HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES

It is commonly considered that the history of human civilization is really the history of urban life. Archaeological records indicate the cradle of urban development was located in the lower Middle Eastthe "Fertile Crescent". Its beginnings have been dated between 9,000 B.C. and 6,000 B.C. in the Neolithic Age. Whether or not it was from the Middle East alone that this important "revolution" spread to other parts of the world, or whether there were other independent centers of urban growth, is still a matter of controversy among historians and anthropologists. However, somewhat later in time very important centers of urban civilization appeared in Northern China, in the Indus Valley of Northern India and in the lower Nile Valley.

What was the thrust behind the slow development of these communities in which a large number of people lived in units much larger than a village of scattered homesteads? Is it appropriate to refer to these communities as towns? Were they perhaps no more than large-scale peasant settlements? After all, when does a village become a town? The last two questions in particular have relevance to the history of urban life in Africa.

Though the archaeological record still is not complete, urban development has its roots in inventions and discoveries of very great magnitude and in changes from food-gathering and hunting to food-producing, from being preyed upon by animals to their domestication, and from an uncertain existence based upon a subsistence economy to the production of food surpluses. In short, urban development was rooted in the agricultural revolution which, in turn, gave rise eventually to yet another transformation of perhaps even greater significance, namely, industrial society.

It might be desirable to supply some conceptual shorthand in order to identify and label the main characteristics of this great transformation because some scholars have suggested that the basis of urban life in Africa historically is so very recent that we still are able to detect some of these early characteristics in many of the new towns in Africa. Whether this is a really creative approach to understanding African urbanization is a matter to be discussed in the next section.

The change from a subsistence economy to one which rests progressively on the ability to create a surplus of food can also be described as a change from a nomadic-based society to a village-based society. For the sake of shorthand we can say that this is a change from hunters and food-gatherers to peasantry, from a high degree of mobility to settled village life. To identify a form of human settlement as a village is to suggest an important intermediate step in the movement from band societies to urban life. As the size of these settlements grew so did the sometimes positive, but more often negative, competition between them.

While we should keep our conceptual options open and accept the premise that industrial urban life has its historical roots, the view that we shall develop in this chapter is that the link between tradition and modernity has been all but severed in African urban life. It will also be argued that, unlike the experience of the Western countries of Europe and North America, in colonial Africa the process of urbanization was in no way associated with the process of industrialization. In fact, the towns were the sumps into which the needed cheap labor was flowing. In an attempt to reverse this trend, for instance, the post-independence policymakers in Nigeria aimed at industrialization without urbanization and achieved urbanization without industrialization. Consequently, the rapid urban growth in the post-independence period had a 'dysfunctional' effect as it failed to take into account the specific conditions, traditional values, and the human and material resources of the people.

It is important to recognize that tradition, be it in the realm of material and non-material culture, must be nurtured and reinforced by a total complex, that is, by habits, ideas and behavior, and by social, economic and political institutions which reject any alternatives to tradition. Because this is not the case in Africa today, despite the subsistence economy which still prevails over most of the continent, it might be necessary to apply to the study of urban life in Africa a rather different set of premises. Failure to do this would gravely distort any reading of the historical development of towns in Africa, their contemporary structure and the problems they face.

We are not suggesting an irrevocable rejection of any link between the past and the present, or that some "traditional" ideas and practices of the more recent past do not play some part in the present. No observer could fail to be impressed by the startling differences between the medieval Islamic cities of Timbuktu and the city of Lagos (Nigeria) which was established about a century ago. Rather we might work with the premise that when and where we are able to detect traditional practices and ideas, it is because these are appropriate, or seem appropriate to some category of the urban population in some situations and on some occasions. But even then it must be recognized that if we make an effort to see these traditional practices in the total context in which they take place, we will find that this alleged tradition has been substantially transformed. If this be so, are we still talking about tradition?

Thus, we should not confuse tradition with history. Ancient city walls, an old mosque, a local shrine, the use of a hoe rather than a tractor, the use of a gourd rather than a glass or basin, the use of a "native" doctor (herbalist) rather than a modern medical practitioner, a house built of sun-dried mud rather than bricks or cement blocks, the use of spears rather than rifles, the importance of kinship rather than an emphasis on individuality, work on the land rather than in an office or a factory--all this and much more is no indication that custom is king and that modernity has not reached the furthest corners of a society.

Traditions are long established conventions as these determine or influence the behavior and shape the ideas of a people. Tradition is a point of reference, a measure and guide. A truly traditional society is impregnable; its members will fight to keep it traditional. The non-conformist or the heretic is put to death, expelled or shunned. When custom really is king, tradition will not compromise with alien influences and pressures. Any external pressures against its boundaries agitate traditional society.

