Southern Nigeria Protectorate

1900–1914


Ensign	Badge

Anthem
God Save the Queen

Southern Nigeria (red)
British possessions in Africa (pink)
1913

Capital

Lagos (administrative centre from 1906)

Languages

English (official)
Yoruba, Igbo, Ibibio, Tiv, Edo, Ijaw languages widely spoken

Religion

Christianity, Odinani, Yoruba religion, Islam, African traditional religion

Government

Constitutional monarchy

Monarch

•

1900–1901

Victoria

•

1901–1910

Edward VII

•

1910–1914

George V

High Commissioner

•

1900–1904

Ralph Moor

•

1904–1906

Walter Egerton

Governor

•

1906–1912

Walter Egerton

•

1912–1914

Frederick Lugard

Historical era

New Imperialism

•

Established

1 January 1900

•

Disestablished

1 January 1914

Area

•

1913

206,888 km² (79,880 sq mi)

Population

•

1911 est.

7,855,749

Currency

Pound sterling (1900–13)
British West African pound (1913–14)

Preceded by

Succeeded by

	Niger Coast Protectorate
	Royal Niger Company
	Benin Empire
	Oyo Empire
	Aro Confederacy
	Kingdom of Nri
	Wukari Federation

Nigeria Protectorate

Southern and Northern Nigeria in about 1914 on a map by John Bartholomew & Co. of Edinburgh.

Southern Nigeria was a British protectorate in the coastal areas of modern-day Nigeria formed in 1900 from the union of the Niger Coast Protectorate with territories chartered by the Royal Niger Company below Lokoja on the Niger River.

The Lagos colony was later added in 1906, and the territory was officially renamed the Colony and Protectorate of Southern Nigeria. In 1914, Southern Nigeria was joined with Northern Nigeria Protectorate to form the single colony of Nigeria. The unification was done for economic reasons rather than political—Northern Nigeria Protectorate had a budget deficit; and the colonial administration sought to use the budget surpluses in Southern Nigeria to offset this deficit.^[1]

Sir Frederick Lugard, who took office as governor of both protectorates in 1912, was responsible for overseeing the unification, and he became the first governor of the newly united territory. Lugard established several central institutions to anchor the evolving unified structure. A Central Secretariat was instituted at Lagos, which was the seat of government, and the Nigerian Council (later the Legislative Council), was founded to provide a forum for representatives drawn from the provinces. Certain services were integrated across the Northern and Southern Provinces because of their national significance—military, treasury, audit, posts and telegraphs, railways, survey, medical services, judicial and legal departments—and brought under the control of the Central Secretariat in Lagos.^[1]

The process of unification was undermined by the persistence of different regional perspectives on governance between the Northern and Southern Provinces, and by Nigerian nationalists in Lagos. While southern colonial administrators welcomed amalgamation as an opportunity for imperial expansion, their counterparts in the Northern Province believed that it was injurious to the interests of the areas they administered because of their relative backwardness and that it was their duty to resist the advance of southern influences and culture into the north. Southerners, on their part, were not eager to embrace the extension of legislation originally meant for the north to the south.^[1]

Administration

Governors

From its foundation southern Nigeria was administered by a high commissioner. The first high commissioner was Ralph Moor. When Lagos was amalgamated with the rest of southern Nigeria in 1906, the then high commissioner Walter Egerton was made into Governor of the territory.

When in 1900 the protectorate passed from the Foreign Office to the Colonial Office, Ralph Moor became High Commissioner of Southern Nigeria and laid the foundations of the new administration, his health failing, he retired on pension on 1 October 1903.

