Chapter I: Nigeria’s Claim Upon Public Attention

Nigeria is a geographical expression applied to a territory in West Africa which by successive stages, covering a period of more than one hundred years, under circumstances widely differing in character and incentive, and almost wholly as the result of the initial enterprise of British explorers and merchants, has passed under the protection of Britain. With the discovery of Nigeria are associated exploits which for romantic interest and personal achievements hold a prominent place in British exploring records. The angry swirl of the Bussa rapids must ever recall the well-nigh superhuman achievements of Mungo Park, as the marvellous creeks and channels of the Niger Delta evoke the memory of Richard Lander[2] and John Beecroft.

You cannot visit the Court of the Emir of Kano without remembering Clapperton’s account of the awkward religious conundrums with which the gallant sailor, the first European to enter that fascinating African city, was amazed and confounded by one of the present Emir’s predecessors; nor ride over the wide and dusty road into the heart of Hausaland without thinking that but for Joseph Thomson’s diplomatic tact in negotiating the early treaties with its potentates, which were to pave the way for the statesmanship of a Taubman-Goldie and the organising genius of a Lugard, Nigeria would to-day be the brightest jewel in the West African Empire of the French. The spirit of MacGregor Laird, the hardy pioneer who laid the first foundations of British commerce in this country seems to hover over the broad bosom of the Niger. The marvellous panorama that unfolds itself before your eyes at Lokoja (the confluence of the Niger with its tributary the Benue) conjures up the heroism and tragedy of the Allan-Trotter expedition; while to negotiate in a dug-out the currents that eddy round the famous _ju-ju_ rock—still termed Baikie’s Seat—is a reminder that somewhere in the blue depths below lie the remains of Dr. Baikie’s ill-fated _Day-spring_.

This land is, indeed, a land rich in heroic memories to men of British blood. It is the more astonishing that so little appears to be known by the general public either of its past or, what is much more important, of the many complex problems connected with its administration.

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Nigeria is, at present, arbitrarily divided into two units, “Southern” and “Northern;” the division corresponds with the historical events which have distinguished the assumption of British control, and is to that extent inevitable. But to-day, with internal communications and administrative control rapidly extending, this situation presents many drawbacks. In the absence of any considered scheme of general constructive policy laid down at home, the existence of two separate Governments with ideals necessarily influenced by the personal idiosyncrasies of frequently changing heads in a territory geographically united, through which the channels of a singularly intensive internal trade have flowed for centuries, must of necessity tend to promote divergencies in the treatment of public questions, and, therefore, create numerous difficulties for the future. I propose to deal with this subject in greater detail later on.

(_Photo by Mr. E. Firmin._)]

Meantime it would seem necessary at the outset to emphasize two facts which the public mind does not appear to have realized. The first is that Nigeria, both in size and in population, is not only the most considerable of our tropical dependencies in Africa, but is the most considerable and the wealthiest of all our tropical dependencies (India, of course, excepted). Embracing an area of 332,960 square miles, Nigeria is thus equal in size to the German Empire, Italy and Holland, while its population, though not yet ascertained with accuracy, can hardly amount to less than fifteen millions, being double that of British East Africa and Uganda with Nyassaland thrown in, and nearly three times as numerous as the native population comprised in the South African Union. The second is that nowhere else in tropical or sub-tropical Africa is the British administrator faced, at least on a large scale, with a Mohammedan population, already to be counted in millions and increasing year by year with significant rapidity. Until a few years ago the work of Great Britain in West Africa, apart from a few trifling exceptions, was confined to the administration of the Pagan Negro. The position is very different now. In the southern regions of the Protectorate, where its progression is a modern phenomenon, Islam is, from the administrative point of view, a purely social factor. But in the northern regions, where Mohammedan rule has been established for centuries, under the Hausas, and in more recent times under the Fulani, Islam has brought its laws, its taxation, its schools and its learning. It is there a political as well as a religious and social force, solidly entrenched. This fact which, administratively speaking, need not alarm us—unless the Administration is goaded into adopting a hostile attitude towards its Mohammedan subjects—does, however, invest Nigeria with an additional interest of its own and does supply a further reason why the affairs of this greatest of our African protectorates should receive more intelligent consideration and study at the hands of the public than it has enjoyed hitherto.