As a further step toward independence, the Governor's Executive Council was merged with the Council of Ministers in 1957 to form the all-Nigerian Federal Executive Council. Recovery came quickly and improvements in port facilities and the transportation infrastructure during World War I furthered economic development. Further dislocation accompanied the outbreak of World War I. The Action Group was largely the creation of Chief Obafemi Awolowo, General Secretary of Egbe Omo Oduduwa and leader of the Nigerian Produce Traders' Association. Revolts in against water rates and the alienation of indigenous land in 1908 and 1911 served to unite native African elites and working class residents. The NPC federal parliamentary leader, Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, was appointed Prime Minister of Nigeria. These policies met with ongoing resistance. Ouidah (now part of Benin) and Lagos were the major ports on the coast. After the British government assumed direct control of the Royal Niger Companys territories, the northern areas were renamed the Protectorate of Northern Nigeria, and the land in the Niger delta and along the lower reaches of the river was added to the Niger Coast Protectorate, which was renamed the Protectorate of Southern Nigeria. Despite these difficulties, the Action Group rapidly built an effective organisation. Regional administrations also varied widely in the quality of local personnel and in the scope of the operations they were willing to undertake. It soon gained a virtual monopoly over trade along the River[11]. In 1916 Lugard formed the Nigerian Council, a consultative body that brought together six traditional rulersincluding the Sultan of Sokoto, the Emir of Kano and the Oba of Beninto represent all parts of the colony. Indigenous Resistance to New Colonialism. The British, when faced with dissent, tended to grant political reforms in an effort to dispel the attractiveness of more-radical . Colonial Nigeria was ruled by the British Empire from the mid-nineteenth century until 1960 when Nigeria achieved independence. [67], The Colonial Office, where Lugard was still held in high regard, accepted that changes might be due in the south, but it forbade fundamental alteration of procedures in the north. British soap and cosmetics manufacturers tried to obtain land concessions for growing oil palms, but these were refused. In 1900, the Southern Nigeria Protectorate and Northern Nigeria Protectorate passed from company hands to the Crown. He also led the Nigerian National Democratic Party, which dominated elections in Lagos from its founding in 1922 until the ascendancy of the National Youth Movement in 1938. After the Berlin Conference of 1884, Britain announced the formation of the Oil Rivers Protectorate, which included the Niger Delta and extended eastward to Calabar, where the British Consulate General was relocated from Fernando Po. In 1946 a new constitution was approved by the British Parliament at Westminster and promulgated in Nigeria. They were instrumental in the development of government diplomacy with the traditional rulers; they spread government propaganda among the indigenous people; and they assisted colonial officials in parleying with native forces at war with government troops. The emirs gave support to limited modernization largely from fears of the unsettling presence of southerners in the north, and by observing the improvements in living conditions in the South. Whereas Lugard had applied lessons learned in the north to the administration of the south, Clifford was prepared to extend to the north practices that had been successful in the south. Nigeria is a good example. Otherwise, the Governor-General's office was essentially ceremonial. By extending the elective principle and by providing for a central government with a Council of Ministers, the Macpherson Constitution gave renewed impetus to party activity and to political participation at the national level. In the year 1901, Nigeria officially became a part of the huge British Empire. The cleavage between the Yoruba and the Igbo was accentuated by their competition for control of the political machinery. Pre-colonial southern Nigeria was an _____ societey. The southern protectorate was divided into two provinces in 1939Western and Easternand in 1954 they, along with the northern protectorate, were renamed the Western, Eastern, and Northern regions as part of Nigerias reconstruction into a federal state. The Colonial Office approved most of Lugard's plan, but balked at authorising him to pass laws without their approval. [38][39], In 1892 the British Armed Forces set out to fight the Ijebu Kingdom, which had resisted missionaries and foreign traders. Critics, including representatives of the Middle Belt who resented Muslim domination, were relegated to small, peripheral parties or to inconsequential separatist movements.[85]. Village Heads were paid 10 shillings for conscripts, and fined 50 if they failed to supply. The delegation was led by Balewa of the NPC and included party leaders Awolowo of the Action Group, Azikiwe of the NCNC, and Bello of the NPC; they were also the premiers of the Western, Eastern and Northern regions, respectively. He was contemptuous of the educated and Westernised African elite found more in the South, and he recommended transferring the capital from Lagos, the cosmopolitan city where the influence of these people was most pronounced, to Kaduna in the north. The Kikuyu people of Kenya, like most Africans, were laborers with the women doing most work at home while the men found work across the country. In the 1700s, the British Empire and other European powers had settlements and forts in West Africa but had not yet established the full-scale plantation colonies which existed in the Americas. British merchants led the trade in palm oil, while the Portuguese and others continued the slave trade. It is not a federal state with federal Executive, Legislature and finances, like the Leewards. Read published a Memorandum on British possessions in West Africa, which remarked upon the "inconvenient and unscientific boundaries" between Lagos Colony, the Niger Coast Protectorate and the Royal Niger Company. These courts contained majorities British members and represented a new level of presumptive British sovereignty in the Bight of Biafra. [11] In 1891, the African Banking Corporation founded the Bank of British West Africa in Lagos.