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In the fall of 2009, I took a seminar on “New British Imperial History” with Dr. Joseph Morgan Hodge at West Virginia University, Morgantown. As part of the seminar, I reviewed his book, “Triumph of the Expert: Agrarian Doctrines of Development and the Legacies of British Colonialism.” This book and my subsequent discussions with him sparked my interest in...

In the summer of 2010 I visited the old neighborhood where I grew up. It is located in a little town called Obudu in the southern part of Nigeria. After graduating high school in 1995, I moved away to attend college. Around the same time, my parents relocated to the countryside to take care of my grandmother whose health was failing in her advanced age. As years went by, I heard from family...

Nigeria has undergone several phases of development, both in the precolonial and colonial period. In the early years of European encounters with the people of Nigeria, their interactions were restricted to the “water...

In the period before the scramble and partition, Britain’s official interest in Africa was declining. However, private enterprises saw economic potential and were willing to penetrate Africa’s interior. The scramble generated great interest among European nations as they rushed to sign treaties with African chiefdoms and plant national flags symbolizing their “trusteeship”...

During World War II, the British Parliament continued to debate the Colonial Development and Welfare Bill that had been drafted in the period after the Great Depression. This bill, which would eventually institutionalize colonial development and welfare policy, was vigorously debated in Parliament, showing the commitment of the members to investing metropolitan funds in the colonies, albeit for...

How can Africa, South of the Sahara achieve development? This was an important question during the second colonial occupation and continues to occupy the development enterprise today. Policy makers in the period after the Great Depression insisted that the key to unlocking the wealth of Africa was through agriculture. It is not surprising that during this period, myriad agricultural development...

The shift in British development policy after the Great Depression reached its peak in the period after World War II. This period marked the height of the second colonial occupation. The different colonial governments in Africa increased metropolitan investments in the development of the colonies. Development was no longer simply the economic exploitation of African resources; there was now a strong social welfare component. In 1945, Britain expanded the 1940 Colonial Development and Welfare Act and infused it with millions of pounds. France created Fonds d’Investissement et de Developpement Economique et Social des Territoires d’Outre-mer (FIDES) in April of 1946 to help build public infrastructure and provide social services such as housing, sanitation, and schools. In fact, over the course of the next ten years, France invested about $542 million in today’s...

After six decades of Britain’s formal colonization of Nigeria, colonial rule came to an end on October 1, 1960. Independence did not bring a rupture to the relationship between Britain and Nigeria but a shift in the political structures of the country. Constitutional developments in Nigeria, starting with the Richards Constitution of 1946 through the Macpherson Constitution of 1951 and the...

The postcolonial paralysis of African states is rooted in the European exploitation of the colonies. Colonial economies were set up as appendages to the metropole with the primary role of providing raw materials that...

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Bekeh Utietiang Ukelina is assistant professor of African history at the State University of New York, Cortland. His research examines ideologies and practices of development in Africa, south of the Sahara. He is the founder and director of the digital project,...