CHAPTER X

THE ADMINISTRATION OF NORTHERN NIGERIA

The Empire has few more experienced servants in the Tropical African field than Sir Frederick Lugard. Like every other man who has become prominent, he possesses critics, and no doubt, like every one else, has made mistakes, but, speaking generally, he is very highly thought of. Whether General Lugard, with his military instincts and training, is the right man in the right place, is a matter upon which opinion may differ. Among military men who have served England in Equatorial Africa, no one more distinguished could have been chosen. The only reflection which his appointment gave rise to was an impersonal one. Nobody doubted his capacity, but it was suggested that the delicate problems of internal politics existing in Northern Nigeria required civilian rather than military habits of mind to cope with.

Those problems are infinitely complex. Seldom did a situation call for greater display of tact, sympathy and wise discernment. Seldom was there a more abundant supply of combustible material ready to take fire upon the initiation of a policy which should lack these qualities. Never a field more promising of desirable results to reward a just and humane stewardship, whose highest aim should be the contentment and prosperity of the people committed to its charge, and whose guiding spirit should be patience, and, as Sir Andrew Clarke puts it, “use of the power of imagination.”

Northern Nigeria, it need hardly be observed, differentiates absolutely from the southern province, in the nature of its soil, configuration, altitude, vegetation: in its ethnologic material, in religion, culture, social condition, political organisation. We have passed out of the pagan belt, and are in contact with a more advanced type of civilisation; we have left the forest and merged into the plain, into open park-like country, sparsely timbered as a rule when compared with the southern regions; pasture land, agricultural land covered with fields of waving millet and _masara_, peopled by splendid herds of cattle, where horses and long-nosed sheep are reared. Animism or fetishism no longer predominates; a revealed religion has replaced it. Semitic infusion is now everywhere apparent. It is a new world we have entered—a strange jumbling of two continents, an amalgam of cross-migratory currents severally attracted by the fertility of the soil; an industrialism at once remarkable, deeply interesting and of great promise. A rough feudalism, a loose central authority, a barbaric splendour in the midst of primitive surroundings, a system of rule superior to anything we have yet encountered, and of which the strongest binding cord is religious faith; large cities, extensive cultivations, tanneries, dye-pits, looms. A number of States, owning allegiance—more religious and racial than political—to a supreme chief, and appointing their own district governors, treasurers, war ministers, judges; controlling their own armies, managing their own exchequers. Society divided into two distinct classes—the aristocrats and the plebs—which correspond to divergencies of race, each class confined to its own quarter, rarely mingling in licit intercourse, perhaps more so than formerly, yet perpetuating a strain of pure stock which must have existed in Africa for at least two thousand years. Away from the towns, in favoured districts, herdsmen of Semitic blood; planters, agriculturists. In the towns, statesmen, warriors on the one side; on the other, manufacturers and traders. Riven through the country, highways of commerce, centuries old, branching to north, east and west, over which the tramp of feet and hoofs resounded when Rome held North Africa, and built her forts to the desert’s edge—aye, and beyond what man and nature have made the desert’s edge—oxen and mules carrying natron, and asses bearing kola, camels with salt, Eastern spices, and bales of cotton from far-off Benghazi, cotton brought from Manchester, silks from France, needles and writing-paper from Germany, beads and looking-glasses from Venice; richly caparisoned steeds with their gaily-clad riders, _meharas_ swift of foot, with the _lithamed_ Tuareg bestriding them; the Fulani shepherd driving along his flocks. Over there by the lake, herds of elephants roam untroubled, while the Shuwa, with his hair trimmed _à l’Egyptienne_, wanders restlessly, as though seeking to pierce the mystery of his origin.

[Illustration: SKETCH MAP OF NORTHERN NIGERIA SHEWING DIVISION INTO PROVINCES]

Into that country the white man has come in accordance with the ancient prophecy, descendants of the white man who first visited it. The same race, the dominating race, which ever aspires after empire, and which, on occasion, forgets that the sword untempered by the plough has proved disastrous to many Empires.

