₦airaland Forum

PetroDolla: What is so fucking wrong,Ms darky skinny? I guess in your twisted mind it is all right for those smelly,stinking,mindless,clueless goats you call compatriots to insult others but when those they attack respond then, 'this is soo wrong,huh?' You aint seen nothing yet

She's not even Nigerian. Take a deep breath and calm down kiddo.

You guys have a lot of time on your hands.

@ pagan

The kings of the Hausa city states were called Sarkin before the coming of the Emir and Sultan titles, right?

Which of those Hausa kings was considered the most prominent/most powerful/most influential?

Do the national or state laws of Nigeria actually officially recognize anything like "settler" and "indigene"?

All that conscious stuff is nice, but right now, I'm listening to "God Forgives, I Don't"

I don't even like Rick Ross or what he represents, but I can't pretend that album isn't fire. I don't skip a single track on it.

Also that new Nas album is really good.

Pagan 9ja, post information about the traditional (pre-Fulani) culture and history of the Hausa if you feel the Fulani stuff is a misrepresentation.

Dede1: Baring the melancholic exaggeration of western region’s achievement in 50s, the aforementioned region pledged poverty in 1951 when Shell D’arcy threatened to discontinue crude oil exploration in Southern Protectorate. The hype about cocoa being major earner for western region of Nigeria was a political gimmick. The actual revenue earner was timber from what later became mid-western region.

There was no doubt British directed every source of revenue toward Lagos Colony which acted as the seat of colonial government.

Well if you have facts to the contrary, you can go into detail about this and provide references.

Obiagu1: My point remains that Lagos was living and doing good since after their wars but they were not moving at the expected rate. Their finances were reasonably good. However, there was other options for the merger, Lagos and North first before the South but that option was not favoured. Already Lagos was in debt after borrowing heavily (between 800,00 - 1,250,000 pounds) to construct Lagos-Ibadan rail line and their finances was shaky.

You're referring to this, right:

http://books.google.com/books?id=lDFEOHnOl-0C&pg=PA138

The context for that is given on p. 139 of that same book and also here:

http://books.google.com/books?id=GrcNAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA75

The 800,000 - 1,250,000 figure is the estimated cost, and they did in fact, have to borrow money from the Treasury as you said, as confirmed directly here:

books.google.com/books?id=90UnAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA61

Meanwhile, Southern Nigeria that was just born in 1900 proposed a staggering 15,000,000 pounds for her rail line, guess what happened, it was shelved to finish the Lagos line first. Our first lose.

I think you're referring to this:

http://books.google.com/books?id=lDFEOHnOl-0C&pg=PA146

(where Ralph Moor proposed a rail line system estimated to cost 15,000,000 pounds for southern Nigeria)

The Lagos to Ibadan rail line was authorized in 1895 and actual work on it began in 1898 though. And as you can see from the second link I posted, they had already made significant progress on the rail line by 1899 so I don't know if it would have made sense to abandon that one or to build another rail line that they thought (for whatever reason) would take revenue away from the existing one.

Now the link immediately above (p.146 of that book) shows that the reasons for shelving Moor's proposal for Southern Nigeria by those in charge basically amounted to 1) "the Lagos rail line was already there" , 2) "it might take revenue away from the existing Lagos rail line", 3) "they had no reason to believe at the time that an eastern rail line might even be necessary." (which contradicted Lugard's belief that [url=books.google.com/books?id=90UnAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA41]"an eastern line will be both strategically and economically necessary"[/url]) and 4) "financial considerations"

Southern Nigeria, although a richer colony, had not started bringing in sufficient revenue for the British as at 1901 (the year that Moor's plan was proposed) for the colony to be able to pay for a 15,000,000 pound rail line while also partially paying for Northern Nigeria's administration, without also borrowing and incurring debt.