Of course, these are generalizations and abstractions, but they also serve to highlight the implications of the use of the concept "tradition". In modern Africa, and in particular in urban Africa, we cannot get very far if we apply this concept too frequently. Social scientists, particularly anthropologists who are beginning to take an interest in urban studies in Africa, tend to concentrate their attention on what they consider to be traditional because they have been reared on the rural tradition of the tribe. But if the anthropologist were to give greater thought to what is really implied when he talks about tradition he would conclude that the institutional fabric of the African society was radically transformed when the continent fell under the impact and control of colonial domination.

We have said that tradition, culture and history are not the same. Traditions are conventions which change, while culture is the constant presence of the ideational, institutional and material roots of a society as a living people, sharing a recognition, and perhaps, a pride in their past. It is this past which is important to some people rather than, as we have been told over the years, the conventions or the traditional practices of a people. Whereas history, as a view of past events and ideas, is not compelled to adjust itself to the present conventions and concerns with behaviors: everyday behavior, everyday demands, hopes, failures and successes.

We have thus far offered some thoughts to guide our approach to the study of the urban phenomenon in Africa, whence it started, what it is, and how to conceptualize it. We must now take a closer look at the main features of urbanization and urbanism (traditional and modern) as a process of social change and a way of life in Africa.

PRE-COLONIAL URBAN CENTERS:

TRADITIONAL AFRICAN CITIES

Judging from the paucity of materials on traditional urban centers in Africa very little about the history of urbanization in Africa south of the Sahara is known. The main reason for this is that much archeological work remains to be done, particularly in "Middle Africa," the vast region south of the Sahara and north of the Limpopo. Thus far archaeologists have concentrated on the history of the Nile Valley and the important trading centers on the north coast of Africa, the "City States" on the East African coast, and the Zimbabwe complex in what was Southern Rhodesia.

Although Africa is the least urbanized of the continents and its urban history is less well documented than that of Asia, Europe, and America North and South, it has the fastest rate of urban growth in the world. It is therefore no exaggeration to say that the "rise of the cities" is probably one of the most significant events behind the great transformation of contemporary Africa. Yet, despite this, it is important for us to recognize that today only a very small proportion of the population of Africa lives in cities.

While Africa remains the least urbanized of the continents, its urban history is not insignificant. Evidence for this can be taken from those areas which predate European colonization. These are the Nile Valley, the Savannah and forest regions of West Africa, and Southern Africa. The first urban centers in Africa emerged probably around 3500 B.C. in the floodplains of the lower Nile. They resulted from the efforts by the Pharaohs to exert their influence and centralize their administration over the population of the Nile Valley. Their attempts were successful and for 3000 years their control and hegemony prevailed. These political efforts created such towns as Memphis, Thebes and Th-el-Amarna--all of which grew and declined as the capital cities of successive dynasties. The lower Nile towns were complex structures containing a fairly wide range of people such as priests, traders, craftsmen, shopkeepers, administrators and members of the dynastic elite.

Similar centers were to be established in 1200 B.C. on a smaller scale as trading posts on the North African coast. The fathers of this urban development were the Phoenician and Carthaginian traders who dominated life in these centers for nearly 100 years. There is no need to dwell on the internal structure of these centers.

Suffice it to say that they were complex social, political, and economic systems with a considerable division of labor and a distinct "urban culture," inasmuch as virtually all the residents were engaged in non-agricultural activities. The most important aspect of their function, as far as West Africa is concerned, was the fact that these coastal towns had close and vital ties with the inland centers which connected the North African coast with the areas to the south of the Sahara.

In the Western and Southern Sahara, and in the savannah belt, there emerged some important and large kingdom states, whose leaders centralized political and economic power in central capitals and regional towns. In the Western Sudan region, the cities were not merely important trade and communication centers which bridged the Islamic North and the rest of the southern regions. Such important towns as Timbuktu on the banks of the River Niger as it penetrated deeply into the heartland of the Southern Sahara were also centers of a flourishing intellectual life centered around a university. Further south were towns whose importance is still great today as they have become major centers in the new nationstates of Africa. These are the towns and capital cities of Kano, Zaria, Katsina (Nigeria), Bomako, Djenne, Segou and Ouagadougou. Thus far, the bestdocumented instance of the rise of a West African kingdom is probably that of Yoruba on the West Coast of Nigeria and portions of Benin Republic.

