'On a Mission' with Mutable Mobiles

Abstract

The task of economic planning in new nation of Nigeria in early 1960s tested limits of economic technologies: its recipes for development, its possibilities of measurement, and from differences in political economy. These dimensions of problem beset not only Nigerian politicians and civil servants but an array of international experts: each their own mission to make new economy. This story of mutable mobiles is revealed in detailed diary entries of economist Wolfgang Stolper - a man on a mission, for he was charged with making the plan. This first Nigerian economic plan was a mobile document that cycled around a changing circle of civil servants and politicians and only gathered powerful allies amongst them because of mutability its elements. This mutability rested a combination of decentralized knowledge and regional democratic preferences. And, to make a plan that would gain acceptance outside centre of calculation, these local facts and choices had to be made consistent with each other and with projected future of economy as a whole. This is where economic theory came in: it created a consistency between current and future economy so that future facts - fictions - and current facts made good travelling companions for each other in their circulations around political and economic community.