Egerton became Governor of Lagos Colony, covering most of the Yoruba lands in the southwest of what is now Nigeria, in 1903. The colonial office wanted to amalgamate the Lagos Colony with the protectorate of Southern Nigeria, and in August 1904 also appointed Egerton as High Commissioner for the Southern Nigeria Protectorate. He held both offices until 28 February 1906.^[2] On that date the two territories were formally united and Egerton was appointed Governor of the new Colony and Protectorate of Southern Nigeria, holding office until 1912.^[3] In the new Southern Nigeria, the old Lagos Colony became the Western Province, and the former Southern Nigerian Protectorate was split into a Central Province with capital at Warri and an Eastern Province with capital at Calabar.^[4]

When his predecessor in Southern Nigeria, Sir Ralph Denham Rayment Moor, resigned, a large part of the southeast of Nigeria was still outside British control. On taking office, Egerton began a policy of sending out annual pacification patrols, which generally obtained submission through the threat of force without being required to actually use force.^[5]

When Egerton became Governor of Lagos he enthusiastically endorsed the extension of the Lagos – Ibadan railway onward to Oshogbo, and the project was approved in November 1904. Construction began in January 1905 and the line reached Oshogbo in April 1907.^[6] He favored rail over river transport, and pushed to have the railway further extended to Kano by way of Zaria.^[7] He also sponsored extensive road construction, building on the legislative foundation laid by his predecessor Moor which enabled use of unpaid local labor.^[8] Egerton shared Moor's views on the damage that was being done to the Cross River trade by the combination of indigenous middlemen and traders based in Calabar. The established traders at first got the Colonial Office to pass rules inhibiting competition from traders willing to set up bases further inland, but with some difficulty Egerton persuaded the officials to reverse their ruling.^[9]

Egerton was a strong advocate of colonial development. He believed in deficit financing at certain periods of a colony's growth, which was reflected in his budgets from 1906 to 1912. He had a constant struggle to obtain approval for these budgets from the colonial office.^[10] As early as 1908, Egerton supported the idea of "a properly organized Agricultural Department with an energetic and experienced head", and the Department of Agriculture came into being in 1910.^[11] Egerton endorsed the development of rubber plantations, a concept familiar to him from his time in Malaya, and arranged for land to be leased for this purpose. This was the foundation of a highly successful industry.^[12] He also thought there could be great potential in the tin fields near Bauchi, and thought that if proven a branch line to the tin fields would be justified.^[13]

Egerton came into conflict with the administration of Northern Nigeria on a number of issues. There was debate over whether Ilorin should be incorporated into Southern Nigeria since the people were Yoruba, or remain in Northern Nigeria since the ruler was Muslim and for some time Ilorin had been subject to the Uthmaniyya Caliphate. There was argument about the administration of duties on goods landed on the coast and carried into Northern Nigeria. And there was dispute over whether railway lines from the north should terminate at Lagos or should take alternative routes to the Niger River and the coast.^[14] Egerton had reason on his side in objecting to the proposed line terminating at Baro on the Niger, since navigation southward to the coast was restricted to the high water season, and even then was uncertain.^[15]

Egerton's administration imposed policies that tended towards segregation of Europeans and Africans.^[16] These included excluding Africans from the West African Medical Service and saying that no European should take orders from an African, which had the effect of ruling out African doctors from serving with the army. Egerton himself did not always approve of these policies, and they were not strictly upheld.^[17] The legal relationship between the Lagos government and the Yoruba states of the Lagos Colony was not clear, and it was not until 1908 that Egerton persuaded the Obas to accept the establishment of the Supreme Court in the main towns.^[18] In 1912, Egerton was replaced by Frederick Lugard, who was appointed Governor-General of both Southern and Northern Nigeria with the mandate to unite the two. Egerton was appointed Governor of British Guiana as his next posting, clearly a demotion, which may have been connected to his fights with the Colonial Office officials.^[19]

Lugard returned to Nigeria as Governor of the two protectorates. His main mission was to complete the amalgamation into one colony. Although controversial in Lagos, where it was opposed by a large section of the political class and the media, the amalgamation did not arouse passion in the rest of the country. From 1914 to 1919, Lugard was made Governor General of the now combined Colony of Nigeria. Throughout his tenure, Lugard sought strenuously to secure the amelioration of the condition of the native people, among other means by the exclusion, wherever possible, of alcoholic liquors, and by the suppression of slave raiding and slavery. Lugard ran the country with half of each year spent in England, distant from realities in Africa where subordinates had to delay decisions on many matters until he returned, and based his rule on a military system.^[20]

