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British colonization of Nigeria
The impact of British colonial rule in Nigeria
Impact of British colonization of Nigeria
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Timothy Vilgiate
King-Ndaya
HIST 3000
April 28, 2014
British Colonial Policy and the Ensuing Nigerian Civil War.
The Nigerian Civil War lasted from July 6, 1967 until January 15, 1970. The belligerents were the Federal Republic of Nigeria, led by the military governor Yakubu Gowon, and the Republic of Biafra, led by the military governor C. Odumegwu Ojukwu. After an abortive counter-coup d'etat in favor of Northern independence, General Ojukwu declared the independence of southeastern Nigeria. Each of these regions were dominated by one particular tribe, and the Hausa of the north long felt oppressed by the southerners underneath colonial rule, while during the short-lived military government from 1966 to 1967 the Igbo had been the victims of several pogroms within the army itself.1 2 To further complicate the tribal tensions already fueling the conflict, British Petroleum, and several other oil companies, had vested interests in vast fossil fuel reserves in the secessionist state, which they feared would be unfriendly to their business.3 The ultimate result was a 3 year civil war, during which 150, 000 troops and as many as 3 million civilians died.
While the outside world considered Nigeria to be a united and monolithic entity, even the British colonial administration was wary of the reality of Nigerian politics; the nation was not so much a “country” as it was more than three hundred different groups coalesced into one.4 5 These tribes were divided between three main spheres of influence: the Yoruba, the Igbo, and the Hausa. Historically, their interests were often opposed, and their cultures did not come into regular contact with one another until the British occupation. In spite of the differences British administration a...
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Overall, the Biafran secession and ensuing conflict essentially served as a referendum of British Colonial policy and the concept of Nigeria as a nation. Since the country had been an amalgam of diametrically opposed and diverse interests, structured for the role of a British economic subordinate, unity was never established. Instead, politics were viewed in ethnic dimensions. Other tribes were viewed with suspicion, making peace negotiations and mediation between belligerents difficult. Moreover, British policy and its establishment of unilateral economic dependence complicated efforts at democracy, and conversely limited strides towards Nigerian independence. However, the Biafran civil war, and the price paid by the Biafrans in their struggle for independence both helped to create a new sense of national identity, changing the political and cultural norms.
The Portuguese arrived in Benin, in modern Nigeria, between 1472 and 1486 to find an established and ancient kingdom with remarkable social and ritual complexity, with art that was comparatively naturalistic, and with a political system that was, on the surface, recognizable to the Europeans: monarchy. Even more importantly, they found a land rich in pepper, cloth, ivory, and slaves, and immediately set out to establish trade (Ben-Amos 35-6). Though we often imagine "first contacts" between Europeans and Africans as clashes of epochal proportions, leaving Europeans free to manipulate and coerce the flabbergasted and paralyzed Africans, this misjudges the resilience and indeed, preparedness, of the Benin people. The Benin were able to draw on their cultural, political, and religious traditions to fit the European arrival in an understandable context. Indeed, as the great brass plaques of the Benin palace demonstrate, the arrival was in fact manipulated by the Benin to strengthen, not diminish, indigenous royal power.
Throughout the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century, almost every country in Africa was imperialized by other countries in Europe. To imperialize is to conquer another country, whether it be in the means of politics, economics and/or culture, and control that land. The aftermath for the imperialized country was either beneficial or harmful. The amount of African countries that a European country imperialized varied. Great Britain imperialized fifteen countries in Africa, including Egypt in 1882, Sierra Leone in 1808, and the Union of South Africa in 1910. Although Great Britain’s reasons to imperialize were selfish, Britain helped each country progress afterwards.
Nigeria has a complex history and though it is independent the effects of British colonization are still present.1#2 Nigeria’s dissension is inextricably linked to the merging of Northern and Southern Nigeria in 1914.2#3 Early missionaries used Western education as a tool for evangelism causing a northerrn pulation dominated by islam to be suspicious and reject Western influences.3 In the south western ideals were more widely accepted as a result of their acceptance to Christianity and evangelism. Due to their easy acceptance of westernization the British built schools, roads and infrastructure in the South, none of which appeared in the North.
