The Fiscal Imperative in the Amalgamation of 1914

Abstract

Many historians that have written about Nigeria have shown a great deal of interest in the factors, which accounted for the amalgamation of 1914 by which Nigeria was established as a single political entity. The various works, which have been published, have treated exhaustively the administrative and political factors.1 This paper emphasizes the financial and economic factors responsible for the union of the Southern and Northern Protectorates. In other words, amalgamation will be seen as an arrangement required for administrative unification, which was only possible by means of financial unification. Although the fiscal imperative is emphasized in this paper, other imperatives were administrative uniformity and centralization, economic unity, political unity and stability.


(Humanities Review Journal: 2002 2(2): 1-12)