**High-Commissioners and Governors**^[21]
Name	Tenure	Office
Sir Ralph Moor	1900–1903	High Commissioner of the Southern Nigeria Protectorate
Sir Walter Egerton	1903–1912	High Commissioner of the Southern Nigeria Protectorate 1903–1906 Governor of the Colony and Protectorate of Southern Nigeria 1906–1912
Sir Frederick Lugard	1912–1914	Governor of the Colony and Protectorate of Southern Nigeria

Economy

Colonial economic policy

The British economic policy for Africa at the time was founded on the belief that if African peoples were brought to embrace European civilisation with its emphasis on law and order their economic resources would be more effectively and thoroughly exploited to the benefit of all. It was optimistically and simplistically believed that the problem of African economic development was largely the problem of law and order; that once the slave trade was suppressed the chaos and anarchy believed to be the bane of life in Africa would disappear and African endeavour would be channeled to the collection of the national produce of the tropical forest for the satisfaction of European needs. The view came to be held that Africans by themselves were incapable of maintaining law and order to the level needed to bring about the much-desired economic revolution, and that only European rule could do it.

It was not enough for the colonial power to impose and maintain law and order though. It was also necessary to promote and develop free movement and natural growth and trade. Also it was the generally accepted assumption that the economic efforts and products of a colony should supplement, rather than compete with or undermine, the economic efforts and products of the metropolitan country. This was a survival of the mercantilist system which had come to grief in the last quarter of the eighteenth century.

**Revenue and expenditure in £s**^[21]
Year	Revenue	Expenditure	Surplus/Deficit
1900	535,902	424,257	+111,645
1901	606,431	564,818	+41,613
1902	801,737	619,687	+182,050
1903	760,230	757,953	+2,277
1904	888,136	863,917	+24,219
1905	951,748	998,564	-46,816
1906	1,088,717	1,056,290	+32,427
1907	1,459,554	1,217,336	+242,218
1908	1,387,975	1,357,763	+30,212
1909	1,361,891	1,648,648	-286,793
1910	1,933,235	1,592,282	+340,953
1911	1,956,176	1,717,259	+238,917
1912	2,235,412	2,110,498	+124,914
1913	2,668,198	2,096,311	+571,887

References

1 2 3 Barkan, Joel D.; Gboyega, Alex; Stevens, Mike (August 2, 2001). "State and Local Governance in Nigeria". Public Sector and Capacity Building Program: Africa Region. The World Bank. p. 1. March 6, 2011
↑ Carland 1985, pp. 82.
↑ Worldstatesmen.
↑ Afigbo & Falola 2005, pp. 229.
↑ Carland 1985, pp. 58.
↑ Carland 1985, pp. 148.
↑ Carland 1985, pp. 169.
↑ Afigbo & Falola 2005, pp. 191.
↑ Afigbo & Falola 2005, pp. 177.
↑ Carland 1985, pp. 102–104.
↑ Falola 2003, pp. 404.
↑ Duignan & Gann 1975, pp. 105.
↑ Calvert 1910, pp. 37.
↑ Afigbo & Falola 2005, pp. 368–369.
↑ Geary 1965, pp. 143.
↑ Okpewho & Davies 1999, pp. 414.
↑ Gann & Duignan 1978, pp. 304.
↑ Afigbo & Falola 2005, pp. 280.
↑ Carland 1985, pp. 116.
↑ The Administration of Nigeria 1900 to 1960, by I. F. Nicholson, Oxford University Press, 1969
1 2 Carland 1985, p. 104