[33]. Slaves formerly had been traded for European goods, especially guns and gunpowder, but now the British encouraged trade in palm oil in the Niger delta states, ostensibly to replace the trade in slaves. Oil income was still marginal, but the prospects for continued economic expansion appeared bright and accentuated political rivalries on the eve of independence. It continued to enjoy special privileges and maintained a de facto monopoly over commerce. Author. His mission failed, but Park and his party covered more than 1,500 kilometres (930mi), passing through the western portions of the Sokoto Caliphate, before drowning when their boats overturned in rapids near Bussa. The NPC continued to represent the interests of the traditional order in the pre-independence deliberations. Colonial official A. J. Harding commented in 1913: Sir F. Lugard's proposal contemplates a state which it is impossible to classify. Local rulers continued to administer their territories, but consular authorities assumed jurisdiction for the equity courts established earlier by the foreign mercantile communities. Newspapers, some of which were published before World War I, provided coverage of nationalist views. In consideration of the foregoing, the said National African Company (Limited) bind themselves not to interfere with any of the native laws or customs of the country, consistently with the maintenance of order and good government [and] agree to pay native owners of land a reasonable amount for any portion they may require. Jaja of Opobo allied with hrs old friends namely Alobo and Onaba to resist the British colonialists in the Niger Delta states. The pulpits of the independent congregations became avenues for the free expression of critics of colonial rule. It was supported not only by the income from huge agricultural surpluses but also by a new range of direct and indirect taxes imposed during the 1950s. At the turn of the century, top wages were four bags of salt (company retail price, 3s 9d) for a month of work. The only significant interruption in economic development arose from natural disasterthe Great Drought of 191314. In these territories, violent resistance brought colonial rule to a close. However, development of the Nigerian oilfields slowed when Bergheim died in a car crash in September 1912. How did Algerias resistance to French control differ rom East africas resistance to German rule. Most people under colonialism lived their lives normally until a policy like this came about. Some of the treaties contained prohibitions on diplomacy conducted without British permission, or other promises to abide by British rule. The war years brought a polarization between the older, more parochial leaders inclined toward gradualism and the younger intellectuals, who thought in more immediate terms. Colonization of Nigeria. Political leaders resorted to the use of political parties and the media to mobilize millions of Nigerians against the continuation of British rule. [51], Guidelines for running the Nigerian colony were established in 1898 by the Niger Committee, chaired by the Earl of Selborne, in 1898. They had obtained the assent of the emirs to form a political party to counterbalance the activities of the southern-based parties. The Colonial Office could veto or revise his policies. In contrast to Lugard, Clifford argued that colonial government had the responsibility to introduce as quickly as practical the benefits of Western experience. The Colonial Civil Service used intermediaries, as the Royal Niger Company had, in an expanded role which included diplomacy, propaganda and espionage. History of Islam in Nigeria. It also means foreign rule on foreign lands. In 1958 exportation of Nigerian oil was initiated at facilities constructed at Port Harcourt. [42], The British had difficulty conquering Igboland, which lacked a central political organisation. Economic competition among these "houses" was so fierce that trade often erupted into an armed battle between the crews of the large canoes. The preparation of a new federal constitution for an independent Nigeria was carried out at conferences held at Lancaster House in London in 1957 and 1958, which were presided over by The Rt. Crowther was succeeded as bishop by a British cleric. In the Northern Region, the colonial government took careful account of Islam and avoided any appearance of a challenge to traditional values that might incite resistance to British rule. But the history of Nigerian demands for greater representation go back to the 1920s. Nigerian recruits participated in the war effort as labourers and soldiers. They wanted self-government, charging that only colonial rule prevented the unshackling of progressive forces in Nigeria and other states. In the name of liberating the Igbos from the Aro Confederacy, the British launched the Anglo-Aro War of 19011902. Early British Imperialism. European colonialists had managed to quell the efforts by Africans to resist the establishment of colonial rule. Nigeria officially became a democracy on its independence from Britain in October 1960. In practice, British administrative procedures under indirect rule entailed constant interaction between colonial authorities and local rulersthe system was modified to fit the needs of each region. David Ellis, "African and European relations in the last century of the transatlantic slave trade"; in Ptr-Grenouilleau. Olatunji Ojo, "The Organization of the Atlantic Slave Trade in Yorubaland, ca.1777 to ca.1856", Bouda Etemad, "Economic relations between Europe and Black Africa, Giles D. Short, "Blood and Treasure: The reduction of Lagos, 1851", "Northern Nigeria: The Illo Canceller and Borgu Mail" by Ray Harris in. Many changes accompanied British rule: Western education, the English language, and Christianity spread during the period; new forms of money, transportation, and communication were developed; and the Nigerian economy became based on the export of cash crops. The company interfered in the territory along the Niger and the Benue, sometimes becoming embroiled in serious conflicts when its British-led native constabulary intercepted slave raids or attempted to protect trade routes. Background: Attitudes Towards Policing The period from the mid-1800s to the early 1900s marked the zenith of imperial rule in Africa. The British had participated in it until human trafficking was abolished in 1807. [82], Oil exploration began in 1906 under John Simon Bergheim's Nigeria Bitumen Corporation, to which the Colonial Office granted exclusive rights. The incidence of slavery in local societies increased. All were knighted. Menelik II, emperor of Ethiopia, led his army to accomplish this unique feat in March 1896, defeating General Oreste Baratieri's Italian . [21], Whether British conquest of Nigeria resulted from a benevolent motive to end slavery or more instrumental motives of wealth and power, remains a topic of dispute between African and European historians. Native Administration was responsible for police, hospitals, public works and local courts. Please let us discuss the brave roles of this groups and peoples. Uneasy with the amount of latitude allowed traditional rulers under indirect rule, Clifford opposed further extension of the judicial authority held by the northern emirs. Samori Ture 7. 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