“Nigeria has always been a divided country plagued by weak governance, ethnic cleavages, and corruption”("The Historical Background of Boko Haram", 2014). Also, “Boko Haram was born in this context, with religious fervor growing in the Muslim north and finally manifesting itself in violent Islamist terrorism"( "The Historical Background of Boko Haram", 2014). When the British pull out the region, it left the Northern parts of Nigeria unstable and not ensuring that northern Nigeria opened the door to corruption by terror groups. “The system led by Bifurcated country with a productive south flush with oil wealth and impoverishes north struggling to reconcile modernization with dictates of the orthodox and rapacious power broker”(Wall, 2015). The country was not modernized like the southern part of Nigeria and majority of the people were uneducated and poor.
“History followed different courses for different peoples because of differences among peoples ' environments, not because of biological differences among peoples themselves” (Jared Diamond). In the book Guns Germs and Steel he accounted a conversation with Yali, a New Guinean politician that had asked “Why is it that you white people developed so much cargo and brought it to New Guinea, but we black people had little cargo of our own?”. Diamond tries to answer this by describing the difference in use of government throughout history by bands, tribes, chiefdoms, and states.
The first way the Ibo culture of Nigeria is civilized is through the government. The government takes care of issues in a fair way. After both sides were done speaking at the Egwugwu Ceremony, the Evil Forest said, “Our duty is not to blame this man or praise that, but to settle the dispute” (Chapter 10 pg.93) The Evil Spirits main goal was not trying to blame the person who did wrong, but to solve the problem in a fair manner to get it over with. Another example of how the Ibo culture is civilized through government is it is organized with rules. The government leaders made white men go back to their own land so they wouldn’t change the Ibo culture. As it says in the article Political Colonization, “They said the land had changed and that they were dying. And they demand that all white men go back to their own country so that the land might return to the way it was before the british came.” The government made that rule because it would help the Ibo culture stay alive and not transfer over to another culture. The last way the Ibo culture is civilized through government is
Even though,many rebelled against the foreign intervention. British were accepted to take over the northern area of Nigeria. Sir George Goldie helped Britain
...’s depictions of both traditional and modern beliefs in varying degrees illustrate the importance of both in contemporary Nigerian culture, as well as the greater Africa as a whole, and how both are intertwined and cannot exist without the other. In effect, she skillfully subverts stereotypes or single perceptions of Africa as backward and traditional, proving instead, the multifaceted culture of Africa. She further illustrates that neither traditional African nor western culture is necessarily detrimental. It is the stark contrast of the fundamental cultures that inevitably leads to clashes and disagreements. In the end, what holds African countries such as Nigeria together is their shared pride. Modern, western influences can bring positive changes to society, but new cultures cannot completely eradicate the foundational cultures to which a society is founded on.
Nigeria became an area of slave trade for the British Empire in about 1807, but they did not officially make it a colony until the 20th century. The British created Nigeria for the sole purpose of revenue; it is an “artificial country…the colonial borders enclosed more than 250 ethnic groups that has never been ru...
On October 1, 1960, the Federation of Nigeria achieved independence, initially as a constitutional monarchy. In June 1961, the northern part of the United Nations Trust Territory of British Cameroons was incorporated into Nigeria's Northern Region as the province of Sardauna, and in August 1963 a fourth region, the Mid-Western Region, was created. From the outset, Nigeria's ethnic, regional, and religious tensions were magnified by the disparities in economic and educational development. The Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria was adopted on October 1, 1963. At the same time, Nigeria became a member of the Commonwealth and Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe of the NCNC took office as first Nigerian's first President. On January 15, 1966, a group of officers overthrew the government. In May 1967, Lt. Col. Emeka Ojukwu, the military governor, declared the independence of the Eastern Region as the "Republic of Biafra." After General Muhammed was assassinated on February 13, 1976, Lt. Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo became head of state. Seven new states were created in 1976, bringing the total to nineteen. Several military rulers followed, ending with the sudden death of General Sani Abacha in June, 1998. He was succeeded by General Abdulsalami Abubakar, who held elections in 1999 leading to the election of Olusegun Obasanjo, who took office in May, 1999.