The Yoruba, linked loosely by language and a certain homogeneity of customs, were really a set of independent kingdoms each of which attempted to exert influence and power over their neighbors.¹ The old Yoruba towns: Oyo, Ile-Ife (regarded as the cultural mainspring of Yoruba Society), Oshogbo, Owo and Ogbomosho, trace their origins to having been important centers of political power at one time or another. Many of these pre-colonial towns still exist and are now part of regional and national units, linked by means of modern communication, trade and political unions.²

The first semblances of Western-style urban towns and cities emerged in Africa with the Berlin Balkanization Conference (1885) and the establishment of colonial empires immediately thereafter. The traditional urban settlements inland, and/or the ivory and slave trade coastal towns, became the natural points of contact and concentration for Western type urbanization in colonial Africa.

To establish effective socio-economic and political control over the Balkanized territories, the first duty of the colonial powers was to open up the hinterlands by establishing easy and permanent river, road and railway networks. In Nigeria, the Lagos-Kano, Port Harcourt-Kano railroads were constructed. The East and Central African regions experienced similar developments: the Mombasa-Nairobi-Kampala, and the Tanga-Arusha-Moshi railways, for example, were constructed. The central purpose for this adventurism in Africa was the need to open up new sources of raw materials and to promote international trade. Along such systems of transport and communication, as in the case of Nigeria, there emerged such major urban centers as Lagos, Port Harcourt, Calabar--all were established along, or at the entrance and/or exit of, a major communication route. Among other factors that promoted the establishment of these centers was the unbalanced distribution of natural resources which had dictated the pattern of indigenous human settlements. This also influenced the colonial pattern of settlement and general development.

The new urban centers had a number of outstanding functions which, although conventional, differed in their order of priority from the pre-colonial towns. Effectively to promote commercial activities in the colonies, administrative functions were added to ensure law and order and to establish a conducive social climate. These centers also served as "cultural enclaves" where a Western life-style could be promoted, ostensibly to maintain the cultural and environmental climate to which the colonialists had been used at home. Johnston (1977) describes it as an organizing nexus where a concentration of merchants, soldiers, bureaucrats, and others could administer the colony for the homeland.³

Other functions of these cities, including education, health, entertainment and information were incidental. These services were targeted to serve the foreigners, that is, the non-indigenous settlers. In most cases the natives could not officially participate in these services, nor were they involved in their development. In short, since the culture and pattern of life of the natives were not taken into consideration in developing the cities, and given the fact that what remained of the traditional towns was completely marginalized, the new cities lacked any native taste. There was, therefore, a clear and deliberate demarcation between the new centers and the so-called "native reserves."

These two categories of human settlements could not mutually coexist except in one fundamental sense: often, where for pragmatic reasons they were allowed to coexist, they exhibit a dual internal structure--a kind of "two cities in one"--consisting of an indigenous, "tradition-oriented" sector and a modern (Westernized) sector.⁴ A structural duality results from the mixture of two contrasting forms of social, political and economic organizations, and the dominance/dependence relationship in which colonial contact took place. Its persistence in recent times stems from the fact that in formulating the future growth plans of these cities, planners and policy makers have tended to concentrate upon creating new modern sectors quite distinct from the old settlements. Though often this has been done under the pretext of preserving tradition or minimizing encroachment on "native" authority,⁵ more often than not it is a rationalization for convenience and for a least-effort development/planning approach.

UNITY AND COMMUNITY: NEGATIVE IMPACTS

OF STRUCTURAL DUALITY

Bearing in mind the general aims and the specific objectives of the British colonial administration in West Africa, the administration was not interested in developing the cities in a way that would realize and maximize their positive role in the overall development of the region. Perhaps one could argue that part of the reason was due to the hostile climate and geographic conditions which rendered difficult any hope of permanent settlement by the colonists. Urban planning in the region was merely to provide enclaves or escapes where temporary migrants from the homelands could be posted to organize increased productivity. With such a limited objective and a narrowly defined role for the region, the colonial planning approach was simple. Its strategy was basically to regulate and control the physical growth of the cities within a graded framework. Land use, zoning and building bylaws were designed to minimize costs and to separate the colonizers from the colonized. Therefore, the traditional (older) sections of the towns were simply ignored and contained, while serious planning efforts were concentrated on the establishment of new areas.⁶

The major cities in Nigeria: Lagos and Ibadan in the West, Kano, Kaduna and Zaria in the North, Enugu, Port Harcourt and Calabar in the East, provide excellent examples of such development strategies; the results are evident today in these cities which retain dual personalities. Although their pre-colonial foundation constitutes a significant proportion of these cities, they have been outstripped by the post-independence development in terms of area. The pre-colonial development still commands attention because of its almost unbelievable density of buildings, their spectacular deterioration and the virtual absence of adequate sanitation. Their inhabitants (native landowners and their descendants) live their lives apart from modern immigrants who now inhabit the gradually evolving suburban rings around the old sectors.

