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xi Acknowledgments I incurred many debts in the course of writing this book. During my research I received enormous financial and moral support from various facilities at the University of Michigan: the Department of History, the Center for Afroamerican and African Studies, the International Institute, and the Rackham Graduate School. The staff of the University Library put up with my incessant requests and inquiries. Equally deserving of my gratitude are the many archives and libraries that yielded the materials for this work. I thank the staffs of the following institutions for their help: the National Archives, Kaduna; Arewa House (Centre for Historical Research and Documentation), Kaduna; Northern Nigerian History Research Bureau, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria; the Norcross Memorial Methodist Mission, Otukpo, Benue State; Rhodes House, Oxford; the British Library Newspaper Archive at Colindale; the School of Oriental and African Studies Library ; and the Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt Institute, Hyde Park, New York. The book was finished with an International and Area Studies Fellowship sponsored by the American Council of Learned Societies, the Social Science Research Council, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Their support is greatly appreciated. The board of the Roosevelt Institute was generous in funding a research trip to the institute’s archives in August 2001. I also thank the American Historical Association for awarding me a Bernadotte E. Schmitt Grant to support research for this book. Mamadou Diouf and Frederick Cooper, who guided me through the first life of this book as a PhD dissertation, offered profound, incisive advice throughout the research and writing. Their support and that of David Cohen, Elisha Renne, and Kevin Gaines, all of whom provided invaluable counsel, were crucial to this project. In the long transition from dissertation to book, Stanford Griffith helped with proofreading and formatting, Sheri Swanson helped with proofreading, and Jeff Deason produced the maps and formatted the final version of the manuscript. I thank the late Philip Shea, who read several versions of the book, offered expert advice, and remained a key intellectual influence on me till his xii w฀ Acknowledgments unfortunate passing in April 2006. His intellectual imprints are discernible throughout this work. I am deeply grateful to Steven Pierce for mentoring me through identifying, researching, and writing on this subject. His intellectual friendship and the social support his family provided kept me grounded and helped sustain me throughout the project. My colleagues at Vanderbilt University generously read and commented on versions of some of the chapters. Thomas Schwartz and Devin Fergus were especially helpful. Jane Landers was always a pillar of professional support. Other colleagues offered encouraging words. The academic and social friendship of the following people was vital for the completion of this work: Vukile Khumalo, Ann Rall, Michael Hathaway, Leslie Williams, Lisandro Trevino, Kidada Williams, John Mbugua Gakau, Afshin Jadidnouri, Mawasi Keita Jahi, William Sutton, Ibrahim Hamza Apollo Amoko, Grace Davie, Allison Lichter, Rob Gray, Samuel Temple, Tijana Kristic, and Steve Nwabuzor. Some of them read various chapters and gave me very useful comments; others contributed by making my life as an educational immigrant in the United States easier. My college classmates and close friends have remained fountains of encouragement and inspiration. Without the support of Abiodun Adamu, Farooq Kperogi, Emmanuel Taegar, Aliyu Ilyasu Ma’aji, John Kolawole, and others, this project would have been harder than it was. Adamu helped me at the early stages of my research, and Kperogi, an astute scholar in his own right, has been a valuable intellectual sparring partner. I thank my fellow Northern Nigerianists for believing that this book had a contribution to make to the historiography of colonial Northern Nigeria. Thanks to the formal and informal inputs of Mohammed Sani Abdulkadir, Sean Stilwell, Shobana Shankar, Ibrahim Hamza, Susan O’Brien, Rudolf Gaudio, Brian Larkin , Douglas Anthony, and Novian Whitsitt, the book is now a reality. I thank Julius Scott, who may never know how much of an intellectual influence he has been on me. In the last few years, two senior colleagues, Toyin Falola and Adebayo Oyebade, have become invaluable sources of inspiration. I appreciate their support. My family provided the single most powerful stimulus for my scholarly pursuit. In particular, I thank my wife, Margaret, and my daughter, Ene, for making the sacrifices necessary for the completion of this book. Above all, I am grateful to God Almighty for His sustaining grace, mercy, and love. Without Him, nothing is possible. ...

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