gal traffic till 31 March 1808, when the British Act of Parliament abolishing it, and forbidding every British citizen from engaging in it, came into force. But illicit traffic in slaves continued till much later. The reason for this was that though the slave-trade was abolished in 1808, slavery remained legal in British overseas possessions until 1833, when this too was abolished.

The abolition of slavery involved Great Britain in enormous

expenditure. She paid the sum of £20m, as compensation to Brit-

ish slave owners for the emancipation of their slaves. The sum of

£400,000 was paid to Spain for the right to search her ships for

slaves. In addition to cancelling a debt of £600,000, she paid Por-

tugal £300,000 for similar rights north of the equator. In spite of

all this, illicit trading in slaves lingered on in different parts of

8

THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC

HOW THEY CAME

9

Nigeria till about the end of 1850.

As we have noted, the British merchants dealt not only in slaves

but also in commodities like ivory, pepper, and palm oil. The trade

in the more regular articles of commerce grew step by step with

the slave-trade and outlasted it. After almost 300 years of contact,

the British merchants were left in no doubt as to the rich economic

potential of the territory, some of whose resources they had been

tapping along the coast of the Bights of Benin and Biafra. But the

interior of the territory remained a closed book, and its vast wealth

unexplored and unexploited.

In contemplating the exploration and exploitation of the

country's interior, the first problem that had to be solved was that

of communication. Suitable roads were non-existent. In any case,

for British adventurers who had to do about 4,000 miles of sea

voyage before reaching our shores, the safest and most welcome

routes for penetrating the hinterland would be navigable rivers.

The existence of the River Niger had been known to the West-

ern world for centuries; but its actual course remained a mystery.

With a growing awareness of the economic potentialities of Nige-

ria, British businessmen were determined to solve this mystery.

Accordingly, a body known as the African Association was formed

in Britain in 1788, with the object generally of exploring Africa,

and more particularly of discovering the course of the Niger.

The first person who offered his services to the African Asso-

ciation was John Ledyard. He had planned to discover the Niger

via Egypt. But he died in Cairo. Two other unsuccessful attempts

were made by Lucas and Houghton, both under the auspices of the

Association, in 1789 and 1791 respectively. It was four years after

the failure of the third attempt that another offer was forthcoming.

This time, it was from a young and intrepid Scottish doctor, by

name Mungo Park. His expedition was successful; and, because

of that success, he became famous and immortal. On 20 July 1796,

he discovered the Niger, which he exultantly and with poetical

afflatus described as 'the long sought for, majestic Niger, glitter-

ing to (he morning sun, as broad as the Thames at Westminster,

and flowing slowly eastward.'

Mungo Park returned home to Britain in December 1797, hav-

ing solved the mystery surrounding the direction of the Niger, but

not that surrounding its exact course and termination. There was a

legend that the Niger flowed into an inland lake or swamp. In fact,

an authoritative opinion was expressed as late as 1829 that the

Niger, 'after losing itself underground in the deserts beyond Lake

Chad, eventually debouched through marsh and quicksand into

the waters of the Mediterranean.'

Nothing, however, happened until 1805 when another expedi-

tion, under the auspices ofthe British Government and commanded

by Mungo Park, was sent out to discover the actual course and

termination of the Niger. From this expedition, Park never returned.

He, together with his four surviving and ailing white companions

and three Africa slaves, perished in 1806 near Bussa, north of Jebba,

on the self-same 'majestic Niger.'

After Mungo Park's death, various other expeditions - some

of them commanded by names well known to educated Nigerians,

like Denham, Clapperton, and Richard and John Lander - were

launched with a view to completing the task which Mungo Park

had so well begun. Final victory came in 1830 when the Landers

discovered that the 'lordly Niger' emptied itself, through unnum-

bered channels, into the Atlantic Ocean.

Thus the mystery of a great African river was solved; and in the

wake of that solution, a new era oflegitimate commerce, economic

exploitation, political subjugation, and cultural transformation

dawned on Nigeria.

