Southern Nigeria

“ Palm kernels and palm oil are to Southern Nigeria what coal is to England. There are rumours that that mineral has been located on the lower Niger. Possibly I may be able to say something on the subject as I come down the river on the return journey.
Running through at night, several features of interest are unseen, prominent among them the exceptionally pretty view towards the Sacred Hill at Olokemeji and Ibadan, the largest town in West Africa, though not nearly so frequently spoken of as the much smaller ones of Zaria, Bida, Sokoto and Kano. Each has had the advertisement of war. ”

“ Administration, Justice, Education, &c.—The small part of the province which constitutes “the colony of Southern Nigeria” is governed as a crown colony. Elsewhere the native governments are retained, the chiefs and councils of elders receiving the advice and support of British commissioners. There is also an advisory native central council which meets at Lagos. The great majority of the civil servants are natives of the country, some of whom have been educated in England. The legal status of slavery is not recognized by the law courts and dealing in slaves is suppressed. ”

“ The administrative problems which confront the Government of Southern Nigeria in the western, or Yoruba, province are very much more complicated than any to be met with in the central and eastern provinces. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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.... ”

“ The markets and trading stations of the Niger Company were within its boundaries, the fertility of the soil was proved, its richness in rubber, tobacco, and coal was established, and its wealth of other vegetable products was well known. It is not at all surprising, then, that British pioneers and capitalists saw the splendid commercial future that was before Southern Nigeria, and were somewhat neglectful of the distant, isolated, and inaccessible Northern territories. ”

“ Any native community in Southern Nigeria is free, to-day, to buy or not to buy spirits, or cotton goods or tobacco or anything else. But a native community consists not of one Chief, but of a Paramount Chief or King (when the native state form has developed to that extent which, in the Eastern Province, for example, is not yet the case) , a number of ordinary Chiefs with their councillors, and the people. It is one thing for a Native community to make up its mind not to buy spirits. ”

“ The missionaries of Southern Nigeria, no matter what their denomination, are of a very devout and noble-minded order; they have instilled into the minds of the natives a deep reverence of all things pertaining to worship, and nothing will ever efface from the native mind that—to say the least—irreverent conduct of the representative of the Christian Government of Great Britain. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The inhabitants of the Northern and Southern Provinces are to a very large extent dissimilar in languages, religion and customs, and the climatic conditions, by which distinct varieties of life are so much influenced, are so suitably defined by the artificial boundary which, until recently, divided Northern and Southern Nigeria, that little excuse need be offered for the maintenance of old division in the discussion of the subjects within the competence of this book. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Where would Africa be to-day without its thousands of coloured clerks and Government officials? In Southern Nigeria alone there are 5000 natives in the British Government service, all of them more or less educated. In every colony, too, you meet cultured natives trained at these schools who are now devoting their lives to the education of the rising generation. ”

“ The Southern Nigeria Administration stands for high ideals and good government, sound native policy, preservation of native authority and land tenure. In my belief the untruthful and malignant charges brought against it are weakening [260] that for which the Administration stands. This is a grave danger, and one’s sense of justice revolts at allegations made against an Administration the bulk of whose officials are doing good work under many difficulties. ”

“ Linking rich Southern Nigeria with her Northern sister provides money for railway and other development, which is to be pushed on vigorously. Many of the conditions of the country must necessarily alter. The locomotive is to whistle through regions where few white men have trod. Wild areas are to be penetrated by trains. Naturally the character of the inhabitants will be affected: no doubt many superstitious rites and, incidentally, cruelty and inhumanity in social customs be dispelled. Pagans [viii] will catch the passing fashions, or an imitation, and clothe, or at least cover, themselves. ”

“ It is almost unnecessary to point out that the interests of the population do not suffer merely indirectly and potentially, but directly thereby. Not only does Southern Nigeria import quantities of timber from Europe when the country should itself provide for all requirements, but even so primitive a necessity as firewood is beginning to make itself felt round such towns as Ede, Abeokuta, and Ibadan. ”

“ If the Secretary of State agrees, there is no reason to expect that there will be any opposition in Southern Nigeria to financing the line, for the success of the tin industry will have a wonderful effect not only on Northern, but also on Southern Nigeria, for the Protectorates, though two politically, are one geographically. ”

