COLONIAL DEVELOPMENT PLANNING AND THE ENTRENCHMENT OF THE CAPITALIST MODEL OF DEVELOPMENT

Abstract

This study examines the relationship between colonial development planning and the consolidation of the capitalist model of development in Nigeria during the late colonial period. It seeks to interrogate how development policies introduced by the British colonial administration between the 1940s and the 1950s shaped the structure and orientation of Nigeria’s economy. Employing the historical method and relying primarily on secondary sources, including scholarly monographs, journal articles, colonial economic reports, and archival materials, the study analyses the ideological foundations, institutional frameworks, and economic outcomes of colonial development planning. The findings reveal that although development planning was officially presented as a strategy for economic modernization and social welfare, in practice it primarily served to expand export agriculture, improve trade infrastructure, and deepen Nigeria’s integration into the global capitalist economy. Consequently, colonial development plans reinforced Nigeria’s role as a peripheral supplier of raw materials and a consumer of manufactured goods, thereby entrenching a pattern of structural economic dependency that persisted into the postcolonial period.