Rotgut and Revenue: Fiscal Aspects of the Liquor Trade in Southern Nigeria, 1890-1919
Author(s)
Olukoju, Ayodeji
Abstract
Colonial liquor policy in southern Nigeria relied upon tariffs as its favored means of controlling the trade. The use of tariffs was justified on the basis that the liquor trade needed to be controlled for the health and well-being of local societies. Tariffs, it was argued, would control the volume of the trade as well as prevent stronger and hence more dangerous substances from being consumed. Beneath this rhetoric, the author indicates that tariff policy was dictated more by the government’s drive to maximize income from what had become one of its principal revenue sources. British policy on liquor in southern Nigeria demonstrates yet again the constant tension that existed between an ideology of reform and improvement and the colonial imperative that insisted that the financial costs of colonial rule be borne by colonial subjects. This example also shows just how fragile colonial economies could become when they became so dependent on a limited range of fiscal options.
