Amalgamation And The Five Autochthonous Territorial Entities In Nigeria
BY DA SUNDAY AKUN
On 1st January 1914, Frederick Lugard inaugurated the amalgamation of the Protectorates of Northern and Southern Nigeria into a unified single administration of a country called the Federal Republic of Nigeria (FRN). This exercise was preceded by a proposal of May 1905 by Lugard to the then UK Secretary of State on the subject matter. In pursuance, Lugard was recalled from being Governor of Hong Kong in late 1911 and subsequently appointed Governor-General of Nigeria for the purpose of the amalgamation exercise.
The May 1905 proposal to amalgamate Nigeria into a unified single administration was made by Lugard in his tenure as the High Commissioner of the Protectorate of Northern Nigeria, which he inaugurated on 1st January 1900 by a proclamation. Lugard served in that capacity of the High Commissioner from 1900 to 1906.
Prior to 1900 when colonial administration began, ‘Nigeria’ existed as five distinct territorial entities with unique attributes of autochthony, geography, demography, economy and religion by each one of them. The territorial entities which were contiguous and independent are: – (i)Lagos Colony and Interior (ii) Oil Rivers Territories (or Lower Niger Coasts) (iii) Niger Territories (or Middle Niger and Benue Rivers) (iv) Sokoto Kingdom (v) Borno Kingdom.
Lugard argued that amalgamation of the five autochthonous territorial entities into a unified country called Nigeria was good to serve “as a means whereby each part of [the five pristine territorial entities formed into the new country] Nigeria should be raised to the level of the highest plane attained by any particular part”. Thus suggesting, a priori, a developmental goal as the cardinal reason for the stepwise amalgamation of the erstwhile five legacy territorial societies that Britain found upon arrival to the territories. To underscore the perceptive goal of amalgamation, Lugard emphasized that the exercise was “not a mere political, geographical, or more especially a financial expression.”
In general, European imperial colonialism that begun with voyages of flag-planting explorers was aimed as an enterprise that would civilize the rest of the world of non-whites races, and eventually be of immense benefit to the colonised natives for their economic wellbeing, socio-cultural welfare cum security of lives and properties through settler colonialism. In a nutshell, the avowed enterprise was a moral obligation of the Whiteman to pursue in order to redeem the natives who were described by a British poet, as being “new-caught, sullen peoples, half-devil and half-child.”
The 1914 amalgamation of Nigeria was the third in a three-pronged exercise by Lugard to unify the five territorial entities into a single country called Nigeria. The first exercise began on 1st January 1900 with the unification of three autochthonous entities into the Protectorate of Northern Nigeria; (i) Borno Kingdom (ii) Sokoto Kingdom (iii) Niger Territories (or Middle Niger and Benue Rivers). At the time of unifying the aforesaid three entities into the Protectorate of Northern Nigeria, the two autochthonous entities in the south had separate administrations under the Governor and High Commissioner of Lagos Colony and Lower Niger Coasts respectively. In 1906, the two entities in the South were unified into the Protectorate of Southern Nigeria, being the second stage that led to the ultimate 1914 amalgamation of Nigeria.
In general, the amalgamation exercise was staunchly resisted by the natives of the five autochthonous territorial entities but the British officials had their way by use of rifle fire power to replace resistant and recalcitrant native monarchs such as “Abdu Sarikin Muslimin” of Sokoto kingdom amongst others. Besides gun power, British officials leveraged upon subsisting treaties with autochthonous territorial entities to rationalized the basis for the amalgamation of the five legacy societies. As a result, letters of appointment were issued to native monarchs and British officials were appointed as Residents to covertly superintend over the monarchs. A military detachment was stationed with each Resident and made answerable to the orders of the Resident and not those of the native monarchs.
The settler colonialism approach to the amalgamation of the five legacy societies that make up Nigeria is akin to sticking “a pick-axe into the foundations of [the five legacy societies for which the world powers are] morally bound to [re-amalgamate] the [societies] over, again, from the foundations, or have [the five legacy societies] fall about [their] ears” along the path of Yugoslavia et al. In this regard, someday, it will be said that the five legacy societies were unified by the iron and blood of the amalgamator but were eventually disintegrated by the iron and blood of the amalgamates after a stint. And so, the events of Tuesday, 27th April 2021 involving the two envoys of the global powers with Nigeria would be of enormous historical value of being remembered as the date upon which an evil partnership of the two world powers, USA and UK, were shamelessly roused to de-amalgamate Nigeria in the 21st century.
The envoys of the aforesaid two world powers held parley with the President and the Foreign Affairs Minister of Nigeria simultaneously on Tuesday, 27th April 2021 on the security problems of Nigeria and announced the same verdict of hopelessness in any efforts towards resolving the problems. In addition, the gloating of the April 2021 report of The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) of the USA is more than an epitaph on the status of Nigeria as “a fully failed state.” Thus, CFR characteristically advocated and advertised the de-amalgamation of Nigeria rather than nudging world powers for a partnership to salvage the security problems of Nigeria for the good of humanity. Providentially, the burden of such salvage exercise has been that of the Whiteman ab initio, which resonates very well with the founding philosophy of CFR for the peace of the world.