kind of scientific transformations in the natural sciences that Kuhn (1970) describes as the structure of scientific revolutions. Discussing the history of scientific discovery Kuhn (1970: 52-65) draws attention to the distinction between normal science and scientific revolutions. He specifically emphasizes the critical importance of the discovery of anomalous data and how the “awareness of [such an] anomaly, the gradual and simultaneous emergence of both observational and conceptual recognition” of the inadequacies of the currently dominant paradigm in dealing with the existing problems, prepare the ground for its overthrow or suppression.

Until the late 1960s problems of development in the Third World were characteristically examined from the perspective of the dominant paradigm: the modernization theory. Classical modernization theory placed central consideration on the internal conditions of the state: institutional structures, culture, attitudes, and value systems. In the early 1970s, the crises and contradictions which surrounded modernization theory reached an alarming proportion and created the “necessary precondition for the emergence of novel theories” (Kuhn, 1970: 77). Aside from the increasing frustration and general dissatisfaction of underdeveloped countries with “growth without development” (Clower et al., 1966), it was clear that the existing international economic system had failed to spread the benefits of world economic prosperity between the developed and underdeveloped countries.