THE LEGACY OF COLONIALISM ON MAPPING IN AFRICA: WITH FOCUS ON NIGERIA.

Colonialism is the principle or practice in which a powerful country rules a weaker one and establishes its own tradition and culture there (Longman Dictionary, 1995). The nature of colonial education also had serious impact on mapping in Africa. In all the colonial territories, the educational policy was to train as many Africans as the government considered necessary to supply middle-level manpower in administration and the schools. Too much learning would have been both superfluous and dangerous for clerks and messengers. In Nigeria, the funding of colonial mapping was carried out based on the expected gain derivable from such ventures. Thus, a survey department could not start in Northern Nigeria until 1908 because the protectorate was not generating enough revenue. The slave trade and European colonization affected all Africa and together have had a lasting imprint on inter group relations, the population distribution, the economy and the politics of contemporary Africa (Udo, 1982). According to him, some Europeans considered the slave trade and the occupation of African land to be beneficial to Africans in the belief that both slavery and colonization made it possible for Africans to be brought into the orbit o