“ Two protectorates were formed, Northern and Southern Nigeria, and Sir Ralph Moor was appointed High Commissioner of the latter. The same policy of pacifying and "cleaning up" the country continued; but there were still large stretches practically untouched by the agents of the Government, including the territory lying between the Cross River and the Niger, in the upper part of which slave-raiding and trading went on as it had done for centuries. The Aros, a powerful tribe who controlled the juju worship, were the people responsible for this evil. ”

“ Southern Nigeria, through which the Northern Protectorate is reached from the coast, is covered with a network of waterways, which are the natural transport roads of the entire region, and the Marine Department is continually surveying old and overgrown streams and opening up new river routes. ”

“ With the exception of the railway bungalows, which are of brick, but for which rich Southern Nigeria paid, all the others are of wood which has been exposed to a wasting climate for ten years. Several are in a dilapidated condition. ”

“ South of that line the native pays no direct tax to Government, and in the Western Province the Central Administration doles out stipends, apparently suspendable, to the Chiefs, while the paying of native tribute to the Chiefs, where it has not altogether ceased, exists only by the internal conservatism of native custom. Take the question of education. The Southern Nigerian system is turning out every year hundreds of Europeanized Africans. The Northern Nigeria system aims at the establishment of an educational system based upon a totally different ideal. ”

“ They embrace the area once the Fula or Sokoto empire, with the subordinate sultanates of Gandu, Kano, Bornu, Benin, etc., watered by the Niger and its tributaries. On the Gulf of Guinea the territories have a seaboard of about 120 miles in length, on which are the towns Akassa, at the mouth of the Niger, the British naval headquarters; Bonny, Wari, Old Calabar and New Calabar. A military force is stationed in southern Nigeria, partly at Asaba and partly at Akassa. ”

“ Moreover, just as each Administration settles itself more firmly in the saddle and pursues its own aims with increasing determination, so will differences in the handling of great public issues accentuate themselves and eventual adjustment on a common basis of principle be attended with additional perplexity. It is not only quite natural, but under the existing circumstances it is right that the Administration of Southern Nigeria should work for the interests of Southern Nigeria and the Administration of Northern Nigeria for the interests of the latter. ”

“ Lagos and Southern Nigeria, which again are English; Fernando Po, which is Spanish, and the German Cameroons.
The coast line of these protectorates and colonies gives no idea of the extent of their hinterland, which spreads back into the Sahara, the Niger basin, and the Soudan. Sierra Leone, one of the smallest of them, is as large as Maine; Liberia, where the emigrants still keep up the tradition of the United States by talking like end men, is as large as the State of New York ”

“ It is no reflection on the men in charge of the other stores to say that they have a very difficult task indeed in competing with the Niger Company. In the first place, it is known, and was well known before its present competitors were heard of. Ask anybody in Kano of the Bature Company—the White Company—and, if he can, he will direct you to the Niger Company’s store. European firms may comment as they will, the Niger Company is liked by the population. “In the days of the Company’s rule,” I was told in the southern part of the Protectorate, “we paid no taxes.” ”

“ I am persuaded that the British Cotton-growing Association is in every way worthy of support, that its ideal is a fine one and a patriotic one, and that the West African dependencies of Southern and Northern Nigeria are very much indebted to it. At the same time I should not be giving honest expression to the views I have rightly or wrongly formed if I did not enter a caveat against any Government action calculated to undermine or destroy the weaving industry of the Kano province. That industry may disappear as the result of natural causes. ”

“ Of palm kernels 50,000 to 70,000 tons are shipped yearly, with an average value of £500,000 a year. The principal imports are cotton goods (nearly all from the United Kingdom) , and in the southern region spirits—gin and geneva—almost wholly from Holland and Germany, salt, rice and other provisions, tobacco, hardware, cutlery and building material, &c., mostly from the United Kingdom. The value of the trade (imports and exports) of Southern Nigeria (exclusive of Lagos) increased from £1,566,000 in 1894–1895 to £3,464,000 in 1905. ”

“ Let there be no mistake about the accommodation in Zungeru. It is extremely limited. If anybody thinks to arrive by train and “roll off” to an hotel he will be grievously disappointed. Only in one town of Southern and Northern Nigeria—territory 333,300 square miles in extent—is there an hotel. That is at Lagos. Men come without previous notice or inquiry to Zungeru and expect provision to be made in the way of board and lodging. It simply cannot be done. Bungalows are few and nearly all are overcrowded, from Government House down. ”

“ 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 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. ”