Nigerian Colonial History by Shola Adenekan

The country now known as Nigeria is a collection of old kingdoms, sultanates and clans. It is also known as an amalgamation of over 200 different ethno-linguistic groups, merged in 1914 by British colonizers. Three main groups – Igbo, Yoruba and Hausa – make up almost 60% of the population. Although over 250 languages are spoken in the country, English as been the official language since colonial rule, while many Nigerians speak and understand Pidgin, a combination of indigenous languages and English that developed through centuries of contact with British merchants and colonial authorities.

For centuries, many in the costal areas had traded with Europeans as equal partners. At first, commerce was centred on ivory, beads and agricultural products in exchange for European goods. But from the late seventeenth century onward, the slave trade became more prominent as European settlers in the American a sought slaves to work on their plantations. The increased demand for trade in the New World fuelled numerous conflicts, with European traders supplying arms to local slave raiders, leading to the fall of many states and kingdoms.

In the South west, where Death and the King’s Horseman is set, Anglo-Nigerian relations began along the coastline in the fifteenth century. But it was not until the 1830s that British explorers had direct contact with people in the interior of the old Oyo empire.

When the British arrived in the hinterland, the empire the empire was on its last legs after losing some states to the Muslim forces from the northern Fulani Sultanate of Sokoto, and through internal struggles. But the early nineteenth century was not just about warfare; trade and services with British and European traders increased.

And with the abolition of the trans-Atlantic slave trade in the earlier part of that century, British interests in Nigeria changed: Christian missionaries wanted the indigenous population converted to the ideas of Christian “civilization,” while British traders lobbied hard for British control over trade and external relations. British officials, who had by now forcefully taken control of Lagos, in southwest Nigeria, wanted to curtail the colonial expansion of both Germany and France in West Africa. Added to the mix were educated former slaves returning to their ancestral homeland from the Americas and Europe.  For the local rulers, who feared the gradual ebbing of their power and the erosion of Yoruba culture and way of life, the main interest was in British commerce and military support.

All these led to the establishment in 1893 of a colonial administration based in Lagos.

In the South East and the Niger Delta, the end of the slave trade brought about a resurgence in trade in farm produce. British missionaries, merchants and political officials also sought to consolidate their interests against powerful local rulers. The influential King Pepple of Bonny was deposed and King Jaja of Opobo deported to the Caribbean.

The northern region also witnessed significant change. For many centuries, the Islamic Sokoto caliphate had dominated a vast area in the north. Fearing France’s colonial expansion from Sudan, the British sought to increase their own interest. After many attempts, Sokoto, the heartbeat of caliphate, fell to the British troops in 1903.

With the capture of Sokoto and the defeat of Aro in Igbo in he South East, British officials created three colonial administration points: the Colony and Protectorate of Lagos, the Protectorate of Northern Nigeria, and the Protectorate of Southern Nigeria. The three regions were merged in 1914.

Using the existing local political structures to meet their needs, British officials introduced ‘indirect rule’ – local rulers controlled their subjects while they in turn served at the mercy of colonial officials.

Colonial rule not only forcibly brought together ethnic groups but also changed the power dynamic. If an ‘indirect ruler’ fell out of favour, he would be displaced, regardless of the historical and traditional basis of his authority. This transformation also led to increased exportation of minerals and agricultural products, the introduction of western education, and the emergence of a new middle class elite schooled in European languages, who displaced the old-established traditional chiefs. The new African middle class were used for low-level administration duties. Playing only a subservient role to British officials, many struggled to adapt to an overbearing, racist colonial rule.

From the 1930s onward, a new group of young Nigerians, mostly educated in Britain and the United States, began to agitate for greater involvement of Nigerians in heir own governance and later for self-rule and independence. The three main ethnic groups produced the three main agitators for self-rule: Nnamdi Azikiwe, Obafemi Aawolowo, and Sir Abubaker Tafawa Balewa. At a conference in London in 1954, a timetable for self-rule was negotiated between leaders of Nigerian nationalism and British colonial officials, culminating, in 1960, in independence for Nigeria as a federation, with Lagos as its capital.

Shola Adenekan is the editor of thenewblackmagazine.com and a PhD candidate at d1e Centre of West African Studies, University of Birmingham.