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Tuesday
African Currency
African History
In pre-colonial times African currency included shells, ingots, arrowheads, iron, human beings, salt, cattle, goats, blankets, axes, beads, and many others. In the early 1800s a slave could be bought in West Africa with manilla currency; multiples of C-shaped rings of bronze or other metal that could be strung on a staff. Slaves could also be bought for salt or for any number of exchangeable items with a 'store of value'. Dowry or bride price or Lobolo items were usually of diverse nature: cows, blankets, clay pots, and so on. Coins were used in Northern and Eastern Africa from Egyptian times onwards due to ongoing trade contact with Europe and Asia.
During Colonial times (roughly from 1680 to 1990) the respective colonial powers introduced their own currencies to their colonies or produced local versions of their currencies. Examples include the Somali shilling; the Italian East African lira; and the African franc (in Francophone countries). Many post-colonial governments have retained the name and notional value unit system of their prior colonial era currency. For example the British West African pound was replaced by the Nigerian pound which is still divided into shillings.
A different trend is seen when the predominant foreign power relationship changes, causing a change in the currency: the East African rupee (from long-term trade with Arabia and India) was replaced by the East African shilling after the British become the predominant power in the region. Other countries threw off the dominant currency of a neighbour; the Botswana pula replaced the South African rand in Botswana in 1976. Some countries have not changed their currency despite being post-colonial, for example Uganda retains the Ugandan shilling.
Many African countries change their currency's appearance when a new government takes power (often the new head of state will appear on bank notes), though the notional value remains the same. Also, in many African currencies there is such rampant inflation that re-valuing must take place every so often (viz. the Zimbabwe dollar). There is a thriving street trade by unlicensed street traders in US dollars or other stable non-African currency, which are seen as a hedge against local inflation. The exchange rate is grossly more favorable to the seller of the foreign currency than is the official bank rate, and is usually labelled a crime.
In many rural areas there is still a strong bartering culture, the exchanged items being of more immediate value than official currency (you can eat a chicken but not a coin). Even where currency is used, haggling over prices is very common. This is in contrast with the pre-independence Rhodesian dollar which was always a strong currency linked to the British pound.
There is a planned West African Monetary Zone among Anglophone African countries planned for implementation in 2009. Similarly in East Africa, the member countries of the East African Community plan to introduce a single currency, the East African Shilling in 2012.
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Among the peoples of
Another widely used common currency was woven goods. Two types are a part of this exhibition—the cotton woven strip roll and the raffia mat or bundles. Strip cloth known among Nigerians as gabanga was often plain and undyed. As a rule, the strips had a standard width between four and six inches. Variations in width and the quality of the weave gave the parties of the transaction a means to negotiate value. Cloth was also frequently used in connection with other currencies, such as brass rods, lending additional flexibility to the negotiations. As there was no government regulation of cloth production, its circulation was limited by the cost and effort of production (the need to spin fibers into threads and then weave the fabric) and by demand. Cloths or mats of more-or-less uniform size were used for gifts, peace offerings, payment from a son to his father upon attaining adulthood and payment upon the birth of a child or the burial of a parent. Cloth currency was also used as a tribute for a spouse who remained chaste or, by contrast, as a penalty for adultery.
Thursday
Brief Summary of the History of Nigeria as a country in 'General'
Nigeria officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a federal constitutional republic comprising thirty-six states and one Federal Capital Territory. The country is located in West Africa and shares land borders with the Republic of Benin in the west, Chad and Cameroon in the east, and Niger in the north. Its coast lies on the Gulf of Guinea, a part of the Atlantic Ocean, in the south. The capital city is Abuja. The three largest and most influential ethnic groups in Nigeria are the Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba.THE NORTHERN EMPIRE was composed of the Borno empire, some Hausa states (Zazzau, Gobir, Kano, Katsina, Birori, Daura) and some other groups (Gwari, Kebbi, Nupe, Yelwa...)
THE CALABAR KINGDOM is the oldest kingdom, and had the oldest contact with the Europeans. It is believed to have been founded around 1000 A.D., and has the oldest chuch built in Nigeria dating back to 1850. The belief is that this kingdom was founded by twins, and it stretched into parts of current-day Cameroon.
