The transformation of rural labour systems in colonial and post‐colonial Northern Nigeria

Abstract

The study attempts to highlight the interrelation between three central points in the ongoing debate on the political economy of development: viability, surplus, and class‐formation. A case study of the development of rural labour systems in Northern Nigeria is meant to provide both a better qualitative and quantitative idea of this interrelation. After an analysis of the socio‐economic effects of forced and bonded labour during colonial times, the articulation of different systems of family and non‐family labour has been investigated. Class‐specific effects of labour and capital input do even result in an increasing use of communal labour by rich and middle peasants after the Nigerian Civil War: its form remains, but its content changes fundamentally. The socio‐economic and material base for small‐scale peasant subsistence production has been gradually destroyed.