The towering intellectual inferno of Northern economic history: Philip Shea remembered
By Prof. Abdalla Uba Adamu
I was not a History student but a student of history. My interest originated in my father, Dr. Muhammad Uba Adamu, a historian who really believed in the discipline. Further, it was a real anomaly in my education—that turned out fine for me—that although I was a science student in high school, we studied history in our set due to the lack of a physics teacher, which was just as well. I tried a semester of physics after high school, but I could not hack it.
To me, history was better than Physics, which was and still is excellently boring. With History, I understood myself and my culture and could safeguard my heritage. With Physics, I would be forced to cram useless formulas, which I was led to believe were the intellectual heritages of dead White scientists.
Despite being housed in the Faculty of Education, Bayero University Kano, since July 22, 1980, as a Graduate Assistant, I found myself drawn to History. It helped that the late Prof. John Lavers, who taught my father, was there. His purchase of an Amstrad desktop computer in around 1989, and my being the only person on the campus who mastered it, created a Moebius strip where I was teaching Prof. Lavers how to use it! Eventually, I had to come in contact with Prof. Philip Shea, who also knew my father as an administrator.
My subsequent interactions with Prof. Lavers, Prof. Shea, and later Prof. Murray Last put me at an intersection of historical immersion. They further fuelled my interest in historical studies and anything related to Kano’s history. I started teasing Philip by calling him ‘Uncle Philip’, which he found irritating as he did not want to seem ‘old’. This was more so due to his closeness to my father. When in 2002 or thereabouts, my father publicly presented (I refuse to allow it to be ‘launched’) his book Confluences and Influences, Philip Shea wrote the review and read it during the presentation.
With Philip Shea, life in Kano was not just economic history but also cultural history. His “Mallam Muhammad Bakatsine and the Jihad in Eastern Kano” (History in Africa 32 (2005), 371-383) is a brilliant appendix to the Kano Chronicle in the sense of filling in a lot of gaps not in the Chronicle. For one, it gave us a microscopic view of how a Joɓawa clan member, Malam Bakatsine from Takai town, mobilised the jihad forces fuelled by his understanding of Islam.
Eventually, somehow or another, the British Council Kano engaged me as the Chairman of the Centre for Hausa Culture, which we established in 2003 to facilitate a series of Hausa traditional concerts on their behalf. I invited Philip to one of them on March 8, 2006, and had to drive him to the venue because he was virtually colour-blind at night and found it difficult to drive—too many full headlights, he told me.
I was, therefore, shocked when I learned of Philip Shea’s passing away barely a month later on April 5, 2006. I was in Saly, Senegal, for a Volkswagen Foundation activity then. It was a sad moment for me, for Philip was a truly wonderful person. I really doubted if he had any intentions of leaving Kano—so ingrained he was in the very social and economic fabric of Kano. He was involved in almost every activity of the Kano State Government, during which we always sat next to each other.
For instance, he actively participated in the 2003 conference celebrating the 40th Anniversary of the late Emir of Kano, HRH Alhaji (Dr) Ado Bayero. A proceeding of the conference, which I edited and for which he let the Communique team, was later published. He was also a prominent participant at the National Conference on 200 Years Since the Uthman Dan Fodio Jihad in Kano held at the Kano State History and Culture Bureau, Kano, Nigeria, 27-29 July 2004.
Philip was also a familiar face in quite a few Kano markets; his speciality was economic history. For instance, I met him several times when I visited the Garu market in Kumbotso. He was not actually buying anything but moving from stall to stall, observing, listening, and noting. He used to be followed by a gaggle of kids, but they eventually became used to him and left him alone. I, on the other hand, visited the market because my better half dragged me against my will, wish and desire for her to buy Kayan miya (groceries) as they were cheaper in that market – and I had to drive through a slowly flowing river Panshekara to get to the market!
For me, observing Philip in that market was a front-row lesson on Ethnography: to truly understand the flow of events, you need to be there—on the ground—not from afar. His writings on the economic history of Kano and, indeed, Hausa land, therefore, had a solid base.
He published several articles in Nigerian and international journals on, among other subjects, the development of the dyeing industry in precolonial Kano, rural production, indirect rule, and the central Sudanese silk trade. His unpublished doctoral dissertation, “The Development of an Export-Oriented Dyed Cloth Industry in Kano Emirate in the Nineteenth Century” (Wisconsin, 1975), has become one of the most cited works on dyeing and textiles in Africa and a reference text in discussions of indigenous African textile practices.
Philip had mentored many generations of Historians. It was only befitting, therefore, that the whole constellation of Philips students and associates gathered together to honour his intellectual contribution to the economic history of northern Nigeria. This was realised in Economic and Social History of Northern Nigeria: Revisiting Milestones and Exploring New Frontiers: Essays in Honour of the late Professor Phillip James Shea.
The book was ‘launched’ on Sunday, July 21, 2024, at the Dangote Business School auditorium, Bayero University Kano New Campus. Despite it being a Sunday (and overcast), the hall was reasonably filled with many people—and not the ‘student fillers’ either, since although the university resumed classes on Monday, July 15, 2024, students have not fully resumed.
The book, edited by his students led by Prof. Mohammed Sanni Abdulkadir, Samaila Suleman and Kabiru Haruna Isa and published by Aboki Publishers), is undoubtedly a heavy reading with 874 pages. Divided into six sections with 40 papers, it covers a massive ground, from Environment to Riots, Slavery, Reforms, Settlement, to Migration.
I will not even presume to review this book – leaving it to voracious readers like Shamsuddeen Sani to do that when he gets his stethoscope on a copy! There were standout papers. Murray Last’s “Note on the Economy of 19th Century Warfare in Hausaland” reminds us of the links between social disruptions and economic growth – even over a hundred years ago. Or the one about the brown sugar industry in Maƙarfi by Shehu Tijjani Yusuf. Want to learn about donkey trade (yes, donkeys!)? Then Abubakar Tukur Mohammed will guide you. Salafism and Social services are treated by one of what I term the ‘Zafafa Goma’ intellectual cluster of BUK, Kabiru Haruna Isa. And so on.
No one, no book, no writer is perfect. My grouse? In this constellation of economic coverage, not one single paper has dealt with media and popular culture. Music (traditional and Afropop), Books (in whatever form), Films (love, hate, but can’t ignore Kannywood), and Media (Radio, TV, Newspapers, Social Media) were all seemingly ignored, as if economic history is only rooted in the past and only on commodities. And yet, one of the attention-grabbing parts of the book was ‘New Frontiers’. It seems that such a frontier was not to look ‘back to the future’. Oh, there is a paper on multinational publishers (Sani Yakubu Adam), but it was on the English book trade!
Warts and all, this book is, in my view, the most comprehensive summary and, at the same time, introduction to the uninitiated of the subject matter so far in our history. It is also a befitting reminder of the legacies of one of our time’s most important economic historians.
