The Great Upheaval by Judith A. Byfield

Author:Judith A. Byfield [Byfield, Judith A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Africa, West, Social Science, Women's Studies, Political Science, Colonialism & Post-Colonialism, Social History
ISBN: 9780821446904
Google: NPoxEAAAQBAJ
Publisher: Ohio University Press
Published: 2021-07-09T01:05:13+00:00

The Tudor-Davies Commission took six months to complete its report. Based on its calculations, the commission agreed with the unions’ estimates and recommended a 50 percent increase in the COLA, retroactive to August 1, 1945. They did, however, discount the unions’ suggestion that the COLA should be the same across the country rather than determined by local conditions. The report demonstrated that the commissioners discounted some of the government’s arguments as well. For example, they rejected its claim that the increase in allowances would accentuate inflation, and they “regarded the Government’s argument that it could make the allowance only by increasing taxation or postponing social and development work as irrelevant, as a reply to the unions’ case.”40 The commission exercised a degree of autonomy that colonial officials did not expect.

While the unions celebrated the commission’s recommendations, the governor of Nigeria, Arthur Richards, was beside himself. Noting his disappointment and embarrassment, Richards cast aspersions on the commission and its findings and recommended that the government not publish the commission’s report. In a secret letter to secretary of state for the colonies, George Hall, Richards wrote, “I am now faced with conclusions and recommendations which appear to be based neither on logical argument nor on proved facts but which appear to represent the superficial opinion formed by three gentlemen, with no previous experience of Colonial conditions, after a short visit to Nigeria. I make so bold as to say, with great respect, that had I known that this was likely to be the outcome, I should have preferred to rely upon my own opinion and judgment.”41 The governor’s attitude was not shared by all in the Colonial Office, for the report was published and made available to the public for 3/6d. through the British government’s official publisher and booksellers.42 An editorial in the magazine West Africa praised it as “the deepest probe yet into West Africa’s Social Problems” and applauded the broad way in which Tudor-Davies interpreted the commission’s terms of reference. The editorial’s author enthusiastically endorsed the committee’s recommendations and lauded its language of urgency.43

The successful outcome of this strike holds an important place in Nigerian labor history, but it was significant for additional reasons. It was the largest work stoppage Nigeria had ever experienced up to that time; given the role of the railway union, the strike extended into the provinces beyond Lagos; it had the support of people from a cross section of society; and, as Cohen suggests, it “raised the possibility of co-operation between the unions and the more populist-inclined politicians.”44 Imoudu’s alliance with the NCNC deepened as he joined the organization’s crusade against the new constitution imposed during Governor Richards’s tenure.

AN EMERGENT NATIONAL POLITICS

The Richards Constitution built on administrative initiatives carried out by Richards’s predecessor, Gov. Bernard Bourdillon. In 1939, Bourdillon received permission from the Colonial Office to subdivide the Southern Province into two regions. A series of political crises in the Yoruba provinces demonstrated that it was difficult for the chief commissioner to remain on top of developments in the western provinces from his eastern base in Enugu.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.