Towards the Independence of the Niger Delta (1)

Chapter One

The Beginning

It is impossible to write about the Niger Delta, her issues, and their solutions, without prefacing it with Nigeria’s history. The existential history of Nigeria itself begins in the Niger Delta. This history also provides information on the root of Nigeria’s problems and gives a general idea of what the limited set of probable solutions is. Unfortunately, both root cause and solution are shrouded in a part of history dominated by ethnic and religious prejudice, bigotry, and violence. The resultant “victors” that these ethnic squabbles have birthed have ensured that this history — especially its violent parts which hold the solution to this country’s problems — is not discussed and is not taught in schools. A popular reason usually given by guilty state actors and their colluding non-state supporters is the incendiary nature of such information in the hands of the people. This is in truth not the case. The reason I believe remains that informing the people about the history of Nigeria, or allowing them to discuss it, will definitely spur them to forcefully demand a change. It is those who would naturally be washed away as a result of this consciousness of the people, who are the very same architects of Nigeria’s decomposition, including their offspring and appendages who have held sway for much of Nigeria’s history, and who have by their connections and influence within the state ensured that history is a taboo in Nigeria, preventing this consciousness from gaining ground. The reason for this is obvious. Subsequently, the Niger Delta history in relation to Nigeria’s has been purposely suppressed. Where suppression has been impossible, it has been corrupted and twisted by these ethnic propagandists, in part to prevent the people of this region from being conscious enough to understand that they presently exist in a system of colonialism where they are the colonized. The logical sequence of events which follows where this knowledge of history exists would be a steady increasing consciousness amongst the people, till its eventual peak, culminating naturally in a mass economic and political revolt of the people.

Nigeria, a country of over 250 distinct ethnic nationalities — Africa’s most populous nation — means many different things, and nothing. Although this appears contradictory on the surface, careful observation and subsequent deductions or inductions made in a forthright manner or otherwise by discerning minds, would prove it correct. It will not be out of place to say Nigeria, for all its known potential, is today a tragedy of and for the entire black race.

Countries are forged by commonalities, and although these commonalities are more prevalent in homogeneous nation states, practical examples can still be found in a good number of heterogeneous nation states in this era’s geo-politics. In a homogeneous nation state, the core of these commonalities is the culture of its inhabitants. Since a general culture cannot be said to be a popular concept in heterogeneous societies and even some homogeneous ones, the commonalities which are used to bind them together are found in the ethos and ideals that govern the day-to-day lives of the inhabitants of that society. Those ethos and ideals become the unifying substitute for culture. Unfortunately for Nigeria, like many other artificial African nation states, these generally held and binding ethos do not exist. What suffices are nation states specially crafted and designed by European adventurers, economic warlords, imperialists, and colonialists, with the sole aim of ruthlessly exploiting the human and natural resources of the indigenous peoples in their newly acquired colony, for the economic aggrandizement of the few individuals and countries involved. For Nigeria, the archetypal colonial edifice of African underdevelopment, the culprit remains Great Britain and its foot soldiers both foreign and local which it employed to see out its unholy aim.

Studies on the economic and political history of Nigeria all point to the inception of trade between Europeans and Africans along the coast of the Niger Delta which started from as early as the fourteenth century as noted by one of Africa’s foremost historians, Kenneth Dike in his seminal work on the economic and political history of Nigeria which he published before Nigeria’s independence. This trade, driven by the needs of Europeans with little to no economic recourse to the needs of their trading African partners, centered around the selling of Africans as slaves in exchange for cheap and worthless goods from Europe ranging from cheap liquor to cheap clothes and other such worthless articles which the Europeans felt were worth the lives of Africans, and for which their African trading partners out of sheer greed and fear, accepted.

