The Sudan Handbook

tRaditional authoRity, loCal GoVERnmEnt & JustiCE 195

the 1980s there was discussion of a wider reinstatement of Native

Administration, but it would be the National Salvation government that

would finally see this to fruition in the 1990s. Nowadays the role of

the Native Administration no longer involves tax collection, and varies

across northern Sudan: it is strongest in Darfur, Kordofan, Red Sea and

Kassala; it plays a limited role, particularly among pastoralists and in land

disputes, in the riverain and eastern areas; and it is largely irrelevant in

Gezira and Khartoum states, except in terms of the displaced community

leaders appointed by the government.

Some have seen the revival of and intervention in the Native Admin-

istration by the current Ingaz government as a deliberately divisive

and regressive step, calculated to foment inter-ethnic competition and

conflict. Certainly some of the interventions have had this effect. But

the reinstatement of Native Administration in the 1990s was also both a

culmination of the gradual recognition of the post-1971 failings of local

administration and justice, and a characteristically pragmatic attempt to

gain popular support for the Islamist Revolution, particularly from the

rural areas. Where the Nimeiri regime had sought to destroy local elites,

the NIF and NCP has tried instead to co-opt and reshape them. It appears

to have been particularly successful in rivalling and weakening the old

patronage networks of the traditional sectarian parties. But the regime’s

programme of social engineering in the 1990s went further than pragma-

tism in seeking to train the Native Administration to proselytize the

Islamist revolution and mobilize mujahidin to fight in the south, as well as

reviving the political and security functions of Native Administration.

The NIF government also replaced the old structure of provinces and

districts with a new federal system of twenty-six states, divided into

localities. Each state (wilaya) is headed by a governor (wali) and each

locality (mahaliya) by a commissioner (mutamad), with councils and

popular committees at both levels. The commitment to federalism and

state autonomy was further reinforced in the 2005 Comprehensive Peace

Agreement (CPA), but has not been realized on the ground. State gover-

nors have tended to be preoccupied with security and relations with the

The Sudan Handbook, edited by John Ryle, Justin Willis, Suliman Baldo and Jok Madut Jok. © 2011 Rift Valley Institute and contributors central government; the latter maintains federal immunities allowing

(www.riftvalley.net).