Bibliography

Carland, John M. (1985). The Colonial Office and Nigeria, 1898-1914. Hoover Press. ISBN 978-0-8179-8141-9.
Afigbo, Adiele Eberechukwu; Falola, Toyin (2005). Nigerian history, politics and affairs: the collected essays of Adiele Afigbo. Africa World Press. ISBN 1-59221-324-3.
Calvert, Albert Frederick (1910). Nigeria and Its Tin Fields. Forgotten Books. ISBN 1-4400-5273-5.
Carland, John M. (1985). The Colonial Office and Nigeria, 1898–1914. Hoover Press. ISBN 0-8179-8141-1.
Falola, Toyin (2003). The foundations of Nigeria: essays in honor of Toyin Falola. Africa World Press. ISBN 1-59221-120-8.
Duignan, Peter; Gann, Lewis H. (1975). Colonialism in Africa, 1870–1960: The economics of colonialism. CUP Archive. ISBN 0-521-08641-8.
Gann, Lewis H.; Duignan, Peter (1978). The rulers of British Africa, 1870–1914. Routledge. ISBN 0-85664-771-3.
Geary, William Nevill Montgomerie (1965) [1927]. Nigeria under British rule. Routledge. ISBN 0714616664.
Okpewho, Isidore; Davies, Carole Boyce (1999). The African diaspora: African origins and New World identities. Indiana University Press. ISBN 0-253-33425-X.
"Nigeria". WorldStatesmen. Retrieved 2011-05-25.

Adiele Afigbo, "Sir Ralph Moor and the Economic Development of Southern Nigeria, 1896–1903", Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria, 5/3 (1970), 371–97
Adiele Afigbo, The Warrant Chiefs: Indirect Rule in Southeastern Nigeria, 1891–1929 (1972)
Robert Home, City of Blood Revisited: A New Look at the Benin Expedition of 1897 (1982)
Tekena Tamuno, The Evolution of the Nigerian State: The Southern Phase, 1898–1914 (1972)
J. C. Anene, Southern Nigeria in Transition, 1885–1906: Theory and Practice in a Colonial Protectorate (1966)
Obaro Ikime, Merchant Prince of the Niger Delta: The Rise and Fall of Nana Olomu, Last Governor of the Benin River (1968)

Territories of the British Empire and the United Kingdom

Legend: Current territory; Former territory; * Now a Commonwealth realm; Now a member of the Commonwealth of Nations

Europe

1708–1757 Minorca Since 1713 Gibraltar 1763–1782 Minorca 1798–1802 Minorca 1800–1813 Malta (Protectorate) 1813–1964 Malta (Colony) 1807–1890 Heligoland 1809–1864 Ionian Islands 1878–1960 Cyprus 1921–1937 Irish Free State

