SOAS Research Online

Abstract

The subject of the thesis is the attempt to control communist influence by the British within the wider history of decolonization and the transfer of power in West Africa. It concerns the evolution and implementation of anti-communist policies in the colonies with special reference to Nigeria. It analyses British policy in Nigeria within the context of the Cold War and the efforts of the Western powers to secure the good-will of Nigerian leaders after independence. It suggests that the success of the various anti-communist measures marked the beginning of the special relationship between Britain and the emergent Nigerian elite which took the country into independence in 1960. The study reviews the role of the Nigerian Left in the light of new evidence and concludes that communism was of considerable significance during the terminal colonial history of Nigeria. It shows that decolonisation and the transfer of power consisted of more than constitution-making, economic and development planning, the Nigerianisation of the civil service and the institutionalisation of a parliamentary system and federalism. The study is an analysis of the transition from colonialism to independence which emphasises the involvement of the out-going colonial power in the development of Nigerian domestic politics in the 1950s.