Lord Lugard and indirect rule: Legacies (1)

Our history tells us that in the North the Fulanis were the Islamic scribes (ullemas) of many of the Hausa Kings and chiefs.  We were also informed that these Hausa Kingdoms were beginning to fall apart if not atrophied; that the kingdoms had no cohesive ideology, no grundnum or higher ideological authority to which they could refer to reinforce their own identities and nationalities.

 There was a mealstrum sweeping through Hausa land. The only group that had a superior ideology was the Fulanis who were the scribes in the Hausa kingdoms.   The Fulanis where Muslim and applied Islamic teaching to a wholly homogenous set of doctrines expressed in a way of life which through scholarship was capable of providng states and nations a coherent basis for existence.  Islam also had a proven record, we are told.  By 1900 it had a history of having spread from the deserts of Arabia to the West, conquering everywhere between Arabia and Spain.

It has moved further east and north of Arabia as far east as  India, Pakistan , Bangladesh, Philippines and Indonesia, Islam ruled parts of Russia, and Eastern Europe – Serbia (Bosnia Helzogoranis, Yugoslavia), the whole of North Africa from Mauritania , Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt etc.  All these areas found political expression in the Ottoman Empire which encompassed various nationalities in three continents there is even the claim that Turkey ruled Borno and  even had envoy or :Bey”” in Lagos.  The fulani clerics regarded their pagan Hausa lords as uncouth and barbaric.

They were according to Islamic traditions, infidels whose overthrow was recognised, necessary, justified and imminent.  That overthrow took place towards the end of the 19th century and calumniated in the emergence of a fiery cleric- Usman Dan Fodio- the Scion of the Sokoto Sultanate.  Other Fulani clerics were dispatched west and south of Sokoto.  In Bornu, this particular brand of Islamic colonization was stopped as it was also stopped in Oyo.

I do not intend to engage in whether what is written above is absolutely correct.  It is enough  that for the purposes of argument; we accept that this is one version of events.  

We are further informed that, as happened in countless other Islamic conquets, the ruling Fulanis, (or ulemas) married into the local aristocracy or into the conquered people.  We are informed therefore that there is some consanquity between nearly all the Emirs of the North (except the Shehu of Borno). What is written above is the gravemen of Lugard’s Book – Dual Mandate- where the doctrine of indirect Rule is enunciated. Lugard then went on to implement it. First of Governor of Southern Nigeria and then as Governor of the amalgamated Northern and southern Nigeria.  Before this Lugard had implemented it in Uganda East Africa.

There are a number of disturbing consequences if we accept the interpretation given above.  It makes the under class of the Northern emirs a rather colourless group who were quiescent to the eradication of their individual and peculiar national personalities.  Places where indirect rule did not work in Northern Nigeria are then described as autochthonous or semi autochonous societies like they say the Igbo of Southern Nigeria.  That interpretation goes for large areas of Plateau Benue areas inhabited by the Tivs, Idomas, Angas etc.

What the colonial Government did in order to pursue indirect rule was to establish a pale imitation of the emirates in areas such as Wukari, Plateau, Benue, Kogi, Kwara (expect Ilorin – where a full indirect Rule system was in place).  At school we learnt that virtually half of present Niger, Kebbi  up to far north just south of Sokoto was regarded in those  geography books as “Uninhabited” i.e most of Gwari Lands. 

There was a different paradigm for the West.  The Yoruba’s had a long history, claiming descent from one source – Oduduwa; and one location – Ile Ife.  But no sooner do you say this than all sorts of qualifications become necessary.

Let me then apply some large brush strokes because the argument I want to present is not anchored on the accuracy or otherwise of the origins of the Yorubas and the relative position of their Obas.  Granted that they had empires Oyo, Ife etc.  granted also that some Yorubas claim consanquity with the Oba of Benin (who is reputed to have sent his son to rule over the Itsekiris and the Lagosians) the British were never able to implement a  full fledged indirect rule system in the West partly because the kind of politic hegemony which conquest brought to the North was not replicated in the West.  The crowned heads of Yoruba Kingdom were jealous of their independence as well as their common ancestry- (e.g. the Yorubas would gladly tell you how the Ore Kakanfo was  able to stop the Fulani onslaught  into southern Nigeria) By 1900 when Lugard was formulating his theory of indirect rule many Yorubas had been educated in Lagos, Ilesha Ibadan, Abeokuta, and his scheme had no place for them.  In fact  Lugard tended to despise all educated Africans.  Many Yorubas in 1900 were not only educated, they were rich also and highly urbanized.

