"Nigerian Chiefs: Traditional Power in Modern Politics, 1890s-1990s analyzes the imaginative adaptation of indigenous political structures to the process of state formation in Nigeria since the imposition of colonial rule in the late nineteenth century. Drawing on the interactions between the state and chieftaincy, this study shows how Nigerian chieftaincy institutions survived both the constricting forces of colonialism and the modernization programs of postcolonial regimes.

This was made possible not only because of their adaptability, but also because of their integration with emerging centers of power and their role in the ongoing processes of stratification and class formation. On the other hand, since they were linked to externally derived forces, and legitimated by neotraditional themes, chieftaincy structures were distorted by the indirect rule system and transformed by competing communal claims.

Twenty detailed case studies show how chieftaincy structures became a focal point of critical discourses on continuity and social change in twentieth-century Nigeria."--BOOK JACKET.