Urban studies done worldwide, particularly in the Western hemisphere, seem to reveal that the historical experiences of the West tended to demonstrate a correlation between economic growth and urbanization.⁷ Specialization of activities, functional division of labor, and economies of agglomeration necessary for efficient production are engendered in the city. Perhaps more important is the belief that cities are the main agents of change and hence instruments of modernization.⁸

Thus, cities are expected to act as centers for the refinement and preservation of highly held social values, to minimize the frictions inherent in the process of transition by mediating and narrowing conflicts between the old and the new, and to prevent the dualism or polarization between the traditional and the modern. They are expected also to act as places for the promotion of ethnic and political integration by maximizing the opportunities for interaction among the diverse populations and for their contact with the outside world.

While the convenience planning approach followed by the colonial rulers and perpetuated by post-independence political leaders may have been the most logical from their perspective, it is undoubtedly unfit for today's realities. First, instead of achieving the ideal in promoting generational homogeneity or at least social and inter-ethnic harmony, they have become centers for all forms of ethnic rivalry and nationalism.

Secondly, the transfer of values and ideas affecting the rate and direction of socio-economic change is by no means a one-way process limited to the flow of ideas from the modern to the traditional sectors. For transition to occur in a balanced and orderly manner, avoiding the creation and exacerbation of conflicts, it must accommodate and be subjected to the influence of highly valued traditional social norms. Increasing social interaction in the economic and administrative areas would most likely provide the necessary controlling mechanisms and guard against any excessive deviations or tendencies alien to the indigenous value system. In terms of locational and physical planning, this implies concepts which imaginatively integrate the traditional and the modern in a unified spatial framework without undermining the integrity or disturbing the balance of the traditional culture.⁹

URBAN ETHNICITY

Identifying with one's ethnic group powerfully influences the perspectives and practices of the residents of Nigerian cities. "We Ibos and those Yorubas," "We Hausas and those Binis": such conceptualizations take place in many social, political, and economic situations. They help to maintain and structure the boundaries of culture and interaction. Despite the changes that have taken place since colonization, the boundaries between ethnic groups have been able to retain, or resume, great significance. Indeed, the perceived distinctions among ethnic groups are often as sharp as the distinction most Americans make between blacks and whites. Thus ethnicity may be considered Nigeria's equivalent of the "American dilemma."¹⁰ It affects where one lives, with whom one associates, for whom one votes, at what occupation one works, and so forth. For these reasons a typical Nigerian city exists as a cluster of partly overlapping ethnic enclaves, each with a somewhat distinct set of perspectives and practices. Lagos, Kano and Port Harcourt show three categories of ethnic membership, while other cities, depending on their level of urbanization, demonstrate this to a lesser degree.

One category differentiates broad racial groupsEuropeans, Americans, Asians and all other foreignersfrom Africa. A second differentiates the "indigenes" of the area in which the city is located from the immigrant or "stranger elements" coming from all other parts of the nation. A third category distinguishes various ethnic, clan and/or locality groupings. Although the enclaves may be geographic, more importantly they are behavioral.

Ethnic ties and identities are reinforced because to some extent most city dwellers are "encapsulated" within their own ethnic network, which serves as a partial barrier between them and the wider social system. The sharp cultural differences among many groups further hamper the development of an inter-ethnic sense of community. "Like the choice between competing political institutions," that between the groups proves to be "a choice between incompatible modes of community life."¹¹

It is also observed that ethnic identity and ethnic conflicts are often greater in the cities than in the rural areas. Rouch (1956) sees this as a product of the interaction among peoples of different cultures.¹² Rather than weakening ethnic pride and cohesion, the city or urban life tends to increase them. The greater the fear in one group of being dominated the greater the emphasis on their own culture. An ethnic group adjusts to the new realities by reorganizing its own traditional customs or by developing new customs under traditional symbols, often using traditional norms and ideologies to enhance its distinctiveness within the contemporary situation. Immigrants living in cities other than their own "native towns or villages" at times manipulate their own cultural tradition(s)--fostering retribalization--in order to develop informal political associations which can serve as organizational weapons in contemporary political struggles.

