Already have a license? Sign in to view the collection. This collection contains annual reports compiled by successive British colonial administrations in Nigeria and Cameroon. The documents cover the period from the establishment of the Colony and Protectorate of Lagos to the creation of an independent Nigerian state. The Annual Departmental Reports are therefore a useful resource for those who wish to study the development and eventual dissolution of British imperialism in West Africa.
The reports are divided into ten sections for convenience. It was hoped that replacing Kosoko with Akitoye, a rival claimant to the throne, would bring an end to the slave trade, stabilize the region for the spread of 'legitimate' commerce for the expansion of British interests. On the 26th of December , with the endorsement of the influential Lord Palmerston, the British Foreign Secretary, a bombardment of Lagos was carried out and King Kosoko was forced to flee. After the bombardment of Lagos, Kosoko was replaced by Akitoye.
Unfortunately, over the next ten years Akitoye and his successor, Dosunmu Docemo were unable to bring the stability to the region that the British had hoped for, and, in , Lagos was annexed as a British colony under the direct political control of a British governor through the Treaty of Cession signed on 6 August. From Lagos, the British made their way inland, slowly bringing the rest of Yorubaland under British rule — applying force when necessary.
In the port cities of the Bight of Biafra, the promotion of anti-slavery and British trading interests was a key aspect of the British rhetoric that led to colonization. Furthermore, in at the Berlin Conference, the European powers attempted to resolve their conflicts of interest by allotting areas of exploitation in Africa.
This led to the formation of the Oil Rivers Protectorate by Britain after the consul, Hewett, had traversed the entire coastal region from Calabar into the western delta convincing local rulers, through the power of his office, to sign treaties of protection. In the territory was redesignated the Niger Coast Protectorate and was expanded to include the region from Calabar to Lagos Colony and Protectorate, including the hinterland, and northward up the Niger River as far as Lokoja, the headquarters of the Royal Niger Company.
With the Niger delta and Calabar effectively under British control, all that was needed was to shore up interests on the navigable reaches of the Niger and Benue against encroachment by France and Germany. For this, they turned to adopted a different approach and turned to Sir George Goldie.
Among the British trading companies, whose activities had far-reaching consequences for Nigeria, was the United Africa Company, founded by George Goldie in Under Goldie's direction, the Royal Niger Company was instrumental in depriving France and Germany of access to the region.
The Royal Niger Company established its headquarters far inland at Lokoja. From there, it pretended to assume responsibility for the administration of areas along the Niger and Benue rivers where it maintained depots.
The company interfered in the territory along the Niger and the Benue and negotiated treaties with Sokoto, Gwandu, and Nupe that were interpreted as guaranteeing exclusive access to trade in return for the payment of annual tribute.
Although treaties were signed with rulers as far north as Sokoto by , actual British control was confined to the coastal area and the immediate vicinity of Lokoja until The Royal Niger Company had access to the territory from Lokoja extending along the Niger and Benue rivers above their confluence, but there was no effective control, even after punitive expeditions against Bida and Ilorin in The clear intent was to occupy the Sokoto Caliphate, but for that purpose the Royal Niger Company was not deemed to be a sufficient instrument of imperialism.
The Niger Delta people have been emasculated by successive Nigerian leaders and multinational corporations and left to their own devices. This despite living in one of the most resource-rich places in the world. Their militancy or insurgency is merely a symptom of corporate environmental irresponsibility and degradation.
These include gun-wielding kidnappers and marauders. Then there are corrupt and lawless politicians. They spearhead a structure of police and military brutality, poor healthcare, abuse of power, poverty, and unemployment.
Within such a disheveled system, it is not surprising that elections turn violent or brutal as opposing groups jostle for the capture of the company-state. We propose a system of peace building and societal restructuring based on the legitimate goals and agency of all parties involved. The Norwegian sociologist Johan Galtung described this kind of peace building as one that legitimizes the affected parties as agents in their own right.
They are therefore able to identify their needs and goals and work through their contradictions and differences without calling in outside experts. This mode of peace building—or conflict transformation—places enormous power and responsibility on the people affected by social injustices and violence.
The EndSARS protests gaining momentum in Nigeria may be a step in the direction of social change led by young people concerned about the structural and direct violence of the corporate state in Nigeria.
Critical and emancipatory peace-building holds enormous potential for rethinking the terms of violent relations in Nigeria. This rethinking would entail a serious mental effort of self criticism and appraisal. Indirect Rule was the brain child of Lord Lugard. In it, he identified the two most important administrative principles to employ in ruling alien people.
The first was the principle of decentralization, in which he stressed importance of recognizing and ruling people through their indigenous authorities. He argued that the role of the British officers, except in critical areas such as taxation, military forces and the alienation of land, was to advise, not demand. The second principle, was the principle of continuity. Indirect Rule which begun as administrative expedient in Northern Nigeria, would eventually be imposed throughout their territories of British Africa.
The British set up separate administrative machines for each of their colonies. At the head of each colony was the governor, who was responsible to the Secretary of State at the colonial office.
He administered the colony with assistance of a partly nominated legislative council and executive council of officials. Most of the laws of the colony were drawn up by the government or his council. Each colony was divided into regions under a regional or chief administrator. The regions were divided into provinces which were controlled by the provincial commissioners.
Each province was divided into districts under leadership of a district commissioner. Each district was divided into one or more traditional states which were ruled by traditional rulers.
Indirect Rule saw to the mapping out of relatively large areas which were subject to single authority: Smaller ethnic groups were included in the jurisdiction of their larger, more highly organized neighbors. And district heads, especially in Igbo and Ibibiolands, Nigeria, were appointed to defined areas without much consideration to their relationship with the populations under their authority.