Although started by the Portuguese, the trade in humans from West Africa was eventually taken over by other European countries with greater naval strength; the likes of England, France and the Netherlands. Smaller nations such as Sweden and Denmark were not left out. The rush for slaves by the Europeans was to get cheap sources of labour for the various plantations being set up in newly colonised island nations in the Americas and Indies. The elites and peoples of Europe needed sugar for their tea, and cotton for their clothes, and it was on the whipped backs of black Africans that those needs were met. Some estimates between 1450 and 1850 put the number of slaves taken across the Atlantic in this period at approximately ten million. Industrialization, the need for new markets, and humanitarianism eventually led to the British Parliament passing an Act to abolish the slave trade in March 1807. British subjects now needed to look for other means of legitimate trade and as such attempted to put an end to the trade which by now had become the economic mainstay of the different communities inhabiting the coast. This new form of legitimate trade was to be centred around palm oil for Europe’s industries.

The newfound zeal to end the slave trade did not sit well with slave trading states such as Lagos, Dahomey, New Calabar, and Bonny. Accordingly, measures were put in place to continue the trade with other European nations like Portugal and Spain who were yet to be incentivised to stop the trade. Focus on the slave trade meant a reduction in trade in palm oil and its effect was felt by the British. Battles continued, with treaties being signed and subsidies being given to slave trading kings to stop the trade. By March 1839, Bonny had agreed to end the slave trade under an agreement with the British that would see the Bonny king receive 2000 dollars’ worth of gifts yearly for five years.

Just like battles raged for the control of the slave markets in West Africa which had Bonny as its biggest market, battles also raged for palm oil trade which once again had the Eastern part of the Niger Delta area as its source. The Bonny-Andoni war of 1846, and the Bonny Civil War of 1855 are some of the economic battles fought during this time as documented by Dike. There were other wars between the white intruders and the different nations states occupying the Delta in their bid to suppress the local population and dictate the terms of trade; the Akassa War between King Koko and the Royal Niger Company in Akassa in 1895 gets an honourable mention.

Nigeria’s more recent historical analysts will link its creation to the economic interests of George Dashwood Goldie Taubman who first arrived in the Niger Delta in 1877.

In 1879 Taubman succeeded in fusing together British business interests on the Niger River into what he called the United Africa Company — which would go on to be the National African Company after seeing off French competition. With the politics of the time, it would be a matter of time before individual business interests would culminate in the creation of what would become an appendage of the British empire, meant to serve as an overseas outpost and a source of cheap raw materials for the industrial revolution going on in Britain at the time.

As much as the different courses of action that would lead to the creation of Nigeria were started in earnest by Goldie’s economic plans and the ruthless execution thereof, Goldie’s monopolistic ideas alone could not bring about the creation of Nigeria.

Edward Hyde Hewett who was Consul between September 1879 and June 1885 and Consul General between June 1885 and January 1891, after numerous correspondence with the Foreign Office, and propelled by Britain’s fear of French interest and the German annexation of Cameroon in 1884, was instructed to acquire a British Protectorate over the Niger. This he was able to achieve. Kenneth Dike noted thus:

“It was due to Hewett’s work and to the exertions of Sir George Goldie that the British delegates at the Berlin West African Conference of 1885 were able to claim for their country ascendency over the Delta and the lower Niger.”

The Berlin Conference ushered in the era of European colonialism of Africa, and it was the Conservative Party of Britain under its Colonial Secretary, Joseph Chamberlain, who led this effort of colonialism with the creation of an armed force to be called the West African Frontier Force superintended by Lord Fredrick Lugard, one of its mercenaries whom it had employed in the violent suppression of the Ugandan peoples in the course of their colonization. The British Government’s amalgamation of what was to become Nigeria did not take much longer. By 1906 the Lagos Colony and Protectorate — which had been captured by Consul John Beecroft in 1851 — was geographically merged into the Protectorate of Southern Nigeria, and in 1914, the Protectorate of Northern Nigeria was added to the mix for reasons which colonial correspondence and researchers on Nigeria’s colonial history have figured have to do with the economic need to balance the budget of the Northern Protectorate with the use of resources generated from the palm oil trade booming in the Southern protectorate.

By 1914, the different ethnic nationalities in the geographical area called Nigeria had become a fully-fledged British colony and property or euphemistically, a country. The Northern and Southern Protectorates which prior to then had been administered separately, had now been completely woven together without having the commonalities needed to ensure a seamless cohesion between the many different peoples occupying what had now geographically become a new territory. One cannot find a more apt description for the meaninglessness of Nigeria, both to the colonizers and the colonized, than the idea and process that brought about it. But one can also come closer to this by looking at the origin of its name which has been attributed mostly to Flora Shaw — a British journalist and later girlfriend of Lord Lugard — in her January 8 1897 article for The Times of London. Or is it the fact that we were almost named Goldesia after Goldie?

