Chiefs and Politics
| Author | A. J. Loveridge |
| Date | 01 October 1959 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1002/j.1099-162X.1959.tb00144.x |
| Published date | 01 October 1959 |
Chiefs
and
Politics
by A. J.
LOVERIDGE,
C.M.G.,
O.B.E.
DISCUSSION
of the
part
that
chiefs have to play in the future of African territories
is perennial. At one time
the
question could
not
be considered
apart
from the
policy of indirect rule, which, however, was by no means universally accepted,
even in those countries where it was most assiduously practised; Africans them-
selves have probably been the foremost of those opposing the tenets
of
indirect
rule.
The
present concern
about
the
part
that
chiefs have to
play
is
prompted
by the changing political conditions which increasingly
and
inevitably become
manifest even in the most unsophisticated areas.
Here
again Africans
are
taking
aprominent
part
in
the
debate
and
few there
are
who urge
the
dissolution of
the institution of chieftaincy.
Dr. Nkrumah, before
Ghana
became independent, invariably referred to
the 'chiefs
and
people' when in other lands one in his position
might
be
expected to refer to the 'electorate' and, without brooking opposition from
individual chiefs, he never attacked the institution itself. When the ties with
Westminster were cut, Dr.
Nkrumah
was ready to repeat
that
"the
chiefs
of
Ghana
should be regarded as the fathers of their people
and
the fathers
of
the government
...
which is anxious to
maintain
their dignity
and
prestige!"
It
was necessary to take positive steps to maintain
the
chiefs' dignity
and
prestige
which the
march
of events was diminishing.
Few discussions lead to such amorphous if
not
positively distorted conclusions
as those
about
chiefs.
The
issue is complicated by introducing the merits
and
demerits of indirect rule
and
the comparative efficiency or failure of 'native
administration',
and
obscured by questions whether governments support or
fail to support the chiefs. Personal idiosyncracies vitiate
judgement;
the
mass
of
data
and
experience in Africa so clouds the foreground
that
the distant view
cannot
be discerned.
There
is a very good case for approaching
the
subject
afresh from the point of view of the political scientist or the historian of recent
events.
We
are
not
concerned (in
the
present context) with
the
survival
of
native
administration or of 'indirect rule'; they
are
matters of administrative
machinery.
"The
maintenance of customary native authority is not
an
end
in
itself; its justification lies in
the
extent to which it
can
be utilized as
an
instru-
ment
for promoting
the
general welfare.
"1
We
are
concerned with the chances
of
survival of chiefs perse.
If
they fail to survive,
the
opportunity to use
them
as
"instruments for promoting the general welfare" does
not
arise.
That
is the
difficulty facing Dr.
Nkrumah
in
Ghana,
for he seeks to use them for
the
general
welfare
and
therefore wishes to
maintain
them,
and
the question is
the
extent
to which they have to be curbed or
can
be used.
What
happens in
an
un-
inhibited
Ghana
will be a valuable lesson on
the
likely course
of
events in similar
circumstances;
but
the present task is to forecast likely trends not only in those
but
in other circumstances.
It must
not
be supposed
that
this is purely
an
African problem, still less a
series of separate local African problems.
It
is
true
that
it is in Africa
that
the
problem is of daily administrative concern,
but
this is
not
to say
that
world-wide
1Hailey;
African
Survey;
first edition, p,
412.
201
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