In analyzing the Nigerian urban system, a basic decision has to be made whether to concentrate on the cultural or the structural aspect of heterogeneity. While these two approaches are not mutually exclusive and their relevances to each other should be brought out, not only will different data come to light as we concentrate upon one or the other approach, but also our interpretation will be rather different. For instance, faced with an incomprehensible and multifaceted alternative, a group theoretically has the option of responding to the other in terms of identity or difference. If the group assumed that the other is essentially identical to it, there is a tendency to ignore the significant divergences and to judge the other according to the groups' own cultural values. If, on the other hand, the group assumes that the other is irremediably different, then it would have little incentive to adopt the viewpoint of that alternative: it would again tend to turn to the security of its own cultural perspective.

Genuine and thorough comprehension of otherness is possible only if the one somehow can negate ethnocentrism or at least severely bracket the values, assumptions, and ideology of one's culture. This entails in practice the virtually impossible task of negating one's very being, precisely because one's culture is what formed that being.

Smith (1969) lends credence to the above when he warns that social and cultural dimensions of heterogeneity and pluralism neither necessarily nor always correspond. This is so for two reasons. Besides ideational and procedural correlates of social relations, culture includes such systems as language, aesthetic styles, philosophies, and expressive forms which may be transferred across social boundaries easily and with little social effect. Conversely, systems of social relations may perdure despite substantial shifts in their cultural content or explicit orientations. Thus, despite their institutional basis and tendencies to congruence, "Culture and society may vary independently; indeed their divergent alignments have special importance in contexts of pluralism"¹³

Although culture and structure are related through institutions, basically certain distinctive processes of interaction regulate social relationships in heterogeneous societies. How these processes work and the nature of interaction between various groups are determined primarily by urban conditions rather than cultural differences. Thus, the analysis of heterogeneity under urban conditions is best treated in structural terms because this reveals how racial, ethnic, cultural, language, occupational and class differences are converted into particular types of personal and group relations; how economic and political irregularities emerge; around what urban conditions conflict arises (and whether the element of heterogeneity is significant and if so why); how political relations are structured and what impedes or encourages the development of mechanisms of incorporation of various ethnic groups into the urban culture.

It is, therefore, important to note the structural elements responsible for heterogeneity in Nigerian cities. It is equally important to analyze the dimensions of pluralism in these centers--that is, the number of mechanisms of incorporation or exclusion of diverse groups into the system. A close look at the above reveals that the two conditions can prevail: the polarization of pluralism, and depluralization. According to Kuper (1969, p. 479), polarization in African cities is marked by the heightened "salience of sectional identity" and the increasing perception of social relationships in terms of racial, ethnic or other sectional conflict. Political reactions get polarized by "antithetical interpretations of the same event . . . or by antithetical emotional responses."¹⁴ Kuper further argues that, at the objective level of polarization in social interaction, there is contraction of the middle ground of optional relationships. Lines and issues of cleavage are superimposed, and this is expressed in the rapid escalation of the most varied, and sometimes most minor, local and specific disturbances to the level of general nationwide intersectional conflict. The Nigeria-Biafra war (1967-1970) and the religious riots from the wave of Moslem fundamentalism in the Northern States are clear cases that corroborate this view.

Contrasting this to depluralization, Kuper suggests that depluralization indicates subjectively the diminishing salience of racial, ethnic or other sectional ties. There may be explicit ideologies which assume the common interests of members of different sections, assert the efficacy of compromise and inter-sectional cooperation, and affirm the social ideal of assimilation (as in ideologies of the common society, or of the melting pot). Other bases of association, horizontal linkages arising from common interests and functional differentiations, cut across initial cleavages. Segregated, parallel, and intercalary structures dissolve, and there is increasing integration in institutional structures. Qualitative differences in intrasectional and intersectional relationships diminish. With the increasing significance of many diverse bonds between people of different sections, lines of cleavage and issues of conflict become dissociated, thus reducing the probability of escalation from minor disturbances. There is a commitment to compromise, and the cumulative experience of compromise and conflict resolution may be expected to encourage further depluralization.¹⁵

Whether the urban centers in Nigeria are in a process of increased ethnic polarization due to the heterogeneity of their population, or whether they are being depluralized (a process which definitely involves considerable violence) are issues which need a great deal of attention by leaders and policy-makers. Perhaps the first methodological approach, as Gutkind (1974) suggests, is to establish the range of heterogeneity both from the point of view of ethnic diversity and in terms of diversity in occupation, education, wealth and class. Secondly, we need to retrace our steps to find out how, in general terms, the population did become ethnically diverse, that is: when and what groups migrated to the town; how and what groups became established, where, under what conditions, and in what occupations.

