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Seamen and the Nigerianization of Shipping in the Postcolonial Era

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 November 2014

Lynn Schler
Lynn Schler*
Affiliation:
Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
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Abstract

This article examines the impact that indigenization policies had on labor and on the cultures of work in postcolonial Nigeria. Scholars have studied indigenization in the context of nationalist politics, statecraft, and development in postcolonial Africa. However, we have little knowledge of how working classes experienced and interpreted indigenization schemes. Focusing on the indigenization of shipping, this article discusses both how Nigerian seamen anticipated the establishment of the Nigerian National Shipping Line and the actual impact of Nigerianization on their working lives. By taking a close look at changes in shipboard hierarchies, labor relations, and the culture of work on NNSL vessels, we can gain a deeper understanding of how broader political processes associated with decolonization and postindependence shaped working-class lives in postcolonial Nigeria.

Type
African Labor Histories
Information
International Labor and Working-Class History , Volume 86 , Fall 2014 , pp. 124 - 141
Copyright
Copyright © International Labor and Working-Class History, Inc. 2014 

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References

NOTES

I would like to thank the Israel Science Foundation (grant 793/10) for their generous support of this research.

1. See, for example, Rood, Leslie L., “Nationalisation and Indigenisation in Africa.” The Journal of Modern African Studies 14 (1976): 427–47;Google Scholar Decker, Stephanie, “Building Up Goodwill: British Business, Development and Economic Nationalism in Ghana and Nigeria, 1945–1977.” Enterprise and Society 9 (2008): 602–13CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Wilson, Ernest J., “Strategies of State Control of the Economy: Nationalization and Indigenization in Africa.” Comparative Politics 22 (1990): 401–19Google Scholar; Akinsanya, Adeoye A., The Expropriation of Multinational Property in the Third World (New York, 1980)Google Scholar.

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3. Interviews conducted for this study were carried out in Nigeria over the course of three research trips from 2007–2011. More than seventy interviews with former seamen, seamen's wives, officers, and captains were conducted.

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6. It was reported that British companies alone employed over seventeen hundred Nigerian seamen. Seamen were drawn largely from the coastal region of Nigeria, although there were also recruits from inland areas, and most major ethnic groups were represented among both the crews and officers. Merseyside Maritime Museum, 4C 1908 Nigerian Union of Seamen 1959–1962, Meeting notes, November 1, 1959. See also Report of the Board of Enquiry into the Trade Dispute between the Elder Dempster Lines Limited and the Nigerian Union of Seamen. Lagos: Federal Government Printer, 1959.

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8. Report of the Board of Enquiry into the Trade Dispute between the Elder Dempster Lines Limited and the Nigerian Union of Seamen. Lagos: Federal Government Printer, 1959: 4–5.

9. See Schler, Lynn, “Transnationalism and Nationalism in the Nigerian Seamen's Union,” African Identities 7 (2009): 387–98CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Schler, Lynn, “Becoming Nigerian: African Seamen, Decolonisation, and the Nationalisation of Consciousness,” Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism 11 (2011): 42–62 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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17. Interview with Muritala Olayinka ali-Balogun, Lagos, Nigeria, December 15, 2007.

18. Interview with Festus Adekunle Akintade, Lagos, Nigeria, December 24, 2007.

19. Interview with Anomorisa Johnson, Lagos, Nigeria, January 22, 2011.

20. Interview with Jimmy Bessan, Lagos, Nigeria, July 3, 2011.

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26. Interview with Gold Agbodobiri, Lagos, Nigeria, January 24, 2011.

27. Interview with Anomorisa Johnson, Lagos, Nigeria, January 22, 2011.

28. Interview with John Larry, Lgos, Nigeria, January 20, 2008.

29. Interview with Adebowale Adeleye, Lagos, Nigeria, December 16, 2007.

30. Merseyside Maritime Museum, 2247 J. Joyce 1959–1961, Notes of meeting on Nigerian Crew matters, September 4, 1959.

31. Merseyside Maritime Museum, 2247 J. Joyce 1959–1961, Notes of meeting on Nigerian Crew matters, September 4, 1959.

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34. Merseyside Maritime Museum, 2247 J. Joyce 1959–1961, NNSL Board meeting notes, 27 October 1959.

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42. Ship's Log Book: M.V. Oduduwa, 20.8.73, entry: 16.9.73 N.A.: 17.9.73.

43. Ship's Log Book: River Majidum, 30.9.82, entry: 5.4.83.

44. Ship's Log Book: Yinka Folawiyo, 24.5.76, entry: Date and place unknown.

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46. Ship's Log Book: Oranyan, 4.4.74, entry: 27.12.74 Lagos Bar.

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49. Ship's Log Book: M.V. River Benue; 21.7.76, entry: 22.12.76.

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