As before stated, two years elapsed between the advent of the Crown Colony system in Northern Nigeria and the publication of the first report by Sir Frederick Lugard. With no official data available whereby the Commissioner’s policy or the Government’s intentions could be gauged, the public were only able to judge of the trend of both one and the other through the scanty information communicated by the news agencies, or by the vehicle of private letters from Europeans resident in Northern Nigeria. It cannot be said that such news as did filter through the thick veil in which Northern Nigeria lay wrapped prior to the belated publication of Sir Frederick Lugard’s report in February 1902 was of a reassuring nature. On the contrary, while necessary police-work in Bornu was so entirely neglected that the French found themselves compelled by a combination of local circumstances to practically run that country for us, to give sanctuary to its lawful ruler, to beat off and finally track to his lair the man who, following his father’s evil way, was creating a desert wherever he passed; events in Sokoto, which had been in constant treaty relations with Great Britain’s representatives since 1884, seemed to justify the worst fears, and to corroborate the late Mary Kingsley’s prediction that “three months of Crown Colony form of government in the Niger Territories will bring war, far greater and more destructive than any war we have yet had in West Africa, and will end in the formation of a debt far greater than any debt we now have in West Africa, because of the greater extent of territory and the greater power of the native States, now living peacefully enough under England, but not England as misrepresented by the Crown Colony system.” The news received was exclusively of a military nature. It recorded the exploits of numerous expeditions against native rulers, the “smashing” of this Chief and the other, foreshadowed a large increase in the Frontier Force, and a further extension of the area of punitive undertakings. Every steamer for Burutu had its complement of officers on board for Nigeria, and the military element appeared to reign supreme. At the same time the propagandist efforts of Bishop Tugwell at Kano, which should never have been allowed, resulted in what was predicted of them when started, viz. failure, utter and complete. Disappointment had its inevitable sequel in the shape of a strengthening of the repressive theory for Nigeria by the apostles of peace. Bishop Tugwell’s chief assistant, the Rev. J. A. E. Richardson, on his return hastened to get himself interviewed by Reuter, described “the Emir of Sokoto and the King of Kano as the chief opponents of civilisation in this part of the world,” and expressed his hope that the former would be speedily “dealt with.” In the same interview, this youthful and enthusiastic reformer was fain to admit the existence in the territories of the aforesaid “opponents of civilisation” of “fields upon fields of cultivated land,” houses “splendidly made,” “broad thoroughfares,” “big, beautiful gardens,” &c. The existing “civilisation,” although not of the Exeter Hall pattern, had at least something to recommend it! The theme was taken up at home by another bishop, who delivered a sermon which was simply an appeal to brute force in Northern Nigeria, and provoked a good deal of comment. Observers noted an almost exact parallel between Northern Nigeria and East Africa, where the havoc wrought by the unchecked forces of militarism and religious bigotry is of public notoriety.

When Sir Frederick Lugard’s report appeared its pages were eagerly scanned, and it was with intense relief that a clear, definite line of action was traced therein, and that an apparently determined intention was noted to make a stand against certain undesirable features of policy which had already become conspicuous. In fact, so outspoken were some of Sir Frederick Lugard’s remarks that it was permissible and legitimate to suppose that many of the things which had occurred did not meet with his approval. Another reflection suggested itself from a perusal of the report, viz. that the Commissioner was being hampered in the pursuance of his task by the absence of the right type of political assistants. Events subsequent to the report have tended to confirm rather than weaken that impression, which, however, is, after all, but an impression, and cannot at present be asserted as a fact.[69]

The chief points to be gathered from the report, as bearing upon the Commissioner’s policy, were (1) maintenance of Fulani rule, (2) necessity of taking in hand the affairs of Bornu, (3) advisability of accepting with great caution mere accusations of slave-raiding, (4) harm perpetrated by crude information, (5) recognition that more good can be effected “by getting into touch with the people” than by “a series of punitive expeditions and bloodshed,” (6) no compulsory religious training.

A programme such as this cannot fail to command universal approval, and if Sir Frederick Lugard is determined to unflinchingly carry it out he can count upon the thorough-going support of every single person in this country who takes a lively interest in British West Africa. Nay more, he can rely with confidence upon receiving the most strenuous backing should it at any time become apparent that, in his attempt to get his own way, he is not being sufficiently seconded by the Home Authorities, or that the policy of Downing Street in specific directions makes the attainment of that programme difficult if not impossible. Having said so much, it is to be hoped that any criticism directed to the affairs of Northern Nigeria may not be misunderstood in the quarter where one would greatly desire it to be looked upon in the light of a friendly attempt to assist, and not as criticism is so often regarded on West African matters, as being due to a carping desire to find fault on the part of those who, while fully entitled to speak their minds, are distant from the scene of action, and have none of the worry and trouble involved in actual contact with, or direct responsibility for, the questions upon which they write.