Indirect Rule sustained tyrannical and corrupt governments and promoted divisions in populations: In Northern Nigeria, the system strengthened the emirates, therefore increasing the possibility of revolution by the oppressed peasantry. In Igboland and Ibibiolands, warrant chiefs were created to fill the leadership positions, because the Igbo and Ibibios had no chiefs, instead they had egalitarian systems of government which recognized authority as coming directly from the people.
These warrant chiefs were corrupt and miniature tyrants. Indirect Rule weakened traditional rule: The traditional paramount ruler in British West Africa was not really the head of social and political order.
Rather, he was a subordinate of the British overlord who used him to implement unpopular measures such as compulsory labor, taxation, and military enlistment. Moreover, the British had the power to dispose of traditional rulers and replace them with their own nominees.
And the British often interfered with existing paramountcies by breaking them up and raising subordinate chiefs to the status of paramount chiefs.
The British District officers dictated to traditional rulers and treated them as employees of government rather than supervising and advising them. Members of ruling families were not encouraged to attend new schools that were introduced for fear they may become denationalized. In northern Nigeria and northern Ghana, the people as a result were not given the sort of education that would enable them cope with new problems of colonial society, thus making them even more dependent on District Commissioners and British Technical Officers.
The greatest fault of the Indirect Rule system, however, was its complete exclusion of the West African educated elite from local government: the educated elite were excluded from both Native Administration and colonial government, and thus became transformed into an alienated class. In conclusion, Indirect Rule was implemented because it was cheap and practical.
It preserved old conservative authorities who were ill equipped by education and temperament to cope with the changing environment. They were colonial subjects trained to work in administrative positions. First, to cut down on costs by replacing French manpower.
This would never really happen however. In French West Africa, the colonies were integral parts of the metropolitan country, and were also considered overseas provinces. West Africans were regarded as subjects of France, and like children were expected to have patriotic duties to their mother country.
West Africans that were deemed civilized were rewarded by conferring the privileged status of French citizen on them. They must also have a merited a position in the French service for at least ten years; and have evidence of good character and possess a means of existence. They must also have been decorated with the Legion of Honor, a military award.
The advantages of French citizenship were many. A West African Frenchman could commute compulsory labor for a monetary payment. The person could be appointed to any post in France and in colony.
He would however fall out of favor with West Africans because the French colonial government used him to forcibly conscript West Africans to fight for the French army during WWI.
However, the assimilation policy was abandoned as impractical. By , only eighty thousand of the fifteen million French West Africans had become French citizens. Seventy-eight thousand of those had because French citizens because they were born in one of the communes. Thus, in the s, the policy was changed to the policy of association, which was advocated as the most appropriate for French Africa.
On paper, association reorganized the society supposedly to achieve maximum benefit for both the French and the West African. In practice however, scholars have argued that this policy was like the association of a horse and its rider, since the French would at all times dictate the direction that the development should take and determine what would be of mutual benefit to themselves and West Africans.
The colonial belief in the superiority of French civilization was reflected in the judicial system, their attitude toward indigenous law, indigenous authorities, indigenous rights to land, and the educational program. They condemned everything African as primitive and barbaric. The French employed a highly centralized and authoritarian system of administration. At the head of Federation was governor-general who answered to minister of colonies in Paris, took most of his orders from France, and governed according to French laws.
At the head of each colony was the Lt. The Lt. The French policy of assimilation, was a policy of direct rule through appointed officials. Like British, they divided their colonies into regions and districts.
The colonies were divided into cercles under the commandants du cercles. Cercles were divided into subdivisions under Chiefs du Subdivision. Subdivisions were divided into cantons under African chiefs.
Portugal, one of the poorest of the European colonist nations in Africa operated what amounted to a closed economic system in their African colonies. They created a system which welded their West African colonies to mother country, Portugal, both politically and economically. As such, their territories in West Africa were considered overseas provinces and integral part of Portugal.
One underlying connection of all West African Portuguese colonies was the presence of relatively large numbers of Portuguese in the colonies, especially after when there was a full-scale emigration program from Portugal, especially to Angola. The Portuguese operated a very authoritarian and centralized system of government. At the top of government was the Prime Minister. All of these offices were in Portugal. There were also Governors of Districts, Administrators of Circumscricoes , Chefes de posto and at the very bottom of the governmental hierarchy, the African Chiefs.
As in the British case, the Portuguese corrupted the systems of chieftaincies. They sacked chiefs who resisted colonial rule in Guine, and replaced them with more pliant chiefs. Thus, the historical authority of chiefs and their relationships with subjects was corrupted to one of authoritarianism which reproduced the authoritarian system of government in the Estado Novo dictatorship Real authority was held by the Portuguese council of ministers, which was controlled by the prime minister.
The direction of colonial policy was determined by the overseas ministry, aided by the advisory overseas council and two subsidiary agencies. The governor-general appointed the chief official resident for the colony. The chief official of the resident for the colony had far reaching executive and legislative power.
The Circumscricoes and Chefes de posto roughly corresponded to the British provincial and district officers.
They collected taxes, were judges and finance officers. West African chiefs were subordinate to the European officers with little power to act on their own. Moreover, they could be replaced at any time by a higher Portuguese power. The assimilado policy held that all persons, no matter their race, would be accorded this status if they met the specific qualifications. Similar to the French policy of assimilation, the Portuguese West African had to adopt a European mode of life; speak and read Portuguese fluently; be a Christian; compete military service; and have a trade or profession.
However, only a small number Portuguese West Africans became assimilados because of the difficulty in achieving this station. Additionally, the Portuguese did not support education in their colonies. They built few secondary schools, and almost entirely neglected elementary education.
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