Colonial Chiefs in Chiefless Societies

The proliferating literature on the emergent states of Asia and Africa stresses as its theme their newness and lack of political experience. New nation states have arisen often where none existed before, and their leaders have been confronted with a host of problems which they had not faced previously. Nowhere are such states thought to be more novel and inexperienced than in Africa, where a scant half century ago peoples lived in tribal communities, their economic and political context being demarcated mainly by family and kin groups. Lucy Mair's appropriately titled book, The New Nations , puts the problem pithily: ‘The new African governments are recruited from new men…The relationship of the leader with his followers, of ministers with their colleagues, with bureaucrats, with the general public, are new relationships.’ 1