Third, what is the relationship of particular colonial policies to the varied manifestations of urban heterogeneity (that is, why did the colonial administration treat some tribes as "more honest" or "harder workers" than others)? Fourthly, during the period of colonialism what is the relationship of economic changes to heterogeneity. That is, what groups responded to what opportunities, and with what results?¹⁶ These and numerous other questions must be asked in an effort to piece together the circumstances which brought about the heterogeneity of the Nigerian urban population.

The data obtained will lead to the recognition that the diversity of the urban population reflects a similar diversity in the population as a whole. This might be the baseline for the analysis of numerous problems linking urban structures and behavior to ethnic pluralism and other aspects of diversity.

SOCIAL CHANGE AND MODERNIZATION:

URBAN LIFE IN NIGERIAN CITIES

With the background provided in the preceding section, we can begin to understand the role of Nigerian cities and urban centers in social change and modernization. While specific urban and city conditions will vary according to particular historical legacies that led to the establishment of the centers, Nigerian towns are now clearly the "motors of development," the main agents of social change. Town life is identified with the idea of progress--a rejection of the "totalitarian rural and village tradition." To many migrants who flock to the cities from the rural centers--whether armed at times with high school or even college certification, or unskilled labor in search of almost non-existing jobs--city life is seen as an "escape from the traditional rural life" which simultaneously absorbs, clutches and emasculates. To this set of migrants, the urban superstructure has real value as a refuge.

What is less often discussed is that the cities have become bases for administrative and economic activities rather than centers of civilizing influence. Nowhere else is the economic, political, and social distance between the rich few and the masses of the poor greater than in the cities.

The decay of traditional society and its values, the pace and haphazard character of city growth and the conditions there of labor, exploitation, inadequate housing and the lack of other infra-structural facilities have created, to use Karl Marx's terminology, "a sizeable Lumpen-proletariat."¹⁷ While the impact of the "high life" (a popular aphorism in Nigerian cities) in the urban centers sets an elevated model before the population at large, the expectations inherent in this model are far from being realized for any significant percentage of the population.

Tensions of an economic and political nature between rural and urban areas multiply as class lines become more sharply defined and as the rural populace begins to sharpen its political consciousness, which in turn leads to more concern for political and economic participation. The same situation is true of the urbanite who, being closer to the model of "the good life" ("high life"), often seeks a larger slice of the small "national cake." It is then understandable why the Nigerian urban centers have become the arena for major ethnic and class confrontations. The ever- increasing rate of violent street crimes, mounting by a dialectic of violence and counter-violence, prostitution and drug abuse--earlier thought typical of Western cities--demonstrate the degree of the miscarriage of the traditional values of the people.

While the classical Marxist theory would suggest that the urban proletariate, in cooperation with farmers and peasants, will be the spearhead of agitation against exploitation and major inequity, it seems that the cities are already in the grip of an exploitative indigenous class whose make-up and ideology put constraints on political activities. As long as a disproportionate percentage of the city dwellers live in utter misery and abject poverty (which might be more debilitating than rural poverty), a true restructuring of the Nigerian society, at least a change from misery to decent life for the city poor whose numbers swell each year, will be difficult to realize.

However, certain aspects of the city environment do hold out for the city poor some hopeif not material, at least psychological. For this group city life promises a hope for modernization. It is this hope that enables the urban poor to endure their situation. In this regard, the will to achieve change through new ideas and actions, to select from a wide range of alternatives, to participate in new structures and new institutions, which have no antecedents for many of the city migrants are a totally new phenomenon. This is the sense in which the city represents modernization to the people. Thus, the link between social change, modernization and urban life is that the cities not only generate a new range of institutions, activities, structures and values particular to the local situation, but reflect the national transformation as a whole, an index of progress and prosperity.

But as G. McLean has pointed out, "The transition from traditional patterns to urban settings raises a series of important issues." Perhaps the most important to our discussion is: "How is it possible in the modern urban environment to sustain distinctive traditional values against the depersonalizing force of mass society?"¹⁸ No answer to this question can be complete without examining the extent to which urbanization affects the family. Being in most traditional societies the core institution, the family is a sensitive barometer of whatever changes occur in a society.

URBAN FAMILY

As elsewhere, the family is the most basic unit of social organization in Africa. However, unlike its counterpart in Western society, family membership is not restricted to husband, wife and children, for it is characteristic for this basic unit to be part of a larger extended family. It is within the family that the effects of urbanization and urban migration are most evident. Family members are separated and scattered throughout a country (and sometimes beyond its borders): as a result parental authority and established marital conventions are weakened.