THE ODUDUWA EMPIRE consisted of two main groups. One of them was the indigenous people, whose central religious and cultural center was Ile-Ife, who now make up the Yoruba people. The other group were the Berbels, who eventually formed the Hausa states and the Borno states. (This empire has a lot of interesting stories and legends attached to it. For instance, Oduduwa is considered the creator of the earth, and the ancestor of the Yoruba kings. According to myth, Oduduwa founded the city of Ife and dispatched his sons to establish other cities, where they reigned as priest-kings and presided over cult rituals.)
THE BENIN EMPIRE was also powerful, and stretched to reach some of current-day Ghana. It was very well known for it's African sculpturing.
In the 1800s, the British started to reside in parts of these kingdoms and empires. In 1914, Nigeria was formed by combining the Northern and Southern Protectorates and the Colony of Lagos. For administrative purposes, was divided into four units:
the colony of Lagos
the Northern Provinces
the Eastern Provinces
the Western Provinces
Some parts of current-day Cameroon were still considered part of Nigeria at that time. Between 1914 and 1922, Nigeria was presided over by a Governor-General. In 1922, as part of the constitution of the time, the British introduced the principle of direct election into the Legislative council.
In 1951, a new constitution elevated the provinces to regional status. The National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC) had control of the Eastern Region government, the Northern Peoples Congress (NPC) had control of the Northern Region, and the Action Group (AG) had control of the Western Region. By 1957, the Eastern and Western Regions attained self-governing status. In 1959, the Northern Region attained self-governing status.
Nigeria declares independence from Britain in October. Three years later, it becomes a republic. On October 1 1960, Nigeria obtained it's independence. At this time, Northern and Southern Cameroon were given the option of staying as part of Nigeria or leaving Nigeria. Southern Cameroon decided to leave Nigeria, but Northern Cameroon stayed. Also, on October 7, 1960, Nigeria was admitted to the United Nations as the 99th member. One of the earliest and most signification contributions to the UN was to furnish troops for the peacekeeping opearting in Zaire in the the early 1960s. Later on, the main thrust of Nigeria's activism on the world stage was to eradicate apartheid and racism from Africa.
In 1960, a Federal Government based on the Parliamentary system was created. More information about the government's history can be found in the Government section of this site. Only the parts that aid with the explanation of the history will be covered in this section. In 1963, Nigeria became a republic.
By 1964, the Nigerian army units had formed the backbone of the UN force. In January of 1966, a group of army officers, consisting mostly of the Ibo peoples, and led by General Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi, overthrew the central and regional governments, killed the prime minister, took control of the government, and got rid of the federal system of government to replace it with a central government with many Ibos as advisors. This caused a lot of riots and a lot of Ibos were killed in the process. In July of the same year, a group of northern army officers revolted against the government (it seems this started a long history of military coups), killed General Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi, and appointed the army chief of staff, General Yakubu Gowon as the head of the new military government.
In 1967, Gowon moved to split the existing 4 regions of Nigeria into 12 states. However, the military governor of the Eastern Region (Colonel Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu) refused to accept the division of the Eastern Region, and declared the Eastern Region an independent republic called Biafra. This led to a civil war between Biafra and the remainder of Nigeria. The war started in June 1967, and continued until Biafra surrendered on January 15, 1970 after over 1 million people had died. During the early 1970s a lot of time was spend reconstructing the areas that were formerly part of Biafra. Around this time, the petroleum industry was booming, and the economy was recovering from the effects of the civil war, though there were still problems with inflation, high unemployment, decline in the price of peanuts and cocoa, and a drought.
In 1971, Nigeria joined the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). However, the prolonged drought in 1973 led to the death of thousands of livestock, the suffering of farms, and the fishing industry. This, in combination with the oil boom, made a lot of people move into away from the farms, and more towards the cities. Though the oil boom in the early 1970s brought a lot of revenue to Nigeria, this seemed to stay mostly in government.