North America

17th century and before		18th century	19th and 20th century

1579 New Albion 1583–1907 Newfoundland 1605–1979 *Saint Lucia 1607–1776 Virginia Since 1619 Bermuda 1620–1691 Plymouth Colony 1623–1883 Saint Kitts *(Saint Kitts & Nevis) 1624–1966 *Barbados 1625–1650 Saint Croix 1627–1979 *Saint Vincent and the Grenadines 1628–1883 Nevis *(Saint Kitts & Nevis) 1629–1691 Massachusetts Bay Colony 1632–1776 Maryland since 1632 Montserrat 1632–1860 Antigua *(Antigua & Barbuda) 1636–1776 Connecticut 1636–1776 Rhode Island 1637–1662 New Haven Colony	1643–1860 Bay Islands Since 1650 Anguilla 1655–1850 Mosquito Coast (protectorate) 1655–1962 *Jamaica 1663–1712 Carolina 1664–1776 New York 1665–1674 and 1702–1776 New Jersey Since 1666 British Virgin Islands Since 1670 Cayman Islands 1670–1973 *Bahamas 1670–1870 Rupert's Land 1671–1816 Leeward Islands 1674–1702 East Jersey 1674–1702 West Jersey 1680–1776 New Hampshire 1681–1776 Pennsylvania 1686–1689 Dominion of New England 1691–1776 Massachusetts	1701–1776 Delaware 1712–1776 North Carolina 1712–1776 South Carolina 1713–1867 Nova Scotia 1733–1776 Georgia 1754–1820 Cape Breton Island 1762–1974 *Grenada 1763–1978 Dominica 1763–1873 Prince Edward Island 1763–1791 Quebec 1763–1783 East Florida 1763–1783 West Florida 1784–1867 New Brunswick 1791–1841 Lower Canada 1791–1841 Upper Canada Since 1799 Turks and Caicos Islands	1818–1846 Columbia District/Oregon Country¹ 1833–1960 Windward Islands 1833–1960 Leeward Islands 1841–1867 Province of Canada 1849–1866 Vancouver Island 1853–1863 Colony of the Queen Charlotte Islands 1858–1866 British Columbia 1859–1870 North-Western Territory 1860–1981 *British Antigua and Barbuda 1862–1863 Stikine Territory 1866–1871 Vancouver Island and British Columbia 1867–1931 *Dominion of Canada² 1871–1964 British Honduras (*Belize) 1882–1983 *Saint Kitts and Nevis 1889–1962 Trinidad and Tobago 1907–1949 Newfoundland³ 1958–1962 West Indies Federation

1. Occupied jointly with the United States.
2. In 1931, Canada and other British dominions obtained self-government through the Statute of Westminster. See Canada's name.
3. Gave up self-rule in 1934, but remained a de jure Dominion until it joined Canada in 1949.

South America

1651–1667 Willoughbyland (Suriname) 1670–1688 Saint Andrew and Providence Islands⁴ 1831–1966 British Guiana (Guyana) Since 1833 Falkland Islands⁵ Since 1908 South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands⁵

4. Now the San Andrés y Providencia Department of Colombia. 5. Occupied by Argentina during the Falklands War of April–June 1982.

Africa

17th and 18th centuries	19th century		20th century

Since 1658 Saint Helena¹⁴ 1792–1961 Sierra Leone 1795–1803 Cape Colony	Since 1815 Ascension Island¹⁴ Since 1816 Tristan da Cunha¹⁴ 1806–1910 Cape Colony 1807–1808 Madeira 1810–1968 Mauritius 1816–1965 The Gambia 1856–1910 Natal 1868–1966 Basutoland (Lesotho) 1874–1957 Gold Coast (Ghana) 1882–1922 Egypt	1884–1966 Bechuanaland (Botswana) 1884–1960 British Somaliland 1887–1897 Zululand 1890–1962 Uganda 1890–1963 Zanzibar (Tanzania) 1891–1964 Nyasaland (Malawi) 1891–1907 British Central Africa Protectorate 1893–1968 Swaziland 1895–1920 East Africa Protectorate 1899–1956 Anglo-Egyptian Sudan	1900–1914 Northern Nigeria 1900–1914 Southern Nigeria 1900–1910 Orange River Colony 1900–1910 Transvaal Colony 1903–1976 Seychelles 1906–1954 Nigeria Colony 1910–1931 South Africa 1914–1954 Nigeria Colony and Protectorate 1915–1931 South West Africa (Namibia) 1919–1960 Cameroons (Cameroon)⁶ 1920–1963 Kenya 1922–1961 Tanganyika (Tanzania)⁶ 1923–1965 Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe)⁷ 1924–1964 Northern Rhodesia (Zambia) 1954–1960 Nigeria 1979–1980 Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe)⁷

6. League of Nations mandate.
7. Self-governing Southern Rhodesia unilaterally declared independence in 1965 (as Rhodesia) and continued as an unrecognised state until the 1979 Lancaster House Agreement. After recognised independence in 1980, Zimbabwe was a member of the Commonwealth until it withdrew in 2003.

