All this contributed to the seemingly arbitrary nature of the authority exercised by the Supreme Revolutionary Council. Despite its elaborate and heavy-handed character, however, this essentially autocratic pattern of government still touched the nomadic majority of the population relatively lightly. The nomads, indeed, remained as a refractory challenge despite energetic measures designed to bring them more securely into the fold. In 1974, the eight provinces into which the state had previously been divided were reconstituted as fifteen new regions, comprising seventy-eight districts, where necessary renamed to exclude tribal (or clan) names. Emphasis was placed on the settlement (digmo) as the basic unit of association and identification in a further effort to extirpate lingering lineage loyalties. And even among the nomads efforts were made to encourage people to regard the orientation centre at a regularly frequented water point as the hub of social and political activities. Marriages, which had traditionally involved rival (and often potentially hostile) lineages, were now to be conducted at a local orientation centre, with its resident community replacing the kin of bride and groom. It would be unrealistic to expect these measures to have made much immediate impact amongst the nomads. There was thus, inevitably, a considerable gap between theory and practice in the political life of the nomadic majority of the population.

I.M. Lewis, I. M. Lewis, A Modern History of the Som…, loc. 523