Colonial cadet in Nigeria
Date
1968
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press,
Abstract
Touring officer, Kano division; On special duties; Assistant district officer, Zaria division; Touring reports.
Description
The work and life of British administrators in colonial Northern
Nigeria in the early years of the century is well documented.
Little has been written since that is generally available, and the
interesting period immediately prior to independence has inevitably and rightly been studied from the viewpoint of the Nigerian
nationalist rather than from that of the British official.
This book recalls my first five years in Northern Nigeria. I was
appointed as a cadet in 1951, the last year of large-scale British
recruitment to the Nigerian Administrative Service, which was to
be so recklessly and needlessly dispersed a decade later. As my
sources I have used diaries, correspondence, and official reports
which I wrote at the time. Some of the official reports are included at the end of the book. My object has been simple: to
show the kind of men we were and the type of work the majority
of us, at the broad base of the administrative pyramid, did, and
how we did it.