of mishaps and failures of government planning and economic development in the postcolonial era. These narratives of unrealized opportunities, failed government, underdevelopment, and corruption abound in the history of postindependence Nigeria, and scholars across disciplines have attempted to provide an appropriate theoretical framework for understanding their causes and long-term effects. Academics have debated the roots of the political and economic instability that has plagued Nigeria since independence, as well as the stark inequalities and misappropriations that only seem to deepen over time. Indeed, these debates are not limited to Nigeria, and many scholars inside and outside the continent struggle to understand the persistent economic and political difficulties faced by postcolonial African states.
Several distinct approaches have taken shape in these debates. There are those who find explanations in institutional weaknesses, many of which are attributed to the legacy of colonialism. Thus, Mahmood Mamdani has argued that the roots of inequality in postcolonial Africa are found in the colonial legacy that institutionalized unequal structures of power that served the needs of only a small elite at the expense of the masses.35 Scholars from the schools of underdevelopment theory and dependency theory also argue that the colonial legacy is largely responsible for instituting a world system that leaves postcolonial states at a perpetual disadvantage in international markets. But while acknowledging the immense obstacles colonialism placed on Africa’s road to development, many are beginning to feel ill at ease with these explanations that do not confront the postcolonial factors shaping Africa’s present. As Timothy Burke summarized the situation, “The problem of postcolonial Africa is treated by the majority of scholars, especially anthropologists and historians, as an extension of or continuation of the problem of the colonial, that the moral and political challenge of postcolonial society is subordinated to or situated within a modernity whose character is largely causally attributed to colonial intervention.”36
As we move further away from the colonial era, there is a growing need for understanding postcolonial realities beyond the impact of the colonial legacy. In recent years, several significant works have argued that the postcolonial instability and weakening of African polities and economies must be understood against the backdrop of the cultural contexts of local societies. Thus, argue Patrick Chabal and Jean-Pascal Daloz, African states will never evolve into exact replicas of the Western state because this transplanted model does not serve the interest of local elites. African elites prefer to maintain a deeply rooted traditional system based on “a reciprocal type of interdependence between leaders, courtiers and the populace. And it is a system that works, however imperfectly, to maintain social bonds between those at the top and bottom of society.”37 The persistence of patron-clientism and moral obligation has been cited by many scholars as a prominent cause of misappropriation and corruption in African political and economic systems. Jean-François Bayart wrote, “A man who manages ‘to make good’ without ensuring that his network shares in his prosperity brings shame upon himself and acquires the reputation of ‘eating’ others in the invisible world.”38 J. P. Olivier de Sardan also cites local cultures as the source of poor governance and corruption in Africa. Included in his survey of widespread social practices that ultimately lead to corruption are practices of negotiation, gift-giving, and the logics of predatory authority and solidarity networks. But unlike Chabal and Daloz, de Sardan rejects the notion that these are precolonial carryovers: “All these logics are syncretic, none is ‘traditional,’ none comes directly from any so-called pre-colonial culture.”39 While hardly an exhaustive survey, these few examples illustrate the types of polarities that exist in the ongoing debates about the “failures” of postcolonial Africa.
This history of the Nigerian National Shipping Line reveals that there are no simple formulas for explaining the unsuccessful economic and political ventures of the postcolonial era. As we will see, the NNSL began as an ideological project. For Nigerian politicians and businessmen, the indigenization of shipping was a powerful symbol of decolonization, representing a reversal of centuries of economic exploitation at the hands of European colonizers. But the success of an international shipping venture required far more investment than just ideological zeal. From its creation, the national line suffered because of inadequate financial support from the very politicians who had reaped political rewards by grandstanding its establishment. Political motives, rather than economic ones, hindered decision-making processes, evident in the hasty buyout of the technical partners, Elder Dempster and the Palm Line, after only two years of operations. This move greatly weakened the already scarce managerial resources of the company, and the NNSL suffered from a lack of expert knowledge essential to running an international shipping line. Political instability further exacerbated this situation, as the revolving door of ministers led to constant hirings and firings of staff, and no one stayed around long enough to ensure solid business practices. The lack of leadership and authority at the NNSL ultimately led to the unchecked pillaging of the company by politicians and their networks of clients who had no interest in the success of the shipping venture. With time, there was a trickle-down effect seen in practices of misappropriation and corruption. All parties involved in the shipping line, from the management to officers and captains, down to the rank-and-file crew, looked for ways to maximize opportunities. By the 1980s, illegality flourished at all levels: seamen engaged in theft and drug trafficking, captains and officers used the ships for their own private enterprises, and management embezzled millions in company resources.
The history of the NNSL demonstrates that a complex array of factors, spanning the colonial and postcolonial eras, led to the demise of the Nigerian National Shipping Line. From the start, material inequalities became a breeding ground for abuses of power, illegality, and misappropriation. Local responses to the instability and scarcity of resources were indeed culturally rooted, but they cannot be understood in isolation from inequality and injustice. In his work on corruption in postcolonial Nigeria, Daniel Smith has argued that the roots of corruption are neither purely institutional nor purely cultural, but rather can be found at “the intersection of local culture and larger systems of inequality.”40 Against the backdrop of political and economic insecurity and inequality, Smith argues, people exploit all available resources, whether they be economic, political, or cultural, in order to survive and thrive.
This history of the Nigerian National Shipping Line provides a unique view into the evolution of a postcolonial enterprise from multiple perspectives. By focusing on the evolution of the NNSL from the perspective of seamen, but also engineers, captains, and management, it aims to reveal how each class fared against the backdrop of broader political, economic, and ideological developments. In maintaining a view of all the actors involved, the study provides insights into the divergent ways in which working classes and elites experienced the opportunities and limitations that characterized the history of postcolonial Nigeria.
ON SOURCES
Histories of enterprises and the workers employed by them are profoundly lacking in the history of Africa, largely because archival evidence either has not been preserved out of disinterest or has been deliberately destroyed. This study overcomes the absence of a well-organized and preserved archive, and demonstrates that it is nonetheless possible to write postcolonial histories of African enterprises and the labor employed by them. While no complete archive of the NNSL has survived, I have located a broad base of primary documents in government, corporate, and personal archives in Nigeria, Liverpool, London, and Amsterdam.
The archives of the Merseyside Maritime Museum in Liverpool and at the British National Archives in Kew Gardens provided vital documentation on British shipping interests in the colonial era. The archives of Elder Dempster in particular, located at the Merseyside Maritime Museum, provided rich information about the shipping company’s involvement in Nigeria, as well as information about recruitment and employment of seamen, and relations between the company and the Nigerian Union of Seamen. Colonial policies toward “coloured” seamen in general, and Nigerians in particular, could be found at the National Archives. The archives in Liverpool and London also included vital information on the process of decolonization, and on the negotiations behind the founding of the Nigerian National Shipping Line in partnership with Elder Dempster and the Palm Line. For the 1960s–1980s,
