Paradoxes of Decolonisation: University College Ibadan and the Late Colonial State

Livsey, Tim

doi:10.1057/978-1-137-56505-1_3

Tim Livsey⁴

Part of the book series: Cambridge Imperial and Post-Colonial Studies Series ((CIPCSS))

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Abstract

The chapter considers the politics of Nigerian university development from 1948 to 1960, including who lectured at University College Ibadan, how the staff was ‘Africanised’, university autonomy, ‘special relations’ with the University of London, and university finance. Livsey argues that University College Ibadan formed part of the ‘second colonial occupation’ of Africa and the growth of the late colonial state. In some ways it exemplified the continuing authority of British norms, but the university also weakened British control. It opened Nigeria to the influence of foreign institutions and formed a prominent site where the terms of development and decolonisation were contested. Nigerians held the university to account in newspaper columns and in legislatures, showing how this colonial development project was, in practice, negotiated.

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Notes

1.
The 1945 Colonial Development and Welfare Act allocated £6m, from the total British colonial development fund of £120m, for higher education. However, colonial universities do not receive much coverage in classic histories of colonial development. See Constantine, Colonial Development Policy; Havinden and Meredith, Colonialism and Development; Hodge, Triumph of the Expert. The fullest treatment, that sees universities as part of broader colonial development, is in older work. See Lee and Petter, Colonial Office, 161–3, 200–1; D.J. Morgan, The Official History of Colonial Development, Vol. I: The Origins of British Aid Policy, 1924–45 (London, 1980), 107–17.
2.
Nigerian state revenues, buoyed by economic growth and booming exports, increased from £7m in 1937, to £17m in 1948, and £71m by 1957. Young, African Colonial State, 213.
3.
On colonial university autonomy see Nwauwa, Imperialism, Academe, 157. On the growth of the late colonial state see Young, African Colonial State, 211–16; Darwin, ‘Late colonial state’, 75–9.
4.
This chapter distinguishes between the colonial government, the small executive controlled by British members of the Colonial Service, and the colonial state, which comprised a larger arena including the colonial government, the new legislatures, and ‘semi-state’ organisations that included University College Ibadan, the marketing boards, and state corporations. The terms ‘semi-state’ and ‘parastatal’ are here used interchangeably. See Darwin, ‘Late colonial state’, 75–6.
5.
John Darwin, Britain and Decolonisation: The Retreat from Empire in the Post-War World (Basingstoke, 1988), 329–30.
6.
Low and Lonsdale, ‘Introduction’, 12–15.
7.
Helen Tilley, Africa as a Living Laboratory: Empire, Development and the Problem of Scientific Knowledge, 1870–1950 (Chicago, 2011), 335.
8.
T.N. Tamuno, ‘The formative years, 1947–56’, in Ajayi and Tamuno (eds.), University of Ibadan, 39.
9.
Pietsch, Empire of Scholars, 2–8.
10.
D.J. Morgan, The Official History of Colonial Development, Vol. III: A Reassessment of British Aid Policy, 1951–65 (London, 1980), 74.
11.
P.F. Vowles, ‘Staff recruitment for the colonial university institutions 1948–51’, 1983, 3, RHL Mss. Afr. s. 1825/119.
12.
An alternative argument, stressing the dissolution of the British academic world from the interwar years, is advanced in Pietsch, Empire of Scholars, 171, 189.
13.
I.C.M. Maxwell, ‘Recruitment through the Inter-University Council’, n.d. [c. 1982], 5, RHL Mss. Afr. s. 1825/77.
14.
Paul Weindling, ‘Mellanby, Kenneth (1908–1993)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 (www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/52284, accessed 19 Jan 2016).
15.
Wren, Those Magical Years, 20.
16.