The normative structure of marriage and family life spills over into many other organizational and institutional features. Thus marriage involves more directly the families of the bride and the groom than in the Western culture. While the two individuals are central to the marriage, a larger number of kin on either side become involved in the rearrangement of the social relationships which follow. The bonds which held members of the extended family together were their strictly allocated duties, reciprocity of mutual aid and support, responsiblilties and rewards which gave each individual the satisfaction he sought and the knowledge that, should dependency overtake him, he would not be cast out.

This sense of "communalism" finds a further articulation in the view espoused by Holmes Rolston (1986) that a person's social capacity can be measured roughly by the span of the "we."¹⁹ The "self" is stretched out to the "other"; social concern does not stop with the individual's skin but overflows to the kin. Social maturity comes with a widening of that sense of kinship; by a broad recognition of this togetherness the self is immersed in a communal life. However, this sense of "communalism" in Africa has been disrupted and the city, in Peachey's aphorism, has become "the atelier of the autonomous person."²⁰

If indeed the family is the basic unit of social organization, then changes taking place in economic, political and religious institutions clearly will be reflected in family life. While this raises rather complex theoretical issues, the following should guide our discussion: changes in family and marriage must be studied against the background of who migrates and why, who stays in the city and who circulates back and forth between rural and urban areas, the ratio of male-female migrants, the attitude of the newly educated elites (particularly women) towards some of the traditional roles in family, marriage, etc.

Despite the variations which exist, the impact of certain changes has produced some common characteristics. Perhaps one of the most fundamental changes is that the African family, as its Western counterpart, has lost some of its traditional functions while taking on new ones. The African urban family, as Gutkind (1974) puts it, has dropped some ritual and ceremonial functions and taken on new economic ones.¹⁹

Two aspects of familial change need to be elaborated. The ethnic and familial heterogeneity of most Nigerian cities, for instance, has meant that heterosexual relationships are determined more by the two immediate participants than was formerly the case. This individualization of the marital decisions stems not only from the geographic dispersion of families, but from fundamental changes in the operative values of urban residents.

For example, the role of women has been transformed by advanced education and entry into modern competitive professions. Studies on the relationship between polygamy and social change have shown that education, religion, ethnicity, economic position and urbanization affect the level of polygamy. Educated women can use their scarcity value to require of their husbands formal monogamy.²⁰

A second aspect of familial change is that the early socialization process of some of the city children has been altered. As in the United States, the child of a broken home may in large part be socialized by peers, creating inter-generational cleavages and the possibility of being introduced to the delinquent world as a functional alternative to family satisfactions. In most of the major cities in NigeriaLagos, Enugu, Ibadan, Kanoit has been observed that because of the cultural lag which exists between the needs of some of these potential delinquents and the lack of adequate institutions to channel their needs, this discrepancy places these youths in a marginal position. This impels them to satisfy their needs through deviant conduct with their peers in the process of adapting to urban community. Just as the extended family traditionally had joint responsibility for bringing up children, the breakdown or contraction of this responsibility is one of the major primary causes of urban juvenile delinquency.

Third, in a context in which most of the traditional social supports (the extended family, kinsmen, age-group, and organizations of the migrants according to their rural origin) are no longer relevant or operative, the inability of urban centers to provide substitutes creates problems of mental stress, personal disorientation, and social disorganization for many people. This is regarded as partly responsible for the high incidence of all forms of psycho-pathological phenomena in urban centers. Concern with these problems is only gradually receiving attention, although some of the initial studies emphasize caution in ascribing these manifestations to the urban environment per se, rather than seeing them as reactions to the stress conditions involved in any process of socio-economic transformation.²¹

Even when the tradition of joint responsibility is maintained, its impact may be different in the cities than in the traditional milieu: a shift of responsibility from one relative to another within the village context usually does not mean a significant geographic change or interaction with new faces in new places, but in the cities the shift may be to a new neighborhood of strangers with different values.

CONCLUSION

In general terms, many of the Nigerian elite subscribe to the view that the city is the mirror through which foreigners make their initial appraisal of the nation. To this group the city is an index of the progress and prosperity of any nation. Another important element in the fascination exerted by city culture is the material reward which accompanies the adoption of a Western life-style. One cannot deny that this way of life has enabled Western society, not only to raise its standard of living and general level of material welfare far above that of the rest of the world, but also to bring many other parts of the world under its influence. The enormous material power of the West, based on its advanced technology, is a fact. It stands to reason that the Nigerian urban elite who reflect on this often come to the conclusion that the only way the nation can share in this power is by adopting a Western life style.