Soon after the Landers had made their discovery known, McGregor

Laird -another name well known to Nigerians - proceeded to form

a company with the object oftrading on the Niger. He was a Liverpool

merchant, and by 1832 two steamers under his leadership had entered

the creeks of the Niger Delta. It was the first time that any ocean-

going craft did so. This first venture was, however, more an explora-

tion of parts of Nigeria's hinterland than a trading expedition. Laird

was only able to get as far as Lokoja. He lost eighteen of his men in

t~e process, and he himself became seriously ill.

To the British merchants and adventurers wanting to do direct

business with the hinterland of Nigeria, the problem was no longer

lack of means of access to the market. They were now harassed and

nonplussed by a fell disease -later identified as malaria - which

constantly took a heavy toll of any group of Europeans who dared

to venture beyond the Bights. However, nothing daunted, the Brit-

ish merchants perservered, and by 1860 they had established trad-

ing stations along the banks of the Niger. It is apposite to mention

that the British mercantile occupation of Nigeria at this time was

very much facilitated by the discovery in 1854 of quinnine, which

was used both as prophylactic and cure for malaria.

By 1870, there were also French merchants trading side by side

with the British on the Niger. In order to eliminate competition

among themselves and so increase their profits, and to present a

common front to their French rivals, the British firms amalgam-

ated in 1879 under the name of the United African Company. This

was changed first (in 1881) to the National African Company Lim-

ited, and later (in 1886) to the Royal Niger Company Chartered

and Limited. It was in the latter name that the amalgamated Brit-

ish firms obtained a Royal Charter dated 10 July 1886.

It must be noted that the Charter did not confer on the Royal

Niger Company monopoly of trade on the banks of the Niger, or in

any other part of Nigeria. Indeed, the Charter specifically stipulated

that' ... Nothing in this our Charter shall be deemed to authorize the

Company to set up or grant any monopoly of trade .... 'Consequently,

various other British firms were free to, and did in fact, trade side

by side with the Royal Niger Company. Under the Charter, how-

ever, the Company was made exclusively responsible for the peace

and orderly government of the entire Niger basin together with the

whole of what is now known as the Northern Provinces of Nigeria.

In other words, like the famous East India Company, the Royal

Niger Company was both a trading and a governing concern. It was

believed that it discharged its incongruous responsibilities fairly well.

It did lucrative business, and governed without excessive partiality.

It organized an armed constabulary with British officers in charge.

It instituted Courts of Justice, and appointed Sir James Marshall as

Chief Justice. It imposed customs duties and trade licences on in-

digenous and other foreign traders desiring to trade within its juris-

diction. These imposts were levied with the stated object of raising

revenue for civil and military administration, but they were not in-

10

THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC

HOW THEY CAME II

frequently used as a monopoly weapon by means of which rival

firms were completely excluded from buying and selling in the ar- .

eas under the Company's jurisdiction. In this connection, it must be

pointed out that though the Company's jurisdiction legally covered

the Niger basin and the whole of the Northern Region of Nigeria,

yet in practice its effective influence did not extend much beyond

the banks of the Niger, the Benue, and the rivers in the immediate

neighbourhood of its trading stations.

We have already seen that before the discovery of the Niger and

of the access to it from the sea, British merchants had been trading

along the coast of the Bights of Benin and Biafra. We have also seen

that after 1808 it became illegal for British citizens to engage in

slave-trade. Whi~st, as we have noted, illicit traffic in slaves contin-

ued till about 1850, law-abiding British citizens turned their atten-

tion, from 1808, to legitimate articles of trade. So that at the time

that Mungo Park, Clapperton, and the Landers were busy unravelling

the mystery of the Niger in order to make the exploration and ex-

ploitation of the interior of the country possible, legitimate trade

between Nigeria and Britain along our coast was steadily increas-

ing. The ports ofWarri, Lagos, Benin River, Old and New Calabar,

Brass, and Bonny had become scenes of increasing activity and Brit-

ish steamships brought in assortments of manufactured goods, and

carried away increasing varieties of primary commodities.

