FOOD CONTROL IN NIGERIA DURING WORLD WAR II, 1939-1945

Abstract

This study examines food shortage and its management in Nigeria during World War II, 1939-1945. Using primary archival sources, it argues that the ‘policy’ of food control was one of the preparatory steps taken months before the outbreak of the war, and that the actual practice of food control (namely, price-fixing, restriction on the movement of foodstuffs, and rationing) did not end with the war, but was extended into the post-war period due to the World Food Crisis (1946-48) that followed immediately after the Second World War was over, leading to hardship, black market, and editorials against this extension.