Introduction
Effective occupation
of British Cameroon by British authority required a form of
governance with which the Cameroonians would comply willingly,
rather than coercively. This imperative led to the
indigenization of the colonial state through the adoption of
the system of indirect rule. The post-colonial state, too,
embraced indirect rule, albeit in a modified form. A corollary
of this process of colonial and post-colonial state
construction has been a redefinition of power relations at
state level. It has also had significant repercussions at the
material level. This paper is a study of indirect rule in the
North-West Province of Cameroon. The present analysis adopts a
multidisciplinary approach focusing on questions of political
economy, which complements E.M. Chilver's analysis of indirect
rule in the same region between 1902 and 1954
(1963).
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