Flag of British Colonial Nigeria
Lugard’s immediate successor, Sir Hugh Clifford, was an aristocratic professional administrator with liberal instincts who had won recognition for his enlightened governorship of the Gold Coast. The approaches of the two governors to colonial development were diametrically opposed. In contrast to Lugard, Clifford argued that colonial government had the responsibility to introduce as quickly as practical the benefits of Western experience. He was aware that the Muslim north would present problems, but he had hopes for progress along the lines which he laid down in the south, where he anticipated “general emancipation” leading to a more representative form of government. Clifford emphasized economic development, encouraging enterprises by immigrant southerners in the north while restricting European participation to capital intensive activity.
Uneasy with the amount of latitude allowed traditional leaders under indirect rule, Clifford opposed further extension of the judicial authority held by the northern emirs. He said that he did “not consider that their past traditions and their present backward cultural conditions afford to any such experiment a reasonable chance of success.”In the south, he saw the possibility of building an elite educated in schools modeled on a European method (and numerous elite children attended high-ranking colleges in Britain during the colonial years). These schools would teach “the basic principles that would and should regulate character and conduct.” In line with this attitude, he rejected Lugard’s proposal for moving the capital from Lagos, the stronghold of the elite in whom he placed so much confidence for the future.
Clifford also believed that indirect rule encouraged centripetal tendencies. He argued that the division into two separate colonies was advisable unless a stronger central government could bind Nigeria into more than just an administrative convenience for the three regions. Whereas Lugard had applied lessons learned in the north to the administration of the south, Clifford was prepared to extend to the north practices that had been successful in the south. Sir Richmond Palmer, acting as lieutenant-governor in the North, disagreed with Clifford and advocated the principles of Lugard and further decentralisation.
The Colonial Office, where Lugard was still held in high regard, accepted that changes might be due in the south, but it forbade fundamental alteration of procedures in the north. A.J. Harding, director of Nigerian affairs at the Colonial Office, defined the official position of the British government in support of indirect rule when he said that “direct government by impartial and honest men of alien race . . . never yet satisfied a nation long and . . . under such a form of government, as wealth and education increase, so do political discontent and sedition.”
Economics and finance
The British treasury initially supported the landlocked Northern Nigeria Protectorate with grants, totaling £250,000 or more each year.Its revenue quickly increased, from £4,424 in 1901 to £274,989 in 1910. The Southern Protectorate financed itself from the outset, with revenue increasing from £361,815 to £1,933,235 over the same period.
After establishing political control of the country, the British implemented a system of taxation in order to force the indigenous Africans to shift from subsistence farming to wage labor. Sometimes forced labor was used directly for public works projects. These policies met with ongoing resistance
Much of the colony’s budget went to payments of its military, the Royal West African Frontier Force (RWAFF).In 1936, of £6,259,547 income for the Nigerian state, £1,156,000 went back to England as home pay for British officials in the Nigerian civil service.
Oil exploration began in 1906 under John Simon Bergheim’s Nigeria Bitumen Corporation, to which the Colonial Office granted exclusive rights. In 1907, the Corporation received a loan of £25,000, repayable upon discovery of oil. Other firms applying for licenses were rejected. In November 1908, Bergheim reported striking oil; in September 1909, he reported extracting 2,000 barrels per day. However, development of the Nigerian oilfields slowed when Bergheim died in a car crash in September 1912. Lugard, replacing Egerton as governor, aborted the project in May 1913. The British turned to Persia for oil. European traders in Nigeria initially made widespread use of cowrie, which was already valued locally. The influx of cowrie lead to inflation.
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