Asia

17th and 18th century	19th century		20th century

1685–1824 Bencoolen (Sumatra) 1702–1705 Pulo Condore 1757–1947 Bengal (West Bengal (India) and Bangladesh) 1762–1764 Manila and Cavite 1786–1946 Penang (Malaysia) 1795–1948 Ceylon (Sri Lanka) 1796–1965 Maldives	1812–1824 Banka (Sumatra) and Billiton (Sumatra) 1819–1826 British Malaya (West Malaysia and Singapore) 1826–1946 Straits Settlements (Malaysia and Singapore) 1839–1967 Colony of Aden 1839–1842 Afghanistan 1841–1997 Hong Kong 1841–1946 Kingdom of Sarawak (Malaysia) 1848–1946 Labuan (Malaysia) 1858–1947 British India (India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, Burma) 1874–1963 British Borneo (East Malaysia and Brunei)	1879–1919 Afghanistan (protectorate) 1882–1963 British North Borneo (Malaysia) 1885–1946 Unfederated Malay States 1888–1984 Sultanate of Brunei 1891–1971 Muscat and Oman protectorate 1892–1971 Trucial States 1895–1946 Federated Malay States 1898–1930 Weihai Garrison 1878–1960 Cyprus	1907–1949 Bhutan (protectorate) 1918–1961 Kuwait protectorate 1920–1932 Iraq⁸ 1921–1946 Transjordan⁸ 1923–1948 Palestine⁸ 1945–1946 South Vietnam 1946–1963 North Borneo (Malaysia) 1946–1963 Sarawak (Malaysia) 1946–1963 Singapore 1946–1948 Malayan Union 1948–1957 Federation of Malaya (Malaysia) Since 1960 Akrotiri and Dhekelia (before as part of Cyprus) Since 1965 British Indian Ocean Territory (before as part of Mauritius and the Seychelles)

⁸ League of Nations mandate. Iraq's mandate was not enacted and replaced by the Anglo-Iraqi Treaty

Oceania

18th and 19th centuries		20th century

1788–1901 New South Wales 1803–1901 Van Diemen's Land/Tasmania 1807–1863 Auckland Islands⁹ 1824–1980 New Hebrides (Vanuatu) 1824–1901 Queensland 1829–1901 Swan River Colony/Western Australia 1836–1901 South Australia since 1838 Pitcairn Islands	1841–1907 Colony of New Zealand 1851–1901 Victoria 1874–1970 Fiji¹⁰ 1877–1976 British Western Pacific Territories 1884–1949 Territory of Papua 1888–1901 Cook Islands⁹ 1889–1948 Union Islands (Tokelau)⁹ 1892–1979 Gilbert and Ellice Islands¹¹ 1893–1978 British Solomon Islands¹²	1900–1970 Tonga (protected state) 1900–1974 Niue⁹ 1901–1942 *Commonwealth of Australia 1907–1953 *Dominion of New Zealand 1919–1942 Nauru 1945–1968 Nauru 1919–1949 Territory of New Guinea 1949–1975 Territory of Papua and New Guinea¹³

9. Now part of the *Realm of New Zealand.
10. Suspended member.
11. Now Kiribati and *Tuvalu.
12. Now the *Solomon Islands.
13. Now *Papua New Guinea.

Antarctica and South Atlantic

Since 1658 Saint Helena¹⁴ Since 1815 Ascension Island¹⁴ Since 1816 Tristan da Cunha¹⁴ Since 1908 British Antarctic Territory¹⁵ 1841–1933 Australian Antarctic Territory (transferred to the Commonwealth of Australia) 1841–1947 Ross Dependency (transferred to the Realm of New Zealand)

14. Since 2009 part of Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha; Ascension Island (1922–) and Tristan da Cunha (1938–) were previously dependencies of Saint Helena. 15. Both claimed in 1908; territories formed in 1962 (British Antarctic Territory) and 1985 (South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands).

Coordinates: 6°27′00″N 3°24′00″E / 6.4500°N 3.4000°E / 6.4500; 3.4000

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