Maxwell, ‘Recruitment through the Inter-University Council’, 2, RHL Mss. Afr. s. 1825/77.
17.
‘University College, Ibadan, Nigeria’, 1950, NAI CSO26 41978/S.15/T.
18.
During late colonialism a wider range of posts were open to British women. See Helen Callaway, Gender, Culture and Empire: European Women in Colonial Nigeria (Basingstoke, 1987), 101, 140–4.
19.
Lalage Bown interview by Alison Smith, 1983, 2, RHL Mss. Afr. s. 1825/11.
20.
For example, see Mellanby to Phillipson, 5 January 1952, UARSP ‘Correspondence between the principal and chairman of the council – Sir Sydney Phillipson (1952–55)’ folder.
21.
J.D. Omer-Cooper, ‘Reminiscences of service at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria, 1955–1965’, 1982, 3, RHL Mss. Afr. s. 1825/84.
22.
Monica Plumptre to ‘My dearest family’, 1 November 1948, RHL Mss. Afr. s. 1825/48. Plumptre seems to have modified her views after some years at Ibadan. For example see the memoir written under her married name: Monica Herrington, ‘The place of the senior staff school at University College, Ibadan, Nigeria, n.d. [c. 1983], 7, RHL Mss. Afr. s. 1825/48.
23.
Ulli Beier, ‘In a colonial university’, in Ulli Beier, The Hunter Thinks the Monkey Is Not Wise … The Monkey Is Wise, But He Has His Own Logic: A Selection of Essays, edited by Wole Ogundele (Bayreuth, 2001), 204.
24.
I have been unable to find Nigerian lecturers’ reflections on this subject, a silence perhaps related to its sensitivity. Elgood memoir, 1982, 3, RHL Mss. Afr. s. 1825/29.
25.
C.C. Wrigley, ‘Memories of Ibadan’, 1982, 2, RHL Mss. Afr. s. 1825/133.
26.
Jack Hirst, ‘Reminiscences of Ibadan’, 1982, 1, RHL Mss. Afr. s. 1825/50.
27.
J.H. Elgood memoir, 1, RHL Mss. Afr. s. 1825/29.
28.
J.C. Pugh, ‘Memoir’, 1983, 5–7, RHL Mss. Afr. s. 1825/92. Even today the Kenneth Dike Library at Ibadan is particularly well stocked with books published in communist nations during the 1950s and 1960s.
29.
Lalage Bown, interview by Alison Smith, 1983, 2, RHL Mss. Afr. s. 1825/11.
30.
H. Preston, ‘My era at Ibadan: experience, recollections and views’, in T.N. Tamuno (ed.), Ibadan Voices, 36.
31.
Vowles, ‘Staff recruitment’, 3, RHL Mss. Afr. s. 1825/119.
32.
Whitney H. Shepardson, ‘Visit to Nigeria and Gold Coast’, diary entry for 24 July 1950, CURBML CCNY series VIIIA box 4.
33.
Pugh, ‘Memoir’, 4–5, RHL Mss. Afr. s. 1825/92.
34.
Pugh, ‘Memoir’, 32, RHL Mss. Afr. s. 1825/92.
35.
M. Power and J.D. Sidaway, ‘The degeneration of tropical geography’, Annals of the Association of American Geographers 94:3 (2004), 589–92.
36.
Geoffrey Parrinder, ‘Religious Foundations at Ibadan’, in Tamuno (ed.), Ibadan Voices, 103–4; Pugh, ‘Memoir’, 7–8, RHL Mss. Afr. s. 1825/92. On the groundnut scheme generally, see Hodge, Triumph of the Expert, 209–13.
37.
Beier, ‘In a colonial university’, 208.
38.
Ogundele, Omoluabi, 11–13.
39.
Wren, Those Magical Years, 45.
40.
Alan Ryder, ‘Memoir’, 1982, 3, RHL Mss. Afr. s. 1825/101.
41.
Nwauwa, Imperialism, Academe, 157.
42.
Similar considerations informed the contemporary formation of the Colonial Research Council. See Sabine Clarke, ‘A technocratic imperial state? The Colonial Office and scientific research, 1940–1960’, Twentieth Century British History 18:4 (2007), 466–7.
43.
Creech Jones to Macpherson, 29 September 1948, NAI CSO26 41978/S.22.
44.
‘Speech made by Hugh Foot, Acting Governor, at Foundation Day, 17 November 1950’, NAI CSO26 41978/S.18.
45.
Nigerian Statesman, 2 July 1949. There was not unanimity amongst the press, though. The SND argued that UCI merely ‘claims and is supposed to be autonomous’: SND, 16 June 1949.
46.
F.J. Ellah, ‘My era at Ibadan’, in Tamuno (ed.), Ibadan Voices, 15.
47.
Vincent Chukwuemeka Ike, University Development in Africa (Ibadan, 1976), 169–71; Stewart, Higher Education, 47–9, 65.
48.
Christopher Cox, the Colonial Office’s Education Adviser, was an important intermediary between the Colonial Office and the Inter-University Council. See Clive Whitehead, Colonial Educators: The British Indian and Colonial Education Service 1858–1983 (London, 2003), 198.
