The Political Economy of Waqf Institutions in Colonial and Post-Colonial Nigeria: A Historical and Comparative Analysis

This dissertation examines the political economy of Waqf (Islamic endowment) institutions in Nigeria from the pre-colonial Sokoto Caliphate era through colonial governance to the contemporary post-colonial state, constructing a comprehensive historical and comparative analysis of institutional development, decline, and potential revival. Waqf institutions played a pivotal role in funding education, healthcare, and social welfare across pre-colonial northern Nigeria, yet their systematic dismantling under British colonial administration and their limited recovery in the post-independence period represents a critically understudied chapter in Nigerian Islamic social history. The study employs a historical political economy methodology, combining archival research in the Nigerian National Archives (Kaduna, Ibadan), British colonial records at the Public Records Office (London, accessed digitally), and interviews with 30 Islamic scholars, historians, and Waqf development experts. Original contributions include the first comprehensive institutional history of Nigerian Waqf from 1804 to 2024, a political economy model explaining colonial Waqf dispossession, and a comparative analysis of Nigerian Waqf revival prospects relative to Malaysia and Jordan. Findings reveal that colonial land tenure reforms, the abolition of Sharia courts' jurisdiction over Waqf, and post-independence governance neglect collectively extinguished a viable Waqf ecosystem. The dissertation proposes a Nigerian Waqf Restoration Framework grounded in the political economy analysis. Keywords: Waqf, political economy, colonial Nigeria, Islamic endowment, institutional history.