The Nigeria-Biafra war, oil and the political economy of state induced development strategy in Eastern Nigeria, 1967-1995

Abstract

In recent years, the low agricultural productivity, food insecurity and environmental degradation have become more apparent in many African societies. These trends have threatened the farmers' ability to increase productivity and to practice sustainable agriculture. The crisis in agricultural productivity is structural as it is demonstrated by the impact of the Nigeria-Biafra War and the emergence of the petroleum industry in the 1970s. This paper reveals that the agricultural crisis in many parts of sub-Saharan Africa has been misunderstood because the analysis often ignores how the ideology of state development interacted with local ecological conditions and peasants' actions to structure the changes in peasant economies. In the case of Eastern Nigeria, the Nigeria-Biafra War (1967–1970) and the emergence of the petroleum industry as the most important contributor to national GDP challenged the economic ideology that sought to use agriculture as a driver of economic development. African agriculture has witnessed significant decline in recent years. In the 1960s, Africa was a self-sufficient in food as well as a net food exporter. The exports averaged 1.3 million tons a year up to 1970. In recent years, however, the continent imports over 25 per cent of food stuff. It has been revealed that Nigeria is the largest importer of rice in the world (2013). Hunger and famine have become recurrent problems especially in the Horn of Africa, the Sahel, Southern Africa, and Central Africa (Bello 2008). From 1985, for example, an estimated Korieh / The Nigeria-Biafra War, Oil and the Political Economy 77 10 million Africans left their homes and fields because they were unable to support themselves. An additional 20 million were reported to be at risk of debilitating hunger (Timberlake 1985). Numerous World Bank reports since the 1980s have indicated an overall pattern of severe economic deterioration and stagnation manifested in food security problems and low levels of growth in the agricultural sub-sector (World Bank 1981, 1984, 1989). This article examines the nature of agricultural development policy and the impact of structural changes such as the Nigeria-Biafra War and the development of the petroleum industry in Eastern Nigeria in the post-independence era, from 1960 to 1995. Essentially, analyzing this period enables us to examine continuity as well as change in the agricultural economy under the indigenous political authority. I suggest that despite the modernization policies pursued by the state, structural changes resulting from the Nigeria-Biafra Civil War from 1967 to 1970, the expansion of the petroleum industry in the post-civil war period and related environmental and demographic factors were important in rural transformation and the agricultural involution in Eastern Nigeria. Local historical studies, including this one, are particularly useful being corrective to national aggregates since the local specificity can, as Mary Tiffin wrote, ‘bring to light a pattern of failure (or success) which indicates intractable problems or the need for specific efforts to overcome them’ (Tiffen 1976). The state intervention in agriculture in Eastern Nigeria can be traced to the colonial period and the encouragement of export production. The production of palm oil and kernels for the export market opened completely new vistas to the government as well as rural producers. The expansion of export production during the colonial period was achieved by a combination of political and economic control. These measures led to new forms of production relations, land use, adaptation of new agricultural technologies, and restructuring of the economy. The indigenization of agricultural policy in Nigeria started in 1954, when the country still remained under British rule. The Constitution of 1954 ceded aspects of economic planning, particularly agricultural policy, to the regional governments. The nature of the local political economy in this period made it necessary for the regions to depend largely on agriculture as the major source of state revenue and private income. For both the national and regional governments, agriculture still loomed large, contributing about 60 per cent of national income and subsistence for over 70 per cent of the population. In the Social Evolution & History / March 2018 78 Eastern Region, in particular, agriculture was considered as the most important route to economic development and increased welfare for the people (Eastern Nigeria: Official Document 1962: 3–8). The government's involvement in and funding of agricultural projects was based on the assumption that government could increase both the quantity and quality produced. Like the colonial authorities, the regional authorities challenged the ability of local peasants to assimilate agricultural development. Towards the end of the colonial period, the government faced the problem of how to fund its development programmes and the general social welfare of the people. In Eastern Nigeria, the need to generate more revenue for development purposes led the regional government to intensify agricultural production. When Nigeria obtained political independence in 1960, the Eastern Region continued to encourage the expansion of export production. Largely, the post-colonial government continued with colonial agricultural policies, but political independence made a big difference. It offered new possibilities of incorporating indigenous ideas and new policies. That shift in the nature of agricultural policies and their impact on peasants became clearer with the introduction of large-scale state plantations and farm settlements starting from 1960. The nature of governmental agricultural policies and intervention in rural economy contributed to the expansion of the productive capacity of rural farmers. However, at the same time, the top-down approach of the government's development agenda generated a crisis in the rural economy. Historians of agrarian change in Africa generally view the 1960s as the years when state intervention in peasant agriculture became more prominent and generated the agricultural crisis that matured in the 1980s (Ayittey 1998; Berry 1993: 77). Roland Oliver argued that ‘perhaps the greatest misfortune of the modern African nations was that their approach to independence coincided with a period when it was generally believed that the way to a better future lay through more and longer-term state planning, with its implementation led by a large and ever-expanding public sector’ (Oliver 1999). The validity of this claim requires a case-by-case assessment of the economic policies adopted during the post-independence period. Why, for instance, did the regional government in Eastern Nigeria establish large-scale plantations? What ideological and economic debates shaped the state agricultural policy in the region during what can be aptly termed the plantation era? An approach that takes into account the nature of state policy in this period provides important insights into the nature and dyKorieh / The Nigeria-Biafra War, Oil and the Political Economy 79 namics of agricultural change and farmers responses. Although state policy was an important factor of agricultural transformation, the population of the region, the ecology and peasant initiatives were all fundamental to the nature of agricultural change in the post-independence period. The emergence of Eastern Nigeria as an internally self-governing region brought with it a consolidation of the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries, Forestry and Veterinary Services and Produce Inspection into a Ministry of Agriculture (MOA). The establishment of the MOA heralded the formulation of an elaborate agricultural policy with the objective of maximizing productivity through a wise utilization of the natural assets of the region. The government was of the view that it had a significant role to play in mapping the course of future development and utilization of resources. In formulating the Eastern Nigeria Development Plan for the years 1962–1968, the government emphasized what it described as the ‘predominantly primitive state of agricultural production’, and ‘peasant resistance to sudden change.’ During this period, the stimulation of production of export crops by local farmers on their own land was challenged since they faced more direct demands on their land and labour. Like its colonial predecessor, the successor government continued the policy of investing in the export sub-sector of agricultural sector in an attempt to generate the income needed for economic and industrial development. Although rural farmers expanded production to meet their cash needs, the continued expansion of agriculture depended upon new systems of production and more direct state participation. The government's new agricultural strategy is reflected in the allocation of a significant part of the development budget to agriculture. After independence, the reform-minded Premier of the Eastern Region, M. I. Okpara, launched one of the most ambitions agricultural programmes in Nigeria. Sometimes referred to as the ‘Okpara Revolution’, the Premier's vision was an agricultural revolution that would consist of large-scale state plantations in addition to peasant production. In the immediate postcolonial period Nigeria witnessed a rapid expansion of state initiated agricultural projects. The new elite continued with many colonial policies but broke with an important one – the rejection of the plantation system. Between 1960 and 1966, the oil palm production remained relatively large. The revenues received by the farmers were high enough to warrant investment in trading and transportation. The penetration of roads and lorries into remote villages promoted the expansion of trade Social Evolution & History / March 2018 80 as well as encouraged urban migration. The importance of yams, cassava and other farm products as sources of cash, al