49.
P.F. Vowles, ‘Staff recruitment’, 4, RHL Mss. Afr. s. 1825/119. See also the more oblique recollections of I.C.M. Maxwell, ‘Recruitment through the Inter-University Council’, 4, RHL Mss. Afr. s. 1825/77.
50.
See the Hamilton Fyfe delegation recommendations at the ‘Meeting held at Government House on 30.12.46’, 2–3, NAI CSO26 41978 Vol. IV; echoed in the Hamilton Fyfe report, 6. For Colonial Development and Welfare fund requirements see ‘Grants from the higher education allowance under the Colonial Development and Welfare Act’, July 1948, NAI CSO26 41978/S.22.
51.
Phillipson to Civil Service Commissioner, 5 September 1951, NAI CSO26 41978/S.62.
52.
Nigeria, University College, Ibadan Ordinance (Lagos, 1954), 11.
53.
The 1952 creation of a Council of Ministers saw Nigerians take ministerial positions. Nigeria, House of Representatives Debates. Third Session, 6th to 25th March 1954 (Lagos, 1954), 657.
54.
Phillipson to Mellanby, 8 August 1952, UARSP ‘Correspondences between Mellanby and Phillipson’ folder.
55.
Pugh memoir, 57–8, RHL Mss. Afr. s. 1825/92.
56.
Noted in Hatch minute, 22 December 1949; Acting Secretary Northern Provinces to Chief Secretary, 2 June 1951, NAI CSO26 41978/S.41.
57.
Legislative Council Question, 1 March 1951, NAI CSO26 41978/S.13 Vol. I. See also ‘Extract from minutes of Standing Committee on Finance of the Legislative Council’, 19 January 1951, NAI CSO26 41978/S.18.
58.
Ebun O. Omoyele, The Civil Service in Nigeria: Evolution and Challenges (Lagos, 2012), 27–9; G.O. Olusanya, The Evolution of the Nigerian Civil Service 1861–1960: The Problems of Nigerianization (Yaba, 1975), 29–35. Previously only a very small number of Nigerians had been appointed to senior state posts.
59.
Mellanby to Azikiwe, 21 October 1947, UARSP ‘Correspondence between Dr Azikiwe and Dr Mellanby on the latter’s assumption of office as Principal, UCI, 1947’ folder.
60.
Minute by W.D. Spence, 10 April 1948, NAI CSO26 41978/S13 Vol. 1.
61.
Creech Jones to Macpherson, 17 February 1948, NAI CSO26 41978/S13 Vol. 1.
62.
Tamuno, ‘Formative years’, 39.
63.
Nigerian Spokesman, 14 June 1948.
64.
van den Berghe, Power and Privilege, 40; Mellanby, Birth of Nigeria’s University, 251–2; O. Ikejiani and J.O. Anowi, ‘Nigerian universities’, in Okechukwu Ikejiani (ed.), Nigerian Education (Ikeja, 1964), 147–8.
65.
Nigeria, House of Representatives Debates. First Session, 22. Titus Ejiwunmi later suggested that he left because of what he saw as lax discipline at the university compared with his experience of teaching at Yaba Higher College: Ejiwunmi, Full Colours, 38–9.
66.
WAP, 24 November 1952.
67.
Asquith report, 22.
68.
John Flint, ‘Scandal at the Bristol Hotel: some thoughts on racial discrimination in Britain and West Africa and its relationship to the planning of decolonisation, 1939–47’, JICH 12:1 (1983), 85; Frederick Cooper, Decolonization and African Society: The Labor Question in French and British Africa (Cambridge, 1996), 444–5.
69.
Kenneth Mellanby declined his expatriation allowance of £650. Finance and General Purpose Committee Minutes, 29 April 1949, 16 November 1949, RHL Mss. Afr. s. 1825/78.
70.
Finance and General Purpose Committee Minutes, 2 January 1950, RHL Mss. Afr. s. 1825/78.
71.
Nigerian Spokesman, 12 June 1950.
72.
SND, 18 June 1949. See also SND, 14 May 1949.
73.
Nigerian Statesman, 24 September 1949.
74.
Finance and General Purpose Committee Minutes, 1 June 1950, 15 November 1950, RHL Mss. Afr. s. 1825/78.
75.
For the cost see Allport, Bursar, to Phillipson, 14 May 1956, UARSP ‘Correspondence between Sir Phillipson [sic] and Dr Biobaku’ folder; for the quotation see Allport to Baker, Sales Manager, BOAC, Lagos, 8 October 1957, UARSP ‘F8A Principal’s office finance (correspondence only)’ folder.
76.
Tamuno, ‘Formative years’, 39.
77.
Maxwell, Universities in Partnership, 35. Generally, see Bruce Pattinson, Special Relations: The University of London and New Universities Overseas, 1947–1970 (London, 1984).
