• Friday, March 29, 2024
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BusinessDay

Dateline Lagos 1925-1931 – the gunpowder plot

Nigeria  Democracy

  1. It was clear that the end of the road had been reached as far as His Majesty King George V’s government was concerned. The final ruling of the Privy Council in London, just announced, effectively cut the ground from under the feet of the government and judiciary of the colonial territory of Nigeria.

For Governor Graeme Thomson, it was a most bitter pill to swallow.

The matter of Eshugbayi Eleko had become a sore point. Technically it was beneath him, to be dealt with by the Resident of the Colony, Birrell-Gray, working under the direction of Baddeley, the Officer Administering the Government. In reality, the conclusion of the proceedings in London was an unexpected rebuke which he took personally, especially as it came in the twilight of his stay in Nigeria. The matter had occupied his time and virtually soaked up all the oxygen in the atmosphere since he took over from his predecessor, Hugh Clifford as Governor of the country six years ago.

Frankly, he was looking forward to his next posting, of which he had just been apprised. He was going to be the 26th Governor of British Ceylon. Asia, with all the difficulties it portended, would be a welcome relief from the endless intrigues of Lagos, and Nigeria.

The treaty ceding Lagos to Her Majesty Queen Victoria did not speak of the local chief as “King” and merely placed the incumbent Prince on a stipend for his lifetime. But that seemed to matter not a jot to these people.

At the height of the Lagos troubles, after His Majesty’s government decided that Eshugbayi had to go and followed up firmly by sending him into exile in Oyo Province, the government had gone to the trouble of ensuring the buy-in of the traditional kingmakers in choosing an appropriate replacement among other Princes.

For a moment, they had thought the worst was over and the government could now concentrate on the finer points of governance.

As the days passed, it became obvious that Eshugbayi’s supporters were not about to let sleeping dogs lie. A visceral us-and-them slugging match ensued.

The agitators challenged the government all the way to the Nigerian Supreme Court and also took their agitation to the court of public opinion, trumpeting up accusations against the government, especially in Herbert Macaulay’s “The Lagos Daily News”.       

They queried the governor’s authority to carry out the deposition and deportation of their monarch.

When the Nigerian court found against them, they had the audacity to take their case to the Privy Council in London.

The council reviewed the matter and directed the Lagos judiciary to hear the case again. This was in 1928.

What had him, Graeme Thomson, frothing at the mouth on this day, in 1931, six years after he signed the original order banishing Eshugbayi from Lagos was that Lagos was in festive excitement about the imminent triumphant return of Eshugbayi. It was a slap in the face that he felt keenly.

In delivering its final judgment, after the second appeal of the agitators, which followed the dismissal, again, of their case by the Lagos court for lack of merit, the Privy Council vacated the judgment of the Nigerian court and asked that the matter be revisited.

It was a coded way of telling Lagos that legal procedure was at an end, and a political solution would have to be found. The careers of local colonial officers, from the governor downwards, might depend on the adroitness with which a resolution was procured.

Gritting their teeth, swallowing their bile, His Majesty’s representatives in Lagos were faced with a Hobson’s choice. They would have to reinstate and recognise Eshugbayi Eleko as the head of the Docemo Ruling House.

But the greatest provocation of all had occurred three years ago, after the initial 1928 judgement of the Privy Council, which the opponents of government interpreted, prematurely, as a victory for their side. Herbert Macaulay, that gadfly in the colonial ointment, had caused to be published in his newspaper a rumour that  a consignment of gunpowder had been spirited into Lagos  through the Lagos quays by the enemies of Eshugbayi, led by Chief Obanikoro, with the collusion of His Majesty’s government, and that they were intent on bombing Eshugbayi Eleko’s motorcade when he rode back to reclaim his throne. The rumour spread like wildfire. On the streets, some people began to point accusing fingers at suspected enemies and to abuse them. “Traitor!” “Murderer!”

At that point, Thomson had simply had enough. Someone would pay, dearly. And pay they did. Macaulay and his co-owner of the “The Lagos Daily News” Akinlade Caulcrick were charged with sedition before a Magistrate’s court. Macaulay was sentenced to six months imprisonment with hard labour, without the option of fine. Caulcrick was fined five hundred pounds.

Thomson could admit to himself that he had felt a sense of quiet satisfaction to see Macaulay hauled off to the Lagos Prison.

But now, on this sunny day in 1931, things had come full circle. Macaulay had served his time and returned from prison emboldened, and more popular than ever among the masses of Lagos. And the Privy Council had delivered this damning judgement, which effectively compelled the government to ease out the incumbent and restore Eshugbayi Eleko to Iga Idunganran.

To Thomson, it was worse than swallowing poison.

But it would be arranged. Nothing was beyond political arrangement in this vast land known as Nigeria. The man on the stool would be prevailed upon to “volunteer” to leave.

He sighed. He was thankful that his successor – Donald Cameron would be the one to deal with all that, and to continue to engage with the likes of Macaulay, perhaps all the way to eventual independence for Nigeria, who knew?

For him, duty called, elsewhere, and he was happy to get away from Lagos – the heat and the intrigues.