ABSTRACT
In the theoretical literature on the nature of national leadership in independent Africa, insufficient attention has been paid to the status and role of the culture-hero. In the typologies of this level of leadership so far proposed, much has been made of the ability to identify in the pantheon of contemporary African leadership – president, premier, general and even emperor – such characteristics or concepts as, in chronological sequence, charisma (Apter 1955), ethnic ambition (Le Vine 1966), intimidation and reconciliation (Mazrui 1970), situational ethnicity (Paden and Soja 1970), institutional convergence (Whitaker 1970), patrimonialism (Willame 1972), generational change (Levine 1975), warrior ethnocracy (Mazrui 1977) and ethnic constraints (Cartwright 1978). Yet few scholars have recognised the transference potential of the ideals of the traditional culture-hero on to the modern scene of political leadership. Nowhere has such a striking instance of cultural continuity at the level of supreme leadership been so apparent as in the case of the Fulani of Greater Hausaland between 1951 and 1966.