78.
In the faculty of arts it was possible to study ancient history, classical Greek, English, geography, history, Latin, mathematics and religious studies; and in the faculty of science biology, botany, chemistry, geography, geology, mathematics, physics and zoology. University College Ibadan, Calendar, 1958–59 (Ibadan, 1958), 59–61.
79.
Tamuno, ‘Formative years’, 30.
80.
Nwauwa, Imperialism, Academe, 210; Fafunwa, History of Nigerian Education, 100.
81.
Ike, University Development, 1; Nigerian Tribune, 15 August 1952. For more details about the women students, see Chapter 5.
82.
Special relations formed new links between colonial university colleges and the University of London. The first lecturer in African history at a British university, for example, was appointed at the University of London in 1948 to evaluate adapted history courses proposed by the new African universities: Jan Vansina, Living With Africa (Madison, 1994), 46–7.
83.
J.D. Omer-Cooper, ‘The contribution of the University of Ibadan to the spread of the study and teaching of African history within Africa’, n.d., 2, 5; Omer-Cooper, ‘Reminiscences’, 5, RHL Mss. Afr. s. 1825/84; Roland Oliver, ‘African history: SOAS and beyond’, in A.H.M. Kirk-Greene (ed.), The Emergence of African History at British Universities (Oxford, 1995), 13, 19.
84.
J.F. Ade Ajayi, ‘African history at Ibadan’, in Kirk-Greene (ed.), Emergence of African History, 93.
85.
Ellah, ‘My era’, 21–2.
86.
There was some Nigerian demand to study Latin and Greek, which were considered prestigious subjects amongst the intelligentsia. Fafunwa, History of Nigerian Education, 104–5; Minutes of meeting between Mellanby and University of London Special Committee of the Senate on Higher Education in the Colonies, 21 October 1947, SHLSC AC11/11/1.
87.
Mellanby, Birth of Nigeria’s University, 252–3.
88.
WAP, 24 February 1948.
89.
SND, 15 June 1948.
90.
SND, 28 June 1949.
91.
Ashby, Universities, 236; Tamuno, ‘Formative years’, 37.
92.
‘Report of visitors to University College, Ibadan, January 1952’, TNA BW 90/1035.
93.
J.F. Ade Ajayi, ‘Postgraduate studies and staff development’, in Ajayi and Tamuno (eds.), University of Ibadan, 153.
94.
Mellanby, Birth of Nigeria’s University, 164–5.
95.
Western News, 17 April 1957.
96.
WAP, 9 March 1948.
97.
SND, 23 April 1949.
98.
Hamilton Fyfe report, 9; Nigeria, Report on a Technical College Organisation for Nigeria by W.H. Thorp and F.J. Harlow (1950). See also ‘Report of a visit to Nigeria by Professor C.A. Hart in connection with training in Civil Engineering and Land Surveying’, 20 April 1949, 4; A.L. Mellanby, ‘Notes on the proposal to establish a Faculty of Engineering in University College, Ibadan’, n.d. [c. 1950], NAI CSO26 41978/S.51.
99.
‘Inter-University Council for Higher Education Overseas. Conference of vice-chancellors and principals minutes’, August 1958, UARSP ‘17.02 Association of Commonwealth Universities (Correspondence) Vol. I’ folder; I. Iweibo and Olusoji Ofi, ‘Science and technology’, in Moujetan (ed.), Ibadan at Fifty, 100.
100.
Hamilton Fyfe report, 7; Nigeria, Ten-Year Plan of Development and Welfare for Nigeria, 1946 (Lagos, 1946), 16.
101.
J.T. Saunders, University College Ibadan (Cambridge, 1960), 93, 165–6; Woodward, Colonial Educators, 236–7; Stewart, Higher Education, 27–8, 41, 69–70.
102.
Michael Omolewa, ‘An overview of the faculty of education’, in Mojuetan (ed.), Ibadan at Fifty, 53.
103.
Haslewood to Secretary, Senate Committee on Colleges Overseas in Special Relation, 29 February 1956, SHLSC AC 11/11/3.
104.
It was not used at the British ‘new universities’ of the late 1950s and early 1960s, which awarded their own degrees from the outset. For example see Asa Briggs, ‘Drawing a new map of learning’, in David Daiches (ed.), The Idea of a New University: An Experiment in Sussex (London, 1964), 60–1.
105.
