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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:Ordering urban space and migrants' protests in Sabongari, Kano, 1911-1960
Author:Olaniyi, RasheedISNI
Year:2011
Periodical:Lagos Historical Review (ISSN 1596-5031)
Volume:11
Pages:1-20
Language:English
Geographic term:Nigeria
Subjects:colonial period
segregation
urbanization
social conditions
urban planning
protest
External link:https://doi.org/10.4314/lhr.v11i1.1
Abstract:Urban segregation policy represents one of the dramatic changes fostered by colonialism with far-reaching impact on the politics of protest and identity consciousness among immigrants. It is argued that despite the considerable body of interdisciplinary studies that the theme of urban segregation generated, urban historiography in Nigeria has been influenced by the paradigms of Universalist ethic of public health and political development to the exclusion of power structures. The paper theorizes on the politics of protest, and the search for identity and resistance of the subalterns and migrants in Sabongari, Kano in the context of colonial policies to control over-urbanization processes between 1911 and 1960. Plot Holders' Association, Sabongari resisted attempts by the colonial officials to demolish overbuilt and overpopulated plots without due regard to livelihoods, taxation, family values, and indeed, the Building Ordinance that came into existence almost two decades after such buildings were constructed. In British Africa, urban segregation policies such as the Sabongari system were predicated on public health, religious and cultural differences but there were political and economic interests as well. The paper further explores how the colonial segregation policy in Sabongari fostered over-urbanization illustrated by overcrowding, poor sanitation, infectious diseases, unemployment, prostitution, overstressed social infrastructure and crime unequalled in the Kano urban complex. Ref., sum. [Journal abstract]
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