Imperialism In Nigeria

Nigeria, a country in West Africa, was one of the leading producers of palm oil, cocoa, and groundnuts, that had the potential of becoming a powerful nation. However, in 1885, European powers, such as Portugal, France, Britain, Germany, Spain, Italy, and Belgium, gathered all together at the Berlin Conference, deciding on which African colony they were each going to take over. This was the beginning of New Imperialism. During the Scramble for Africa, many African regions were colonized by European nations, and without consulting the natives, Nigeria was taken over by the British. Demanding for independence, the Nigerian people created a constitution legislated by the British, electing Abubakar Tafawa Balewa as prime minister and Benjamin Nnamdi
Azikiwe as governor-general. Several decades flew by, and Nigeria finally gained back independence from the British in 1960. Since Nigeria was under British rule for 75 years already, there was a huge influence on lifestyle, government structure, and trading system, that Nigeria had adopted after their independence.
Unfortunately, the majority of the British’s actions were not beneficial to the Nigerian people, creating a great amount of tension and disunity within the country. British imperialism in Nigeria was harmful due to Nigeria’s loss of political power and political unity. The cheap labour with the payment of higher taxes as well as the misuse of money was economically harmful to the country, while the influences of Christianity and the lack of health care prioritization had a negative social impact in Nigeria.
First of all, British imperialism in Nigeria was politically harmful because of the loss of power in Nigeria’s government and the political disunity within the country. For instance, “the policy of Indirect Rule was adopted in Nigeria as the cheapest and handiest solution to an otherwise insoluble administrative problem” (Afigbo 273). Indeed, the British wanted to govern Nigeria using indirect rule since they believed that the government of Nigeria was not functioning properly due to the lack of staff, and they thought it was beneficial to have a cheap administration so they could
save more money. However, this change in the system of government led to the abolition of Nigerian traditional systems, gradually making Nigeria adopt the British governmental system. Unfortunately, many new laws were made that resulted in a loss of power as a country in Nigeria, and traditional rulers no longer had the say in their own government anymore since the British took control of most of the governmental issues instead. Besides, Nigeria mostly experienced political disunity within the country, which was caused by the presence of rivalry, hatred, and disparity during the British developments (Atofarati). This negativity in Nigeria started when the British established the policy of divide and rule to govern different areas of Nigeria. In 1886, the British chartered the Royal Niger Company, authorizing the company to administer the Niger River Delta and the coasts of the Niger and Benue rivers. Since the Niger River Delta was the main source of oil production, generating billions of dollars in revenue for the government, the system was soon corrupt. This led to the division of Nigeria into protectorates in 1900, and the Royal Niger Company controlled these territories. In northern Nigeria, they had a highly centralized structure of pre-colonial administration, and the division into smaller provinces of the Northern protectorate under the British seemed to work a bit. However, eastern Nigeria had a terribly decentralized pre-colonial administration, and this made the British’s actions lead to chaos, such as the chiefs’ desires of executing their own duties.
Secondly, the negative economic impact of British imperialism was the cheap labour with the payment of higher taxes and the misuse of money. For example, “all able-bodied males between 15 and 50, and females between 15 and 40 [who] were liable for road-making… [worked] up to 6 days every 3 months” (Crowder 208). It was obvious that European powers colonized African regions for the sake of improving those colonies by bringing new technology, such as machine guns, steamboats, and railroads. However, in order to achieve these goals, workers were needed to help make this change happen. Thus, the British forced the Nigerian people to work for them. In one way, this may have seemed to be beneficial to the development of technology within Nigeria itself, but it made people get torn apart from their families. Since workers spent most of their time without their family, earning money while paying higher taxes at the same time, not only did they spend less time with their family, but they struggled to keep up a stable financial income. In fact, they were paying such high taxes that the majority of their profits went to the government instead of their household, which made many families suffer from starvation. Moreover, in A History of Nigeria, Isichei states, “ it is rather unfortunate that we were given nothing in return and whenever we asked the collectors about the use of the money, the only answer we heard was that it was for the government” (387). In other words, it was not unusual for the British government to have trouble finding ways to make a larger amount of profit from their colonies. Just like other European colonial nations, the British tried to grab every opportunity they could find to make more money out of the colonized people. In this case, the British forced the Nigerian people to pay higher taxes, using the money they earned by working for them. Unfortunately, all of the money collected from the natives was not used to fund local projects, such as building schools, but instead, it was used to pay off their war debt. For these reasons, British imperialism was economically harmful to Nigeria because of cheap labour in addition to the payment of higher taxes, and the misuse of money.
Ultimately, the drastic spread of Christianity and the recklessness of health care prioritization had put Nigeria in social harm under the British rule. According to The Religious Literacy Project, Nigeria used to be a very diverse country, having over 270 ethnic groups with more than 370 languages, but since the Christian missionaries who were sent to Nigeria had spread Christianity so widely, almost half of the population became Christian while half of the population was Muslim and less than 10% of the country practiced indigenous religious traditions (Nigeria). The spread of Christianity throughout Nigeria had definitely brought a number of people to convert from their own religion to becoming a Christian. Based on the concept of the white man’s burden, industrialized European Christian countries believed that the Africans seemed like savages, judging by their physical appearance. Thus, this belief led these industrialized Europeans in having the duty to bring Christianity to the people in Africa, spreading technology, cleanliness, and hygiene. In such case, the conversion of religion made Nigeria lose part of their own traditional practices, getting their own religion mostly taken over by Christianity. Furthermore, millions of people were dying from treatable diseases, but the retroviral drugs that could have kept over 32 million people alive who were infected by HIV were not imported to treat them (Zeilig 260-261). In reality, many diseases, such as HIV and malaria, were spreading quickly around Nigeria, and the British government did not admit that HIV was existent until 1986. Even when they did admit the existence of HIV, the government did not take any action to stop the spread of the disease and treat those who had it. The point is the British government did not take this issue into priority. Since they knew that the Nigerian people did not have enough money to afford the health care they needed, the British thought it was not purposeful to have medicines imported to Nigeria because they considered their capitalism profit more important than the people. In such case, millions of people died from treatable diseases that were not treated. After all, the social impact of British imperialism in Nigeria was because of the wide spread of Christianity and the carelessness of not prioritizing health care.
Overall, British imperialism in Nigeria was harmful.
The loss of political power and political disunity led to political harm in Nigeria whereas the cheap labour in addition to the payment of higher taxes and the misuse of money caused economic harm. Likewise, the quick spread of Christianity and the lack of prioritization in health care had a negative social impact in Nigeria. Henceforth, Nigeria has always suffered politically ever since British rule. Even today, after gaining back their independence for over 50 years, the Federation of Nigeria is still currently experiencing political disharmony and loss of their own religious traditions due to European colonization in the late 19th century. The actions taken by the British to make changes in Nigeria had impacted on how the country is destined to run during post-independence. It was clearly not rightful of Europeans to have colonized African regions during the Scramble for Africa without consulting the natives in advance because every country should have the right to share their thoughts, to have their own say, and to be given the freedom to rule however way they want or feel what is best for their own country, not having another powerful colony tell them how to
rule.