Nigeria, House of Representatives Debates. First Session. 14th to 22nd August 1952 (Lagos, 1953), 17.
106.
In 1952, 1957, 1958 and 1959. Mellanby, Birth of Nigeria’s University, 103–6; Phillipson to Worsley, 17 May 1958; Fenton, Central Bank of Nigeria, to Bursar, University College Ibadan, 28 February 1959; Allport to Preston, 6 April 1959, UARSP ‘F8A Principal’s office finance (correspondence only)’ folder.
107.
Elliot report, 77–8, 173–4.
108.
UCI, The University College Ibadan Report for 1948 to 1953 (Ibadan, 1955), 11.
109.
WAP, 6 April 1951; Mellanby, Birth of Nigeria’s University, 109, 248.
110.
Mellanby, Birth of Nigeria’s University, 109.
111.
Minutes of Executive Council, 11 November 1950; speech made by Foot, Acting Governor, at Foundation Day, 17 November 1950, NAI CSO26 41978/S.18.
112.
On autonomy see ‘Grants from Colonial Development and Welfare vote to colonial universities and university colleges’, 27 October 1948, NAI CSO26 41978/S.16.
113.
Phillipson to Parry, 24 June 1957, UARSP ‘F8A Principal’s office finance (correspondence only)’ folder; Mellanby, Birth of Nigeria’s University, 112.
114.
Nigeria, House of Representatives Debates. First Session, 13.
115.
Nigeria, House of Representatives Debates. First Session, 19.
116.
Nigeria, House of Representatives Debates. First Session, 14.
117.
Nigeria, House of Representatives Debates. First Session, 13, 14.
118.
Nigeria, House of Representatives Debates. First Session, 17.
119.
Nigeria, House of Representatives Debates. First Session, 27.
120.
Nigeria, House of Representatives Debates. First Session, 16.
121.
Phillipson to Barns, 16 June 1952, UARSP ‘Correspondence between the principal and chairman of the council – Sir Sydney Phillipson (1952–55)’ folder.
122.
Nigeria, White Paper on Financing of University College, Ibadan (Lagos, 1954), 3–4, quotations at 4.
123.
The government had slightly trimmed the capital grant to £1.08m. Nigeria, House of Representatives Debates. Third Session. 13th to 23rd August 1954 (Lagos, 1955), 261.
124.
Nigeria, House of Representatives Debates. Third Session, 265.
125.
Nigeria, House of Representatives Debates. Third Session, 263–5.
126.
Catherine Gwin, ‘U.S. relations with the World Bank, 1945–1992’, in Devesh Kapur, John P. Lewis and Richard Webb (eds.), The World Bank: Its First Half Century, Vol. II: Perspectives (Washington, 1992), 195–8.
127.
University College Ibadan, Principal’s Report for 1953–54 (Ibadan, 1956), 7; International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, The Economic Development of Nigeria (Lagos, 1954), 383.
128.
IBRD, Economic Development, 384–5.
129.
UCI, Report of Visitation to University College, Ibadan. January, 1957 (Ibadan, 1957) (hereafter 1957 visitation), 16.
130.
1957 visitation, 11, 17–18.
131.
University College Ibadan, Principal’s Report for 1954–55 (Ibadan, 1956), 1.
132.
1957 visitation, 16, 17.
133.
‘Estimates 1958/59. Memorandum by the bursar’, 13 February 1958, UARSP ‘F8A Principal’s office finance (correspondence only)’ folder.
134.
‘Minutes of a meeting between the federal ministers of finance and education, and representatives of the University College, Ibadan, 12 June 1959’, 2, UARSP ‘F8A Principal’s office finance (correspondence only)’ folder.
135.
For example see Phillipson to Federal Financial Secretary, 5 April 1957, UARSP ‘F8A Principal’s office finance (correspondence only)’ folder.
136.
James S. Coleman, University Development in the Third World: The Rockefeller Foundation Experience, with David Court (Oxford, 1993), 89.
137.
On ‘high modernism’ see Scott, Seeing Like a State, 93–102.

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Tim Livsey

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Livsey, T. (2017). Paradoxes of Decolonisation: University College Ibadan and the Late Colonial State. In: Nigeria’s University Age. Cambridge Imperial and Post-Colonial Studies Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-56505-1_3

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