In 1976, Nigeria was further broken down into 19 states, and plans to move the capital to Abuja were in the works. In 1987, 2 more states were created. In 1991, 9 more states were created, leading to 30 states at the time (please note that new states were taken as parts of existing states, so the total size of Nigeria remained the same). Also in 1991, Abuja was formed as a new (more central) section of the country, and the capital of Nigeria was officially moved from Lagos to Abuja. Abuja took portions of then Niger, Kogi, and Plateau states to form the territory. (Recently, 6 more states were added, leading to a total of 36 states. A map showing all the states. Though Biafra was the most deadly and violent of the wars in Nigeria, there have continued to be disputes in Nigeria due to land, ethnic differences, religious differences. For example, in 1992 there were major clashes in the north between Christians and Muslims, and over 3000 people were killed in the clashes. Also, there was a possibility of Nigeria going to war with Cameroon in 1993. Even today, I keep reading about clashes in Oshun state over land, and it is killing dozens of people with each new headline, including women and children. Part of where oil was rich in Nigeria were the Ogoni lands. In 1993, 300,000 Ogoni marched peacefully to demand a share in oil revenues and some form of political autonomy. They had formed an organization called MOSOP (Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People), and they also asked the oil companies to begin environmental remediation and pay compensation for past damage. They were a minority and felt that they were not being given their human rights, and they were being tortured just so the country could make money off the oil that was on their land.
This started a lot of opposition from the government, and the leader, Ken Saro-Wiwa was imprisoned on several occasions. In November of 1993, Abacha took over the government, and this is when the real trouble started for the Ogonis. The military started terrorizing Ogoniland with arrests, rapes, executions, burnings and lootings. It is believed that the Shell oil company was working with the government, and that is part of the reason there were many protests worldwide to boycott them. In May 1994 Saro-Wiwa was abducted from his home and jailed along with other MOSOP leaders and charged with the murder of four Ogoni leaders. By this time, the world was involved in the issue, and dismissed these charges as fraudulent. While Ken was in detention, he was denied legal or medical help (which if you do a lot of reading, is unfortunately common in Nigerian prisons), and he had 4 heart attacks while in jail. On October 31, 1995, the military government tried him and the other 8 people, and found them guilty of the murder of the 4 Ogoni people. The sentence immediately drew an international outcry by concerned persons and organizations, including Earthlife Africa, Amnesty International, Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, the United Nations, and others. They urged the government to spare the lives of the environmentalists, and they called on Shell to intervene, but on November 10, 1995, Saro-Wiwa and the others were executed anyway. Their execution resulted in more international outcry, a lot of which you can read more about on the web, and Nigeria was almost immediately suspended from the Commonwealth.
The names of those executed were
Ken Saro-Wiwa
Saturday Dobee
Barinem Kiobel
Paul Levura
Nordu Eawo
Felix Nuate
Daniel Gbokoo
John Kpuinen
Baribor Bera
Nigeria was suspended from the Commonwealth almost immediately, and sanctions were placed against the country, including oil sanctions, which accounted for over 90% of the nation's exports. Also, Shell had to halt it's operations in Ogoni territory. Maybe because of the economy or because of the image, but then Abacha aided Sierra Leone and Liberia against their military, and set up a plan for Nigeria's transition to democratic rule. However, when the time came for Nigeria's transition, he was the only candidate running for the elections which were to take place in August of 1998, with a 'return to democracy' set for October 1, 1998. However, in June of 1998, he died of a heart attack (or maybe it was the prostitutes), and Abubakar took his place as the interim president. By that time, there was not much chance of making the previously-promised date of October 1, 1998 for a democratically elected president (and the only candidate was dead), so Abubakar set out a new plan of transition to democracy which is supposed to return the country to democracy by May 29,
July 20: In a major television address, Maj. Gen. Abubakar promises that free elections will be held in early 1999 and a civilian sworn in as president of Nigeria Nigeria
In the meantime, oil troubles continue to plague Nigeria. Environmental activists are still speaking up and protesting against oil companies in parts of Nigeria because it is ruining their environment. These protests and attacks have led to oil production losses of over 400000 a day in September and October of 1998. Even though Nigeria is a leading producer of oil and petroleum, the masses have had a hard time getting them, and some of them take desperate measures to obtain the petroleum. In October of 1998, some people tried to obtain oil from a burst pipeline, which erupted, and killed hundreds of people, not just the ones that had sabotaged the pipeline, but also men, women and children that were trying to get some of the oil in their containers, and nearby inhabitants that were asleep in their homes.
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