In the absence, however, of a body like the Royal Niger Com-

pany, exclusively charged with the responsibility for law and or-

der, trading activities on the Bights of Benin and Biafra became

somewhat chaotic. The members of each trading expedition were

more or less a law unto themselves. To be sure, the Bights were

frequently visited by British naval ships. But these visits had noth-

ing to do with the supervision or regulation of trading activities.

They were made mainly in connection with Britain's intensive cam-

paign against the slave trade; and partly designed to provide pro-

tection for British citizens against threats to, and physical assaults

on, their lives and property.

As time went on, however, the British merchants themselves

felt the necessity for some form of supervision and regulation of

their activities along the coast. In due course l!'ey made represen-

THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC

of this treaty, a Vice-Consul was appointed for Lagos to assist

Beecroft.

In 1855, Akintoye died and was succeeded by his son, Dosumu,

a man of weak character who soon proved his incompetence for

the office. In the absence of any head possessed of sufficient abil-

ity to control the unruly elements which composed the society of

Lagos at the time, the greatest disorder prevailed: there was no

effective protection for property; there was no effective machin-

ery for enforcing the payment of debts; traders were maltreated

and plundered; and no redress of grievances could be obtained

without bribing the officers and retainers in Dosumu's court. Be-

sides, human sacrifices were committed even in sight of the town,

whilst clandestine traffic in slaves continued in its immediate

neighbourhood. As a result, the Treaty of 1852 became, to all in-

tents and purposes, a nullity, as Dosumu's control over his people

was little more than nominal.

Moved by the necessity of interposing some checks to these

evils, which were yearly becoming worse, and satisfied that the

permanent occupation of Lagos was indispensable to the total sup-

pression of the slave-trade in the Bight of Benin, Her Majesty's

Government took the view that the only way by which order and

effective administration could be maintained in Lagos was to

change its consular status to that of a British Colony.

Accordingly, in 1861, Lagos was ceded to Her Britannic Maj-

esty; and in 1862 H. S. Freeman was appointed the first British

Governor of Lagos. Thus Lagos became the first part of Nigeria to

come under British rule, and Mr. Freeman the first British official

to preside over a colonial regime on Nigerian soil. The Anglo-

Nigerian link was now becoming stronger.

Because of our climate, and the high mortality rate among the

early European visitors to our land, Nigeria, as well as other coun-

tries of West Africa for that matter, was regarded as unsuitable for

permanent white settlement. From 1808 to the early sixties of that

century, two things appear to have sustained the interests of the

British Government in Nigeria. They were: (1) the campaign for

the suppression of slave-trade; and (2) the need to give protection

to, and regulate the activities of, British merchants trading with

12

tati,ms to this effect to their Government; and in 1849 Lord

Palfllerston appointed John Beecroft as Consul for the Bights of

Ber'in and Biafra. By this appointment, Great Britain established

her first-ever diplomatic link with Nigeria.

J3efore his appointment as Consul, Beecroft was a British Resi-

dent in Fernando Po, which, with Spain's consent, had come un-

der British rule in 1827. But in 1844 Spain re-asserted its right by

again planting its flag on Fernando Po. As a result, Fernando Po

was restored to Spanish rule; and Beecroft, who was then the Brit-

ish Resident there, was appointed by the Spanish Government as

the Governor of the island. It was from his gubernatorial seat in

Fernando Po that he was expected to discharge the consular re-

sponsibility laid upon him by the British Government 'to regulate

the legal trade between the ports of Benin, Brass, New and Old

Calabar, Bonny, Bimbia, and the Cameroons' .