Others, more intellectually honest or more introspective, will admit that modernization (in the Western sense) is the same as Westernization. To this second group, belong the traditionally oriented elite (traditional rural elite). It is therefore clear why two value systems and two elite groups coexist in Nigeria. In juxtaposition, they create a potential for inter-elite conflict and intra-personal stress. Elite conflict arises because those who value the traditional rural ways come into conflict with the group equivalently linked with modern urban values.

Intra-personal stress occurs because many migrants leave a situation dominated by traditional rural elites within a status system infused with traditional values, and go into an urban community influenced by new elites with modern urban and Western values. The consequent necessary adjustments are potentially stressful, not only because of changes in the bases of stratification, but also because status by achievement is less predictable and therefore less stabilizing than status by ascription.

1. Robert S. Smith, Kingdoms of the Yoruba (London: Methuen, 1969).

2. A.L. Mabogunje, "Urbanzation in Nigeria: A Constraint on Economic Development" in Economic Development and Cultural Changes, 13 (1965), 413-38; See also, Yoruba Towns (Ibadan: University of Ibadan Press, 1962).

3. R. J. Johnston, "Urban Origins, Urbanization and Urban Patterns," Geography, 62 (1977).

4. A. L. Mabogunje, "The Growth of Residential Districts in Ibadan," Geographical Review, 52 (1962), p. 60; see also Urbanization in Nigeria (London: University of London Press, 1968).

5. The eastern region (Kenya and Uganda) and the southern region (South Africa, Zimbabwe) of the continent differed. The shift in policy was due principally to the favorable climate and the typology of the soil which made permanent settlement possible.

6. R. Stren, "Urban Policy in Africa: A political Analysis" African Studies Preview, 15 (1972), 494.

7. H. Pireme, Medieval Cities (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1925).

8. B. F. Hoselitz, "The Role of Cities in the Economic Growth of Underdeveloped Areas" in G. Breese, ed., The City in Newly Developing Countries (Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice Hall, 1969); see also, J. Friedmann, Urbanization, Planning and National Development (Beverly Hills, Ca.: Sage Publications, 1973).

9. Salah El-Shakhs and Ademola Balau, "Modernization and the Planning of Cities in Africa: Implications for Internal Structure," African Urban Studies, 4 (1979), 17.

10. Gunnar Myrdal, An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy (New York: Harper, 1944).

11. Cf. T.S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970), p. 94.

12. Studies seem to reveal that even in culturally heterogeneous rural communities in Nigeria and other West African countries, ethnicity

is hardly an issue. Cf. Jean Rouch, "Migration au Ghana (Gold Coast)." Journal de la Societé de Africanistes, 26 (1956), 33-196.

13. M.G. Smith, "Institutional and Political Conditions of Pluralism" in Hilda Kuper, ed., Urbanization and Migration in West Africa (Berkeley, CA: Univ. of California Press, 1969), p. 35.

14. L. Kuper, "Ethnic and Racial Pluralism: Some Aspects of Polarization and Depluralizatioin" in L. Kuper and M.G. Smith (eds.), Pluralism in Africa (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1969), p. 480.

15. L. Kuper, op. cit., p. 480.

16. P.C.W. Gutkind, Urban Anthropology: Perspectives on Third World Urbanization and Urbanism (New York: Harper and Row, 1974), p. 173.

17. Karl Marx, in T. Bottomore and M. Rubel, eds., Selected Writings in Sociology and Social Philosophy (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964), p. 117.

18. George F. McLean, Preface, in G. McLean and J. Kromkowski, Urbanization and Values (Washington: The Council for Research in Values and Philosophy, 1991), p. vi.

19. Cf. Rolston Holmes III, Philosophy Gone Wild. Essays in Environmental Ethics (Buffalo: Prometheus Books, 1986), p. 63.

20. Paul Peachey, Prologue, Urbanization and Values, pp. 15-22.

21. Peter C. Gutkink, Urban Anthropology (1974), pp. 107-108.

22. For the statistical and demographic pattern covering a wide range of West African cities, see: Margaret Peil, Urban Life in West Africa (New York: Africana Publishing Co., 1981), pp. 143-154.

23. Mary Asike, On the Universality of the Oedipus Complex: Nigeria as a Case Study (Ibadan: University of Ibadan, 1982); see also, Raana Weitz, ed., Urbanization and the Developing Countries, Report on the Sixth Rehovot Conference (New York: Praeger, 1973).