The officials of the central government formed the imperial council, which discussed all the problems of the empire. A chancellor-secretary took the minutes of the council, dealt with the sovereign's correspondence, and saw to the drawing up and execution of his charters.
The hi koi was the 'master of the water' or commander of the fleet. His function was one of the oldest and most important, because of the role played by the Niger in the life of ancient Songhay. The hi koi became one of the highest dignitaries of court, a kind of minister of home affairs who controlled the governors of the provinces.
The fari mondzo or mondzo was the minister of agriculture. It is very likely that he was concerned with the management of the many imperial estates which were scattered throughout the empire and which brought in large revenues every year [….] Certainly the fari mondzo had to settle disputes over land. Similar functions were performed by the hari farma (commissioner of waters and lakes), the sao farma (commissioner of forests), and the wanei farma, who was responsible for property.
The kalissa farma was responsible for guarding the treasury and for the sovereign's expenses. There is no doubt that he was in charge of the treasury of coins set up by Askiya Däwüd.
[Also there were the] korei farma, the minister in charge of white foreigners, and the imperial commissioners sent periodically by the emperor into the provinces to settle urgent problems, to levy special duties on the traders of the big towns or to supervise local officials and provincial administrators.
The Songhay adopted two systems of government according to the territories concerned. The first group comprised those conquered provinces which were governed by chiefs appointed by the askiya and subject at any moment to dismissal by him. These governors, who formed a hierarchy, exercised all sovereign power except for justice, which was entrusted to the kadi. They were known by the titles of fari, farma or farba, derived from the Mandingo institution of farin or governor.
The empire was divided into two major provinces, Kurmina in the west and Dendi in the south-east. The post of kurmina fari or kanfari was held, with very few exceptions, by princes of the royal blood and indeed often by the imperial crown-prince. The kurmina fari,who lived at Tendirma, ranked second in the state. We do not know exactly what the limits of his jurisdiction were. He seems to have been in charge of all the provinces west of Timbuktu[….]
The Dendi Fari, the governor of Dendi, supervised all the provinces of Dendi, that is, the south-eastern part of the empire. He ranked third in the state[….] He was responsible for the defence of the empire's southern borderlands. Other secondary provinces were governed by chiefs appointed by the askiya. These included the Bara Koi, the Dirma Koi, the Hombori Koi, the Arabinda Farma, the Benga Farma, the Kala Sha and the Baghena Farma[….]
Trading towns like Timbuktu, Jenne, Teghazza and Walata enjoyed a certain autonomy under their koi or mondzo chiefs. Their commercial and craft activities and the size of their population required the presence of many administrative officials. In Timbuktu, besides the kadi responsible for justice and the Timbuktu Koi, or headman, there was a large staff which included the asara mondzo - a kind of superintendent responsible for policing markets and towns and for carrying out the sentences passed by the kadi — weights and measures inspectors, tax inspectors in the markets, customs officials from Kabara, masters of the various guilds, the chiefs of the various ethnic subdivisions (grouped together by neighbourhoods) and those in charge of the straw huts of the suburbs. All these constituted the kernel of an efficient administration in the large towns.