[n 1845 Kosoko, grandson ofOlogun Kutere, had deposed King

Akintoye and usurped the throne of Lagos, after a very savage and

bloody civil war. Akintoye fled to Abeokuta, from where he went

to 13adagry. After his ascension to the throne, Kosoko boosted, in

his domain, the slave-trade, which had already suffered a severe

setback as a result of Britain's anti-slave-trade naval operations.

He was also openly hostile and unfriendly to the British.

Just as the British were getting thoroughly fed up with Kosoko's

uncompromising encouragement of. the slave-trade, Akintoye ad-

dressed a beautifully worded petition to Beecroft in 1851 in which,

among other things, he prayed the British Government to restore

hini to his throne, and also promised 'to abolish the slave-trade at

Lagos, and to establish and carryon lawful trade, especially with

the English merchants.' Akintoye's prayer was strongly backed by

the Egbas.

In view of all this, and of the intransigence ofKosoko, Beecroft

visted Lagos in 1851 with a 'naval force of four hundred men.'

H~ drove King Kosoko from Lagos and restored the exiled

A'intoye as the King of Lagos. On 1 January 1852, the latter signed

a treaty in which he undertook to abolish the slave-trade in his

tel'l'itories, and to afford protection to 'Missionaries or Ministers

of the Gospel, of whatever nation or country.' After the execution

HOW THEY CAME

13

14

THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC

HOW THEY CAME

15

West African countries. Even these self-imposed assignments were

almost abdicated by Britain in 1865. On 26 June of that year, the

House of Commons adopted the recommendation ofa Committee

to the following effect:

That all further extension of territory or assumption of government, or new treaties

offering any protection to native tribes, would be inexpedient, and that the object

of our policy should be to encourage in the natives the exercise of those qualities

which may render it possible for us more and more to transfer to them the

administration of all the governments, with a view to our ultimate withdrawal

from all, except, probably, Sierra Leone.

But whilst Britain was contemplating 'ultimate withdrawal' from

West Africa, France was frantically busy trying to extend the

spheres of her influence there. The Germans too were beginning

to think that they also had a rendezvous with imperial destiny in

West Africa. Furthermore, by 1880, the scramble for Africa had

begun in real earnest. Britain lost no time in steeling her wavering

will. In 1884, the rival European powers assembled at a confer-

ence in Berlin under the chairmanship of Otto von Bismarck. At

that conference, the imperial powers reached a settlement about

the final demarcation of their respective spheres of influence in

Africa.

It would appear, however, that the settlement was an uneasy

one. For, in spite of it, the French, the British, and the Germans

continued to intrigue against one another for an extension of their

spheres of influence. In particular, the Germans felt that their great

leader von Bismarck had not pressed their claim sufficiently at the

Berlin Conference. As a result, there were treaty-making offensives

all over the place. Different methods were employed to induce or

coerce our people to agree to place themselves and their territories

under British protection. Bribery, cajolery, intimidation, military

aggression - any of these was used as occasion demanded, and

without the slightest compunction.

As time went on, it became clear to the British Government

that the Royal Niger Company was unequal to the mounting de-

mands of the imperial rivalry in which the British and the French,

in particular. had locked horns. To start with, the effective influ-

ence of the Company, as we have noted, had never extended very

much beyond the banks of the Niger, Benue, and the rivers in the

immediate vicinity of their trading stations. Besides, as a trading

concern with naturally very limited resources, and whose primary

object, in any case, was to make the maximum possible profit, the

Company was very ill-equipped, and could not, in the circum-

stances, be expected to provide the financial, administrative, dip-

lomatic, and military wherewithal which the new Anglo-French

imperialist competition warranted. Furthermore, the other firms

trading along the banks of the Niger had made complaints of rno-

nopolistic practices, in breach of its Charter, against the Company.

Because of all this, the Company's Charter was revoked with ef-

fect from I January 1900, when the British Government assumed

control of all the territories formerly placed under the jurisdiction

of the Company.

