Northern Nigeria

“ That has been the tangible contribution of the Royal Niger Company to the British possessions. Sir George Taubman Goldie, founder and head-and-front of the Company for a number of years, deserves the title of Empire builder, if ever man did.
Northern Nigeria is 255,700 square miles, with an estimated native population of 9,269,000. This population may be divided into Mohamedans and Pagans. The former are frequently spoken of as Hausas, although the term comprises the Fulani, the pure Hausa, the Beri-Beri, the Bornu, the Borgu, the Nupé, the Yoruba and others. ”

“ There can be no doubt whatever, that Northern Nigeria has immense potentialities but they are not going to be developed in a day, or in a decade, and no useful purpose can be served by pretending otherwise. The very vastness of the country and the natural difficulties of communication preclude rapidity in development. ”

“ Still, power is seated at Zungeru—power strong, clear, absolute. The Governor of Northern Nigeria is given fuller authority over the people and the country than is in the hands of the Kaiser of Germany or the Czar of Russia. Without giving a reason he can decide questions of life and death; cancel a lease held by European or native; deny entry of or expel white or black; make law by simply issuing a Proclamation. He has not even a nominated Legislative Council, as in Crown Colonies. The form of government for natives in Northern Nigeria will be dealt with in a separate chapter. ”

“ The position of Northern Nigeria is very anomalous. A vast Protectorate shut off from the seaboard by another less than four times its size; having no coastline, and the customs dues on whose trade are collected by the latter. Southern Nigeria enjoying a very large revenue; its officials decently housed and catered for; able to spend freely upon public works and to develop its natural resources. Northern Nigeria still poor, a pensioner upon the Treasury, in part upon Southern Nigeria ”

“ When they are the wide acres of Northern Nigeria will give agricultural produce on a scale that will bring great prosperity to the Protectorate and render it of value to territories beyond its borders, exporting perhaps foodstuffs, and certainly those essential oils for which manufacturers in Europe are searching the tropics.
Immediately after leaving Minna, in the first six miles the rise is 300 feet. The track then becomes fairly level, frequently crossing tributaries of the Kaduna River, the largest of which is the Kogin Serekin Pawa. ”

“ The transfer took place on the 1st of January 1900, from which date the company, which dropped the name of “royal,” became a purely trading corporation. The southern portion of the territories was amalgamated with the Niger Coast Protectorate, the whole district taking the name of the Protectorate of Southern Nigeria, while the northern portion, extending from a line drawn slightly above 7° N. to the frontier of the French possessions on the north and including the confluence of the Niger and the Benue at Lokoja, was proclaimed a protectorate under the name of Northern Nigeria. ”

“ There is an extremely pleasant aspect in Zungeru, typical of Northern Nigeria, of the respect and good feeling shown by the coloured population to the white, and reciprocated. I say “coloured” instead of “native,” for there are a fair number of “foreigners” from the Gold Coast and from Sierra Leone, imported for routine clerical work. The native Moslems invariably salute a European. The form of salute is generally that of removing sandals, followed by a low bow. The Gold Coast and Sierra Leone clerks are affected by the environment and custom. ”

“ Those in a position to realize the marvels already accomplished in this region of Africa by the handful of British officials administering the country, and the many problems requiring on the part of those who are called upon to deal with them the utmost delicacy and tact in adjustment, cannot but enter a caveat against all tendencies, from whatever source they may emanate, be they of self-interest or of unselfish devotion, to “rush” Northern Nigeria. Rapid expansion does not necessarily mean progress. ”

“ In Northern Nigeria the land question has been settled, so far as the Northern Protectorate is concerned, on a broad but sure foundation; but the Southern Nigerian native is an alien in Northern Nigerian law. In Southern Nigeria there is no real land legislation, and the absence of such, especially in the Western Province, is raising a host of future complications. ”

“ The Niger Company’s share of the credit that is due for effecting this great improvement in the present condition and future prospects of the Protectorate may be at once admitted; but much has been accomplished since the control of the country devolved upon the British Colonial Office. In 1900 only some 30,000 square miles, out of a total of 250,000 in Northern Nigeria, were under some form of organised control. The remainder was controlled and ruled under conditions giving no guarantee of liberty or even life. To-day the whole condition of the country is entirely altered. ”

“ Even from the European standpoint, which is not and cannot be the African’s from climatic causes alone, the Northern Nigerian, speaking generally, is the reverse of idle. Moreover, if on the one hand our political administration tends to root the people in the soil and increase the area under cultivation; on the other hand, our roads and railways and the opening of the tin mines tend to take the people off the land and to create an increasing class of casual, floating labour which cannot itself provide for its own sustenance, and has to purchase its food requirements. ”

“ The policy of governing Northern Nigeria on native lines—in other words, of training the natives to govern themselves instead of trying to govern them ourselves—has the approval of the entire native community except the criminal classes, who would be the only ones to benefit by a weakening in the position of the native authorities and in the decay of the etiquette attaching to their position. It is being pursued in every branch of the Administration concurrently, with a steadily marked improvement in the efficiency and purity of the public service. ”

“ Thus Northern Nigeria was excluded from the accessible zone of European spirit import. By general consent the trade has been looked upon as a potential danger, if unregulated, and nowhere has the determination to prevent it from becoming an active evil been so clearly recognized as in Southern Nigeria; by successive increases of duty, and, as I shall show, by so adjusting taxation as virtually to [251] penalize spirits of high potency in favour of spirits of weak strength. ”

“ Further north the railway will pass through the rich agricultural and stock-raising Lausa provinces, which at present export live-stock, skins, and potass by means of annual caravans. The idea that Northern Nigeria is an especially unhealthy place for European residents is scarcely borne out by the total death-rate of roughly twenty per thousand, calculated on the average resident European population ”

