Currency and conflict in colonial Nigeria
Pratten D.
This chapter examines a central theme in Jane Guyer’s analysis of monetary transactions in Atlantic Africa – the implications of money valuation in relation to social order and disorder in Nigeria. It revisits the case of manilla currency exchange that she has discussed extensively in relation to calculation, ranking and political legitimacy (Guyer 2004, 2009). The manilla exchange rate is often ignored as a contributory factor in the various social upheavals of the region in the period before the manilla was ‘redeemed’ in 1948.¹ Following Guyer’s lead, and drawing on the pioneering scholarship of Naanen (1993), this chapter argues that manilla...