Under the instrument of revocation, compensation was paid to

the Royal Niger Company as follows:

(1) £450,000 for expenses incurred in connection with ad-

ministration.

(2) £115,000 for buildings and stores taken over for military

and administrative purposes; and

(3) £250,000 public debt.

In addition, the British Government undertook to impose royal-

ties on minerals won in the area lying between and north of the

Niger and Benue, with the exception of Bornu Province, and to

pay to the Company for a period of 99 years from the revocation

of its Charter, half of the receipts of such royalties. In 1949 the

sum of £2i/zmillion. was paid by the Nigerian Government to the

United Africa Company Limited - successor of the Royal Nige-

ria Company - as full compensation for the surrender by it of its

right to a moiety of royalties for the unexpired period of 50 years.

By I January 1900, the colonization of Nigeria had been almost

fully accomplished. The country was, at that date, administered

by Britain, either directly or indirectly, in three separate units:

(I) The Colony and Protectorate of Lagos which consisted of

the areas of authority of the present Western State and

Lagos State Governments, excluding Egba Division.

(2) The Protectorate of Southern Nigeria which comprised

roughly the areas of authority of the present three Eastern

States, and of the Midwestern State Government.

(3) The Protectorate of Northern Nigeria which was more or

less the same as the present six Northern States.

There was also an indigenous sovereign state which constituted

a tiny enclave in this huge dependency. It was known as the Egba

United Government. It came into existence in 1893, and its area of

authority was coterminous with what is now known as the Egba

Division of Abeokuta Province.

In 1906 the Colony and Protectorate of Lagos and the Protec-

torate of Southern Nigeria were merged into one administrative

unit known as the Colony and Protectorate of Southern Nigeria.

On I January 1914, the latter and the Protectorate of Northern

Nigeria were amalgamated to form the Colony and Protectorate of

Nigeria. On 16 September 1914, under circumstances which could

not be regarded as altogether free from the taints of fraudulent

diplomatic manoeuvres and duress, the Alake of Abeokuta was

made to surrender the sovereignty of his tiny domain, and to place

it 'unreservedly under the Government of the Protectorate ofNi-

geria.' By this act, the colonization of the whole of Nigeria by

Britain was consummated.

"16

THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC

2

How They Ruled

1. From Lugard to Richards

W

E have seen that by 1 January 1900, four distinct

administrative units had emerged. They were: (1) The Colony

and Protectorate of Lagos under a Governor; (2) The Protectorate

of Southern Nigeria under a High Commissioner; (3) The

Protectorate of Northern Nigeria under a High Commissioner; and

(4) The Egba United Government under the Alake of Abeokuta

and his Chiefs. British officials in charge of the first three were

responsible to the Colonial Office. But this had not always been

the case.

Before 1900, British officials in Nigeria were responsible to

three different authorities. Those in the Niger Coast Protectorate,

later known as the Protectorate of Southern Nigeria, were

responsible to the Foreign Office; those in the Colony and

Protectorate of Lagos, to the Colonial Office; while those in charge

of the areas which later became the Protectorate of Northern Nigeria

were responsible to the Board of Directors of the Royal Niger

Company. This extra-ordinary administrative set-up was

streamlined in 1900, and fully rationalized in 1914 under the

Governor-Generalship of Lord (then Sir Frederick) Lugard.

An imperialist of a very deep dye, Lord Lugard was an

exceedingly able and resourceful administrator, and a brilliant

soldier. To him, more than to anyone else, belongs the credit and

discredit for setting Nigeria on a course which Nigerian nationalists

and patriots feel themselves obliged to pursue, albeit with mixed

feelings, till the present day. We shall have more to say on this

assertion in Chapter 4. For the time being, let us try to learn, among

other things, a little more about this man and his doings in Nigeria.

His first visit to Nigeria was in 1894. He was then a soldier with

the rank of Captain; and he had come here, on behalf of the Royal

Niger Company, to negotiate treaties with the Chiefs of Borgu. It

17