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Establishment Of The Nigerian Railway Corporation, Tokunbo A. Ayoola

Journal of Retracing Africa

Making use of previously unused Colonial Office records at the National Archives in Kew, including newspaper reports, interviews with staff of the Nigerian Railway, and debates in the Federal House of Representatives, this study examines the forces that dictated the establishment of the Nigerian Railway Corporation. It argues that the primary reason why the British colonial government established the corporation was to assist foreign interests in Nigeria by distancing itself from the direct management of labor relations between the Nigerian colonial state and the militant trade unions in the Nigerian Railway and other commercially oriented government departments. By placing the …