{"title":"Public Health and Political Governance","authors":"F. Ajiola","doi":"10.1163/09744061-bja10122","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"\n In the light of the Covid-19 pandemic, its mutations, concealment by people and the resistance to vaccines against it, it is relevant to examine the outbreak of bubonic plague in colonial Lagos during the early twentieth century and the response by the British colonial authorities. The methodology applied to this study is historical, drawing information from medical, sanitary, land use and physical planning documents accessed from various archives as well as some secondary sources. It is clear that the colonial government’s housing and public health regulations, which allowed authorities to inspect people’s homes for cases of infectious disease, drove people to escape into the hinterland, increasing the spread of the plague. Consequently, the colonial authorities carried out a massive structural and physical reorganisation of towns and villages. They also embarked on large-scale land reclamation, decongested overcrowded houses and introduced sanitary measures to make the environment more habitable. This paper argues that through effective political governance structures the colonial government strategically eliminated the bubonic plague in Lagos.","PeriodicalId":41966,"journal":{"name":"Africa Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2000,"publicationDate":"2024-01-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Africa Review","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1163/09744061-bja10122","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q4","JCRName":"AREA STUDIES","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
In the light of the Covid-19 pandemic, its mutations, concealment by people and the resistance to vaccines against it, it is relevant to examine the outbreak of bubonic plague in colonial Lagos during the early twentieth century and the response by the British colonial authorities. The methodology applied to this study is historical, drawing information from medical, sanitary, land use and physical planning documents accessed from various archives as well as some secondary sources. It is clear that the colonial government’s housing and public health regulations, which allowed authorities to inspect people’s homes for cases of infectious disease, drove people to escape into the hinterland, increasing the spread of the plague. Consequently, the colonial authorities carried out a massive structural and physical reorganisation of towns and villages. They also embarked on large-scale land reclamation, decongested overcrowded houses and introduced sanitary measures to make the environment more habitable. This paper argues that through effective political governance structures the colonial government strategically eliminated the bubonic plague in Lagos.
期刊介绍:
Africa Review is an interdisciplinary academic journal of the African Studies Association of India (ASA India) and focuses on theoretical, historical, literary and developmental enquiries related to African affairs. The central aim of the journal is to promote a scholarly understanding of developments and change in Africa, publishing both original scholarship on developments in individual countries as well as comparative analyses examining the wider region. The journal serves the full spectrum of social science disciplinary communities, including anthropology, archaeology, history, law, sociology, demography, development studies, economics, education, gender studies, industrial relations, literature, politics and urban studies.