According to Samuels in Case Studies in Comparative Politics, Nigeria began as a group of states and empires, which were conquered by the British Empire who ruled Nigeria through indirect rule with varying degrees of rule in North and South Nigeria (Samuels, 323-326). Since they were granted independence in 1960, three republics have been created and each has ended by military rule, which led to the creation of the fourth, and current republic in Nigeria. In the current regime Nigeria’s GDP is ranked 108 of 156 and has been decreasing, lower than some of the non oil-producing nations in Africa (“Nigeria”).
According to the book, A History of Nigeria (2008), Nigeria is historically unique for three different reasons. First, it was found that there had been a high level of migration from the Northern part of Nigeria to the Southern part due to the Savanna. Second, humans within the regi...
To adapt one of Isichei's claims, Nigeria's “confrontation with an alien culture, its conquest, and the experience of an alien rule, created … [crises]” (180). There were many riots and conflicts between the Nigerians and the British, although most of the uprisings were eventually subdued by the military power of the British. Riots were common—from the culturally rooted Yoruba riots in the West and the religious skirmishes with the Muslims and Hausa in the North, to the confrontations with the naturally ‘rich,' yet stubborn Igbo and Delta states. Apart from encompassing all the major ethnic groupings and regions in Nigeria, amazingly these conflicts also covered the three most explicit British inculcations: cultural, religious, and economic.
Nigeria is a developing country in West Africa that was colonized by the British in 1884 at the Berlin conference where Africa was divided by European powers (Graham 2009). The British wanted to expand their empire, which meant taking over other countries that had resources that they wanted, and would allow them to expand their trade market and economy. One of the colonies that British colonized was Colonial Nigeria, which was forced to participate in the slave trade in the past and was controlled by the British through the set up of trading posts and selling manufactured goods. The British split Nigeria into the north and the south regions (Temple 1912). The Southern and Northern Nigeria Protectorates controlled these two regions.
The following statement from a book reviews that I was reading by Holzgrefe et al. On” The Struggle for Modern Nigeria: The Biafran War 1967–1970 “by Michael Gould, really lays out what the conflict was in this bloody war”. The war had its origins in ethnic rivalry within the Nigerian army. After Abubakar Tafawa Balewa’s government was overthrown in January 1966, in a coup led by junior-ranked Igbo officers, Major-General Johnson AguiyiIronsi was nominated Head of State by those government ministers who had survived the coup. Given that Aguiyi-Ironsi was an Igbo and that those killed in the coup were senior politicians from the Western and Northern provinces (including Tafawa Balewa and the Northern premier Ahmadu Bello), the coup quickly became characterized as an Igbo conspiracy to control Nigeria.” It is clear here as we see children of the same land betraying one another because of certain greediness, misunderstanding, and personal interest as is the relationship between the two sisters who fight over things which could have been stopped if they only thought things through. The author of the review continues the statement further, saying: “Though Aguiyi-Ironsi was quickly overthrown in a counter-coup masterminded by northern Muslim officers, which placed General Yakubu Gowon as the new head of the Federal Military Government (FMG), ethnic tensions spiralled. Consequently, anti-Igbo pogroms in the north followed, with 30,000 Igbos being killed and over one million fleeing the north to the eastern part of the country. Such widespread ethnic violence alongside the reversal of Aguiyi-Ironsi’s own coup led many Igbos to conclude that a united Nigeria could not guarantee their safety or their equal role in the country and that secession was a viable option.”Prior to the colonialist, it can be said that though conflict existed between the many tribes