A couple of decades into British colonization of Nigeria, discontent between the colonized and the colonizers began to break through to the surface. The new political order and its need for educated local people meant that privileged Nigerians began to acquire a semblance of education from the colonialist, not to empower them for their own benefit, but to empower them for Britain’s benefit. This education brought with it a consciousness which enabled the local people to see beyond the façade of colonial administration and deep into the racial oppression inherent in colonialism not just in Nigeria, but throughout the African continent. This consciousness in turn birthed the political activists and movements calling for the independence of Nigeria, leading to Nigeria’s independence from Britain on 1st October 1960.

For the most part, the early independence movements in Nigeria focused on the visible racial and class divide, making it a conversation about oppressed blacks and imperialist white Europeans. These deep-seated emotions helped rally the masses behind the various nationalist and independence movements and groups prior to independence. The mutual understanding of the issues and task ahead, which had been simply translated as a replacement of the Europeans with Nigerians, also began to have cracks immediately it appeared likely to succeed. The reason for this is not far-fetched. Nigeria’s heterogeneous nature and a resulting lack of uniting commonalities was beginning to rear its ugly head. The question of who would replace the Europeans when they left became the core of the ideas that drove every political move made by the political elite of the different ethnic nationalities in the three existing regions: North, East, and West. The political leadership of the three major ethnic groups in the country — the Hausa-Fulani to the North, the Yoruba to the West, and the Igbos to the East — began to make moves and counter moves while the political leaders of the minority ethnic nationalities spread amongst these three groups made alliances with whichever of the groups best represented and protected their personal and group interest at any given point in time, since their numbers were such that prevented them from being hegemonic in their own right. There were also alliances between the elite of the three larger groups during this time.

In January 1944, the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC) was formed by Nnamdi Azikiwe and Herbert Macaulay. Despite the NCNC not being a political party as at the time of its formation, but an amalgamation of various ethnic and social unions, it became increasingly seen as an Igbo party between 1948 and 1952 when the Igbo State Union joined its fold and became the largest group within its rank, coupled with the fact that at this point, Azikiwe had become the President of both bodies. By 1949, the Northern Nigerian region had formed the majority of the NPC — the Northern People’s Congress — with their motto being ‘One North, One People irrespective of religion, rank or tribe.’10 The NPC was led by Sir Ahmadu Bello.

Chief Obafemi Awolowo, in response to the political organization going on, formed the Action Group (AG) in March 1950. The NCNC, NPC, and AG would end up becoming the major parties leading up to independence, all with strongholds in their ethnic spheres of influence. Nigeria as at this point had now been split into three regions unofficially, and by 1950 at the Macpherson Constitutional Conference in Ibadan11, the three-region-Nigeria would become official and be included in the Macpherson Constitution of 1951.

The most proffered reason for the North having over half the percentage of legislative seats, with the South having the lesser number of seats, has been the North’s population, which is assumed to be a little over half of the total Nigerian population. This has been the statistical reality of Nigeria, but it is one that has been doubted by the people of Southern Nigeria as other socio-developmental statistical reports and research do not support that claim. This has put Nigeria’s population figures forever in doubt.

Harold Smith, a colonial officer who served in Nigeria, has time and again used different media available to him to inform the world and most especially the Nigerian people about the falsity of Nigeria’s colonial statistical data, especially that relating to population figures which has been used as an excuse and a tool for the domination of the entire country by the elites of Northern Nigeria and subsequently the indirect control of the country by the British and other neo-colonialists, as apparently both go hand in hand. An audio documentary produced by the British Broadcasting Corporation, where Nigeria’s history was discussed by academics including Harold Smith, appears to back this claim. In the documentary, shocking immoral acts of the British government were touched upon, including the general selfish policies and actions it influenced in its various colonies before conceding power to the local people. Documents alleged to hold the incriminating details and explanation for some of these actions were said to be classified secret and noted to be held in vaults with instructions for them to be available for public perusal and scrutiny only beginning from a particular date, which is decades away from now.

