The Roots of Political Instability in Nigeria by E.C. Ejiogu

Author:E.C. Ejiogu [Ejiogu, E.C.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Africa, General
ISBN: 9781317016960
Google: aRWgCwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2016-02-24T16:13:07+00:00

PART III

Advent and Prospects of a Beleaguered Supra-National State

Chapter 7

Authority Patterns and Governance in Colonial Nigeria

The British occupied the Niger basin gradually and in roughly six distinct stages that spanned the nineteenth century (Anene 1966, Dusgate 1985, Tamuno 1966, 1972). (i) The Yoruba Kingdom of Lagos was bombarded, annexed and made a Crown colony in the period 1851–61. (ii) The period 1861–90 witnessed the consolidation of British authority and the transformation of the Lagos Crown colony. (iii) In the period 1890–1914, the British embarked on a systematic alteration of the authority patterns that were established in the Crown colony. (iv) Officially, colonial rule was proclaimed in the rest of the Niger basin in the period 1896–1913. (v) Lugardism evolved in the upper Niger in the period 1900–12, and (vi) the period 1914–60 marked the transformation of colonial authority patterns in the entire Niger basin on the aegis of the Nigerian supra-national state.

Throughout the course of their intervention in the Niger basin, the British were confronted by a variety of issues that stemmed from a diversity of factors peculiar to the West African sub-region. Foremost amongst the diversity of factors were the distinct socio-political arrangements in each of the several nationalities that inhabit the Niger basin. Indeed, when taken either singly or collectively, most of the choices made by the British in their quest to build Nigeria were dictated and even forced on them by the diversity of those extraneous factors peculiar to the Niger basin and its diverse and distinct inhabitants.

In the initial stage, the British were only able to establish different administrative polities that incorporated a part of Yorubaland, Igboland, and Fulani-ruled Hausaland respectively. The Nigerian supra-national state is the eventual outcome of their extensive efforts to bring the Niger basin and its inhabitants under a single political arrangement.

Geography and historical factors that stemmed partly from the slave trade played their own crucial roles in Britain’s intervention in the Niger basin. Specifically speaking, the existence of a natural seaport in Eko (Lagos) and Britain’s resolve to enforce the abolition of the slave trade on Africa’s West Coasts are some of the factors that helped to expose the Yoruba kingdom of Eko (which the Portuguese called Lagos) to British annexation. The natural seaport at the lagoon entrance attracted the Royal Navy to make Lagos a staging point in Britain’s anti-slavery endeavors on the West Coast of Africa. In turn the presence and protection of the Royal Navy then attracted freed slaves and their descendants from Freetown, Sierra Leone—the Saro—and Brazil—the Amaro—to resettle themselves in Lagos and its environs. The freed slaves and what they represented constituted the most important factor that favored the evolution of British authority in the Kingdom of Lagos.

The establishment of Crown colony rule in Lagos made it easy for the British to expand their authority into the rest of Yorubaland mostly “through a series of judicial agreements signed with a number of indigenous rulers” (Adewoye 1971: 627). Thus, unlike in Igboland and Hausaland, in Yorubaland the

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