Colonial Conquest and the Amalgamation of 1914
Britain joins its Northern and Southern Protectorates into a single colony called Nigeria, binding together hundreds of peoples who had never shared a state.
- A History of Nigeria — Toyin Falola and Matthew M. Heaton, Cambridge University Press (2008)
- What Britain Did to Nigeria: A Short History of Conquest and Rule — Max Siollun, Hurst (2021)
- Nigeria — Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Nigeria: What Everyone Needs to Know — John Campbell and Matthew T. Page, Oxford University Press (2018)
British rule came in stages. Britain annexed Lagos in 1861, partly in the name of ending the slave trade. After the Berlin Conference of 1884–85, at which European powers agreed rules for dividing Africa, it claimed the Niger region. The Royal Niger Company, chartered in 1886, ran trade along the river; the Oil Rivers (later Niger Coast) Protectorate covered the Delta. In 1900 the British government took over directly, creating the Protectorates of Northern and Southern Nigeria.
- A History of Nigeria — Toyin Falola and Matthew M. Heaton, Cambridge University Press (2008)
- What Britain Did to Nigeria: A Short History of Conquest and Rule — Max Siollun, Hurst (2021)
Conquest
None of this was peaceful. British forces fought their way through Ijebu (1892), Benin (1897), the Aro confederacy in Igboland (1901–02) and the Sokoto Caliphate (1903). The very name “Nigeria” was suggested in 1897 by the journalist Flora Shaw, who later married Frederick Lugard, the soldier and administrator who conquered the north.
- What Britain Did to Nigeria: A Short History of Conquest and Rule — Max Siollun, Hurst (2021)
- A History of Nigeria — Toyin Falola and Matthew M. Heaton, Cambridge University Press (2008)
One colony, two systems
On 1 January 1914 Lugard merged the two protectorates into the Colony and Protectorate of Nigeria. It was chiefly an administrative and financial decision: the north was costly to run, and the south’s customs revenue could pay for it.
- A History of Nigeria — Toyin Falola and Matthew M. Heaton, Cambridge University Press (2008)
- What Britain Did to Nigeria: A Short History of Conquest and Rule — Max Siollun, Hurst (2021)
Lugard governed through “indirect rule”, using existing rulers to collect taxes and keep order. In the Muslim north this meant working through the emirs, and Christian missionaries were largely kept out, so Western schooling spread slowly. In the south, missions built schools and a Western-educated class grew fast, especially among the Yoruba and later the Igbo. In the south-east, where many communities had no kings, Britain created “warrant chiefs” who were often resented. In 1929 thousands of Igbo and Ibibio women rose against them and against taxation in the Aba Women’s War; British troops killed dozens of women.
- A History of Nigeria — Toyin Falola and Matthew M. Heaton, Cambridge University Press (2008)
- What Britain Did to Nigeria: A Short History of Conquest and Rule — Max Siollun, Hurst (2021)
What it left
Colonial Nigeria was built for export: palm oil, cocoa, groundnuts and tin, carried by railways running to the coast. Lagos grew into a cosmopolitan city, and newspapers, churches, mosques and schools produced a new elite who would demand independence.
- A History of Nigeria — Toyin Falola and Matthew M. Heaton, Cambridge University Press (2008)
But Britain never truly integrated the regions. The north and south had separate administrations for years, and when constitutions in the 1940s and 1950s created three regions, North, West and East, each dominated by one large group, Hausa-Fulani, Yoruba and Igbo, they set up a rivalry for control of the centre. Ahmadu Bello later wrote of “the mistake of 1914”, and Obafemi Awolowo called Nigeria “a mere geographical expression”.
- A History of Nigeria — Toyin Falola and Matthew M. Heaton, Cambridge University Press (2008)
- Ahmadu Bello, Sardauna of Sokoto: Values and Leadership in Nigeria — John N. Paden, Hodder and Stoughton (1986)
Not everyone sees it so bleakly. Many Nigerians are fiercely proud of the country they have made out of the colonial map, and the centenary of the amalgamation in 2014 was marked with official celebrations alongside sharp debate.
- Nigeria: What Everyone Needs to Know — John Campbell and Matthew T. Page, Oxford University Press (2018)
Many critics, echoing Obafemi Awolowo's 1947 remark that Nigeria "is not a nation" but "a mere geographical expression", see the amalgamation as a British convenience that forced very different peoples together without their consent.
- A History of Nigeria — Toyin Falola and Matthew M. Heaton, Cambridge University Press (2008)
- What Britain Did to Nigeria: A Short History of Conquest and Rule — Max Siollun, Hurst (2021)
Others argue that a century of shared history, independence, war, music, football and migration between regions has made Nigerians a real people, and that the country's size and diversity are a strength.
- Nigeria: What Everyone Needs to Know — John Campbell and Matthew T. Page, Oxford University Press (2018)
- A History of Nigeria — Toyin Falola and Matthew M. Heaton, Cambridge University Press (2008)
Why it matters today
Almost every argument about Nigeria today, over federalism, the balance between north and south, "restructuring", secession or rotating the presidency, goes back to 1914. Some Nigerians call the amalgamation a "mistake" or a forced marriage; others treat the union, for all its flaws, as worth defending. Either way, the colonial habit of ruling the north and south differently left deep gaps in education and wealth.