Also, in a recorded video interview of Harold Smith himself on BenTV in 2013, he admitted to working in Nigeria before independence ‘primarily to write legislation for the new nation.’ He would also go on to reveal plans that were made by Sir James Robertson to bring in Sudanese administrators, a plan whose success or failure we cannot ascertain. He alleged to have been threatened not to speak about the fraudulent nature of Britain’s influence on the entire independence movement; if he did not, ‘means would be found’ to shut him up. On the other hand, he was promised a fast promotion if he kept quiet. The British citizens who played along and took part in the fraudulent elections were given massive pensions, according to him.

After the 1952 general elections, calls for self-governance became louder as the various regions prepared for the London Constitutional Conference which would hold the following year. This call for self-government was vehemently opposed by the Northern region ‘stating that it was not ready for self-government.’ It was this and many others that were hoped to be resolved at the London Constitutional Conference. There also appeared to exist a sense of foreboding on the outcome of the conference. There were fears that it would lead to the splitting of Nigeria along the ethnic lines clearly cut by the three regions. The fears were such that apparently, Kwame Nkrumah who would later become President of independent Ghana, sent a letter to Azikiwe pleading with him to ensure all delegates speak with one voice at the London Constitutional Conference after sensing that the North might want to purposely bungle it.

Like Nkrumah, Azikiwe was a nationalist and believed in a ‘One Nigeria’ independent from the British. The NPC leadership on the other hand dreaded the thought of self-government because they misunderstood its ramifications and feared domination by the South; fears which we cannot say were unfounded, since public statements and actions from leaders in the East — as we will mention later — contained such rhetoric. Nkrumah hoped to start a self-government programme for the entire West Africa and feared it would all come to nothing if Nigeria were to split into three.

By 1954, after the London Constitutional Conference, the Lyttleton Constitution was put into effect and became the governing constitution of Nigeria. Somehow, the delegates and the arbiter whom the constitution was named after managed to maintain a united Nigeria; there was a central government in Lagos, while the regions were given the freehand to declare self-government beginning from 1956.

In 1957, both East and West regions declared self-governance, while the North came around two years later in 1959. Nigeria had not splintered as many had feared, but as the Independence Day drew closer, the ethnic cracks, fears and plans of domination, all along regional and ethnic lines, began to show. While in 1956, Anthony Enahoro would unsuccessfully move a motion at the House of Representatives for self-government, on 6th March 1957, Ghana gained its independence from the British, and that contributed in no small measure to Nigeria’s push for independence. By May of 1957, S. L. Akintola would move the motion for Nigeria’s independence at the House of Representatives which was supported by majority, including Tafawa Balewa on behalf of the NPC. The date was eventually amended to 195920 to allow for those successful in the 1959 election to decide on the motion, but before then, the British would go on to set up three commissions in preparation for Nigeria’s imminent independence; one headed by Sir Jeremy Raisman for Revenue Allocation, another by Lord Merthyr for the Constituency Delimitation, and the one led by Henry Willink to look into ‘The fears of minorities and the means of allaying them.’

Nigeria’s move to independence bears no hallmark of a united people. It instead bears the hallmark of a disjointed people coming together to dislodge a common enemy in the British, and just as the enemy is on the verge of certain defeat, a sudden realization is forced on these temporary allies that this was never a battle aimed at removing the enemy for the benefit of the general populace, but one, which due to a lack of strong uniting commonalities, has been fought to dominate another or to fend off domination by the other. In the mix of all these, crude oil was struck in commercial quantities, not in the heart of any of the major nationalities making up the country, but in the Niger Delta; an area filled with ethnic minorities, where the formation of what was to become Nigeria first began with slave ships and gunboats, followed by the business interests of men like George Dashwood Goldie Taubman and supported by the British government in the 1800s.

This article was culled from an unpublished manuscript titled “Towards the Independence of the Niger Delta”, authored by Nubari Saatah. The references and resources cited as a part of this manuscript have not been included here but will be included in the published work. Readers should note that the published work might differ from this article.