The Benins presented a wholly different set of problems for the British who had a grudging admiration for their culture, in much the same way as they had for Ife.  That there was a link between the two royal household must have impressed the British, in any case the British incursion into Benin had been inauspicious as the foolhardy major who wanted to visit Benin at the height of major Benin traditional rites had been killed.  The British with the ubitiquous Maxim gun had led an expedition to Benin, looted the place and extracted a protectorate treaty from them.  [the same modus operand was used in Abeokuta when again some foolhardy  colonial official was told that the timing of his visit was inauspicious- he refused his Colunm was  attacked and massacred, the British retaliated and got on protectorate treaty]

There is no doubt that the various Kingdoms comprising the Yoruba in the West had a number of common characteristics.  What they did not have was a central authority which is a sine non qua for indirect rule to succeed.  The same applied to present day Edo vis – a- vis – the Oba.  Many parts of Edo acknowledge the Oba of Benin as either their Chief, or a great Chief to be respected.  But his writ was not all encompassing and there was little power to enforce his writ to recalcitrant “subordinates” – further north of Benin.  (Again at school we learnt of Afemai Ishan, “Kukuruku” – the last name having disappeared in common usage to-day) further South of Edo i.e Agbor, Obulu Uku, Asaba, Itsekiri– there is a lot of influence of Benin culture, at last in the kingship rites, but a very tenuous relationship of subservience to the Oba of Benin.  South East of Benin, i.e the Delta region- the Olu of itsekiris is a Benin descendant) but his power has always been circumscribed by the more numerous  Urhobos, Isokos etc. The riverine peoples of the Delta were Ijaws, a ferocious and Warlike people who as late as 1953 were still fighting inter tribal wars.  There was no central Ijaw King and therefore no possibility for indirect rule. Mosquitoes did not quite encourage colonial officers to live there but by and large because of the ports at Sapele, Calabar, Warri, Abonnema, BuTutu, Bonny, the British were satisfied that goods – such as palm produce, rubber, Timber etc could be shipped to England. The primary source of traditional life, custom etc, of the Ijaws are contained in the numerous books and intelligence reports the colonial Officials wrote trying to decipher the complexities of the Ijaws in the “Oil Rivers protectorate”.

In Eastern Nigeria indirect rule was impossible because the Igbos were largely autochthonous and also extremely energetic and enterprising.  Colonial Office reports are replete with how confusing trying to rule the Igbos but they also had this fantastic ability to assimilate, adjust, compromise and prosper.  These qualities impelled them to the ready acceptance of religion.  With religion, you did not need indirect rule- edicts, laws, regulations, enforcements, information came to the British through the Churches and its several layers of influence.  This is not to suggest that the Igbos forsook whole heartedly their traditions.  Their conscience mightily fought against the changes wrought by colonialism. Their innate vision saw before anyone else in Nigeria, the need to embrace the new circumstances and to turn it to advantage.

The records of the colonial office are filled with thousands of documents which show “X” as the signature of Chiefs in different parts of the world selling and giving their land to the British in return for the protection of the Queen of England.  The French, Danes, Germans etc followed these same examples to show acquisition of land through sale or otherwise.  The land were said to have been acquired or bought in perpetuity and from this grew the doctrine that the minerals under this land also belonged to some foreign European sovereign.  At Independence ownership was deemed to have been passed over to the new Nation.

With the advent of Nollywood it should now be possible to imagine the scene where Olu Jacobs or Pete Edochie wearing their traditional costumes sit with the British consul and someone is translating that the Chiefs and his council had sold their land in perpetuity to the helmeted, stoken-footed white man who is giving his quill to the Chief to mark “X” as his consent for losing his freedom and his land which had been measured, accurately by the ever attendant surveyor.  How is this translation done?  What is the Chief and his council to understand that 25 square miles, as was reported to the Chiefs Ikwerre and Okrika – now belong to Queen when the British wanted to build the port at Port Harcourt?  How do you translate 25 miles in Ikwerre or Ijaw, let alone the square of it?  In return for what??  Again imagine the response of Pee Pee Mrs. Patience Ozokwor to such infamy!! 

