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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | British Rule and Protest Movements in Northern Nigeria, 1900-1960 |
Author: | Apata, Z.O. |
Year: | 1996 |
Periodical: | Transafrican Journal of History (ISSN 0251-0391) |
Volume: | 25 |
Pages: | 226-250 |
Language: | English |
Notes: | biblio. refs. |
Geographic terms: | Northern Nigeria Nigeria West Africa Great Britain |
Subjects: | colonization anticolonialism History and Exploration colonialism nationalism Imperialism, Colonialism imperialism history revolutions |
Abstract: | By conquering Ilorin and Nupe, the two powerful Muslim states at the southern periphery of the Sokoto Caliphate, the Royal Niger Company (RNC) set in motion the machinery which led to the eventual capitulation of Northern Nigeria to the British. On taking over control in 1900, Captain Frederick Dealtry Lugard, the first High Commissioner, declared a protectorate. Building on the system of indirect rule adopted by the RNC, he divided the entire region into provinces, divisions and districts, ignoring cultural boundaries in the process, and creating a hierarchical system which killed initiative and which was unworkable given the skeletal administrative staff at his disposition. The British conquest of Northern Nigeria lasted six years (1897-1903) and met stiff resistance, suggesting that early British administration in Northern Nigeria was not as successful as is claimed in some quarters. Such resistance took on different forms, including refusal to comply with British colonial administrative measures and to pay taxes, ignoring the British presence, civil petitions, voluntary migrations, Yoruba irredentism, and armed revolt. In the decentralized states of the Middle Belt region, resistance against the colonial administration was more persistent than in the classical emirates. Most of these states were not pacified until after World War I. Notes, ref., sum. |