From the foregoing, it is clear that introduction of indirect rule entailed the 'invention of tradition' and thereby led to the production of a new social topography. Convinced that chiefs could play a crucial role in the achievement of the colonial project, the British tried to portray them as 'natural leaders of communal societies untroubled by a plurality of political ideologies, for whom consensus was an inherited state of mind rather than an ideological weapon of social conflict' (Lonsdale 1989: 132). The new consensus was precarious as it depended on the ability of the ruler to satisfy demands that emanated from his society.

The system of indirect rule was inherited by the post-colonial state. However, the determination of the state to achieve its 'hegemonic project' prompted a modification of the relations that existed between the state and traditional authority. Evidence of this was the endeavour to convert the latter into a parasite of the state. This was a cost-efficient method of imposing the domination of the state over civil society. Preoccupied with this goal, the governing class mistook indirect rule through traditional authority as practised by the British as an indication of decision-making motivated solely by the will of one political leader. The subjects of the various chiefs seemingly acquiesced in this form of rule in the single-party state. However, the advent of multi-party politics and the quest for 'Jacobin democracy' has ushered in an era of dissent. The politicization of the role of the chief by the state has led to a breakdown of the consensus on the structured principle on which traditional authority was predicated. In most societies, the continuous identification of the chief with the state is having an analogous effect, the divestment of his power. And the emergence of 'moral pluralism', that signals an end to the unchallenged hegemony of communal ideologies in these societies, is aiding and abetting this process. Insofar as it satisfies consumer preferences and adheres to the principle of supply and demand, it would not be questioned.

On the whole, the colonial state ostensibly sought to justify indirect rule as an efficient way of creating a Weberian state on a legal-rational basis. But indirect rule in the post-colonial state has contributed to the generation of the neo-patrimonial state that is the antithesis of the Weberian state. The chiefs have been used as instruments to this end. Perhaps the current decline in the status and authority of most chiefs in the North-West Province would be arrested, if not reversed, with the advent of a liberal-democratic state in Cameroon.