Is it then any wonder that the Chiefs threw away the papers they had no use for and less understanding of?

African land law is based on African tradition which understands lease holds ie granting land to strangers for specific purposes for sometime with reversionary interests.  No other form of transaction is possible; definitely not equitable and was a charade merely to demonstrate the strength and overwhelming superiority of the Maxim gun and the gun boats anchored nearby.

One view of the first World War was that it was inevitable given the rapacious interest of European nations to acquire land everywhere in the world- Asia, Middle East, Americas, Caribbeans, Polynesia etc. the land grab was necessary for production of raw materials for European factories and markets for their manufacture.  It does not take a genius to know that sometime soon after 1910 Europe would be at war with itself- hence the frenzy of declaring protectorates and colonies throughout Africa, Middle and far East, Asia etc.  Egypt was declared a protectorate in 1914, the same year as Nigeria and not remotely for any reason to make us want to celebrate. 

The British found three land tenure system – feudal (North) Community (West) Communal (East).  They supplanted all for their purposes and went further in claiming rights of minerals under the ground. 

The land issue has created untold suffering to all countries where because of the need to exploit minerals and produce raw materials – the land and the minerals had been expropriated unjustly by the sovereign powers of Europe.  Consider for a moment how the history of Nigeria would have changed If the land was left to the communities and development was in their own interest.  If coal mined in Enugu, if Tin in Jos, if Columubite,  manganese, oil etc belonged to the communities in which they were found – what a different place Nigeria, South Africa, Zambia, Congo, Bolivia, Peru, Mexico etc would have been.

For us in Nigeria, land continues to be one of our most divisive problems leading to perpetual instability 

The effects of colonial land tenure system has been disastrous and deleterious.  It is  a major cause of war between ethnic groups – Kalabari, Okrika, Ikwerre, Urhobo Vs Isekiri, Rivers, Vs Bayelsa, Cross Rivers Vs Akwa Ibom, Fulani Vs Birom (Plateau) of almost permanent of conflict and quarrels-hardening into psychological antipathetic – actions between ethnic neigbours. 

Some of these land quarrels and issues were responsible for agitation for the creation of states e.g. the request for Port Harcourt State; North /South  divide in Rivers State; Enugu land problems, land problems in Tiv, Lagos white cap Idejo chiefs and other classes of chiefs.

In prospecting for Mineral rights there is a lack of development of mineral producing areas, compounded by disaffection between mineral producing areas and the rest of Nigeria. 

Let us tarry a while over, this question of land and the vehicles used by Britain for colonization.  How can a royal chartered company be a Government? But throughout its colonial history – Egypt, Iran, Canada, US, Australia, India, China, New Zealand- it was this vehicle of a royal chartered company that was used for annexation, under duress and land axpropriation. 

The British had this strange creature called a Royal Chartered Company – a company that enabled its officials sometimes called Consul e.g. in 1851 there was a consul to the Bight of Biafra – are consuls not accredited to a king or state?  We had another consul for Bonny, Degema, Calabar etc.  In Lagos ‘’ the British Consul” presented his papers to Kosoko in 1851.  Soon after Kosoko was deposed and in 1861 Lagos was declared a British colony. Then the land dispute started.  The British asked the Oba for land.  He told them he had no land; that the land owing Chief were the Idejo class of Chiefs in Lagos.  Not withstanding this the annexation took place, land was taken and fought over.  

Yet this fiction about the transfer of land ownership through spurious signatures has become reality.  Numerous claims and cases exist that land was sold.  Countless lawyers in Nigeria, West Africa and Uk have argued cases and made fortunes, through the colonial legal system right up to the Privy Council on this fallacy; that chiefs sold land, or that a protectorate was established at the request of African chiefs and in their interest.   In a sense all that is written above may well be regarded as superfluous or even academic were it not for the harm done to countless people who have lost minerals wealth because of the claim of ownership, through purchase of land by the British, or other Colonialists.

This then is the legacy of British rule to Nigeria.  At best it was always tenuous, at worst it was hypocritical insidious, dividing and ruling us for their benefit.  Our varying degrees of acceptance of British rule has forged a strong suspicion that our differing attitudes to that rule has been transferred into how we see ourselves.  British rule was a thin veneer of administration without leaving any lasting lessons about statecraft, transparency, in Government or the feeling that we are all equal under God and under the rule of law.

 Patrick Dele Cole