“ The native of Northern Nigeria looks upon every Englishman as above himself, as one to whom he must listen and obey. A missionary would be regarded by many in the same light, but the strain on the loyalty of others—of the great majority of the leaders and thinkers—would be too great. ”

“ Northern Nigeria is the seat of a very large native cotton industry, to supply the demand for cotton robes for the Mahommedan races inhabiting the country. The province of Zaria alone is estimated to produce annually 30,000 to 40,000 bales, all of which is used locally. Northern Nigeria contributes to the cotton exported from Lagos. The country offers a fairly promising field for development, especially now that arrangements have been made for providing the necessary means of transport by the construction of the new railways. ”

“ If the Niger Company has profited by its enterprise it deserved to. It at the same time helped—or, at all events, enabled—others to thrive. I am free to admit that occasionally it has among the employees a member whose manner leaves something to be desired. Any more than elsewhere, there is no monopoly of boorishness and rudeness by any class in Northern Nigeria. ”

“ The Secretariat has only a few constituting the personnel, nothing like the number one might look for at the Capital of such a large and well-populated territory. In Northern Nigeria the Government is greatly decentralised. Wide discretion is left to the Residents, who in some distant and not easily accessible places, such as Bornu and Sokoto, occupy the position of well-nigh sovereign kinglets. Further, actual and daily rule is left to the hereditary Emirs of the Provinces, subject to the advice and guidance, when necessary, of the Residents. ”

“ Climate.—Northern Nigeria is far different to any part of West Africa. You are at an elevation of some 500 feet. The nights are quite cool, and any man who takes ordinary care of himself and lives well ought to have good health. It is, in my opinion, by far and away the healthiest part of West Africa, and I say this after sixteen years spent in different parts of it.
“In conclusion, the results obtained prove conclusively [142] that there is immense alluvial wealth which can be cheaply won, and I believe in this property you have one which will prove an astonishing success. ”

“ Every year the gulf widens between the two ideals, and its ultimate bridging becomes a matter of greater difficulty. While on the one hand the Northern Nigeria Administration has had the priceless advantage of “starting fresh” and has been compelled to concentrate upon political and administrative problems, British rule in Southern Nigeria has been the slow growth of years, advancing here by conquest, there by pacific penetration, here by one kind of arrangement with native Chiefs, there by another kind of arrangement. ”

“ The difficulties of improving and purifying when required a native administration, without impairing its general efficiency, are always considerable. In Northern Nigeria they are, for several reasons, peculiarly so. If the result, so far, has shown the wisdom of the original conception, it has been due to the determination and tact of the senior Political Residents, and to the excellence of the native material. Our task has been furthered by the administrative capacities of the Fulani Emirs. ”

“ Besides the river and road transport, prosperous communities, white and black, mean increased trade for the stores, for although there are a number of such new arrivals in Northern Nigeria the Niger Company maintains an incalculably premier position.
Present regulations for mining are explained in the next chapter.
The health of every white man on a mine in Northern Nigeria is a serious matter for each owning company. Flesh and blood is not as cheap as in some parts of industrial Britain ”

“ In a subsequent chapter the method and manner of ruling these Pagan tribes is explained. They, unlike the Fulani, the Hausa and cognate people, have no corporate life.
A single instance is rendered to show the spirit which animates the Government of Northern Nigeria in dealing with the inhabitants of the country. ”

“ Mountains hundreds of feet high have huge slabs resting on the solid hill. Intense heat has expanded, and sharp cold the same day has contracted, the rock, splitting it into slabs and dome-shaped crags. All around, on the rocky hill and over the earthy soil, there are the grass, trees, and the low bush of Northern Nigeria, with patches here and there of guinea-corn, sweet potatoes, ground-nuts and yams. The entire acreage is cultivatable. ”

“ The above account indicates the direction in which efforts should be made to ensure the most fertile tract of Northern Nigeria, where the population is also most industrious and dense, becoming an important cotton-growing locality. ”

“ The published opinions of Government officials, engineers of repute, capitalists, traders, and travellers, [57] all tend to prove that in Northern Nigeria we have one of the largest, if not the very largest, of the tin-producing areas of the world. ”

“ Southern Nigeria and Northern Nigeria—the former having an area of 77,000 square miles and a population of 6,500,000 Africans, and the latter an area of 256,400 square miles and an estimated population of 8,000,000—are both of them countries of enormous natural resources which are being steadily developed by railways already built or in course of construction. ”

“ It happens that this is the precise amount of the grant in aid for Northern Nigeria last year, a country in which, by means of this grant in aid, a vast system of internal slave trade and slave-raiding has been almost entirely suppressed. It is the only West African Settlement to which any grant is now made, and, apart from the slave trade question, an important area for legitimate commerce is being opened up. ”

“ Sir Percy Girouard and others have warned the public against confusing Northern and Southern Nigeria, and running away with the idea that there is no great difference between them. As Colonel Mockler-Ferryman says: “Commencing with what is called the Niger Delta, we have a land of swamps and impenetrable forests, intersected by a vast network of streams and creeks and inhabited by numerous pagan tribes addicted to every species of vile custom, including even cannibalism and human sacrifices.... ”

“ Incidentally, it may be well to mark that Northern Nigeria has not evolved powerful pagan organisms comparable with those of Yoruba and Benin in the south. The basis of the social system is the village community. A number of village communities form the tribal community. The partly hereditary, partly elective rule of the tribal community constitutes, with the Executive, the Government of the entire community. The ruler himself is the “Governor,” against whose actions the people can appeal to native law and custom. For the welfare of that community the ruler is guardian. ”