If you read the specifics of Moor's letter where he made the proposal,

http://books.google.com/books?id=90UnAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA44

two things are clear:

1) That the revenue from no part of Nigeria would be enough to cover the initial costs of any rail line whether the western (Lagos to the North) or the eastern (Calabar to the North). (see section 6)

2) That the 10,000,000 to 15,000,000 pounds for additional expenditure on a rail line was to be borrowed from the Treasury (placing the borrowing colony in "debt" (although really, it was a British territory at that point, so one British government is borrowing from another)) to pay for the initial costs in the hope/belief that these initial costs and the costs of the upkeep and maintenance of these rail lines would be made up for by money gained from local revenue from the colony at a later time and the monetary benefit to British skilled workers employed in the colony at a later time. (see section 7)

You are right about the merger of the colony of Lagos with the rest of Southern Nigeria improving the colony of Lagos's developmental prospects in this instance though because it seems that the planners of the Lagos rail were only able to get further loans from the Treasury to complete the rail because of the promise that it was going to be merged with Southern Nigeria:

books.google.com/books?id=lDFEOHnOl-0C&pg=PA162

After that follows the dredging of Lagos port in favour of Calabar

Lagos was never dredged specifically in favor of Calabar by the British though. The other ports in consideration as a terminal of the first (western) rail line to the North were Warri or Sapele. The selection of Lagos over Warri or Sapele as the terminus seems to have been arbitrary. They were always going to have either Lagos, Warri, or Sapele as the terminal of the western railway to the North, but their decision to drop the second (eastern) railway to the north out of fear that it would infringe on the revenue from the first one and out of financial considerations seems to be how Calabar got sidelined in the whole process.

The failure to dredge Calabar lies mostly on successive Nigerian governments, not just on the British, so I do agree that there was political and economic loss on the part of the rest of southern Nigeria from the joining of the colonies by Britain. But I suspect the fact that Calabar is further inland is the real problem/obstacle there as far as dredging the port for Nigerian governments.

killayut: Warri was an English creation. Then the Itshekiris were still at Ode Itshekiri And there was no WARRI city. Lagos itself was not yet a colony. Port Harcourt itself was founded in 1912 So where did you get the history of GASPER CAO visiting a town that was not existing. It was Awolowo who changed the title Olu Itshekiri to Olu of Warri and then the Olu stool moved to Warri. The city of Warri was first settled by the English . Gaspar Cao that I remember was in Sao tome as a bishop and he actually visited Warri kingdom in in 1555 . The kingdom was not Warri. Historians who were pro Itshekiri made it Warri . Gaspar visited the area and met the natives. The area was never and has never been an exclussive Itshekiri area and at that time the Warri was not an Itshekiri area but an Ijaw fishing settlement where OGBE Ijoh is today . The Itshekiri and their king then were at ODE ITSHEKIRI . But again that was after when Fernando po was already a colony and both Kalabari-Ijaws and Igbos and Efiks have already been taken there by the Portuguese when Diego Sam visited in 1493.

When you said "Warri was an English creation" I almost stopped reading.

When I referenced the king's son being baptized, obviously I was referring to the Warri kingdom, an Itsekiri kingdom, which is synonymous with the place that is referred to as Ode-Itsekiri for whatever reason by some people nowadays. Warri kingdom = Itsekiri kingdom because that's what all the precolonial documents refer to the Itsekiri kingdom as. Simple. Now if you were referring only to the modern city of Warri and not the old kingdom, you should have indicated that in your post, since the rest of your post was talking about precolonial trading states, not modern cities.

Onlytruth: I don't know why even PhysicsQED is struggling to understand the simple points being dished out by Obiagu1. The British ab initio never came to Africa to lose money or subsidize anyone. They came to make profit. People should remember that the ONLY REASON they came to Africa was to MAKE MONEY. That is why the legal entities they had were COMPANIES (not some charity or even religious organizations). The religious orgs were just appendages to the real motive -economic.
Once you understand that, it becomes easier to understand that any part of the companies that were not making money must be merged with the viable one. Period.
Google just acquired Motorola, and their first sets of actions have been to map out people to fire (in Motorola) and some Goolge employees to move from Google to Motorola. Nokia has laid off about 30,000 employees and closed their plant in Finland, and moved all their manufacturing to Asia, and is attached like a leech to Microsoft, receiving $1 billion annually from Microsoft.
In the days of British colonial business (yes it was a business!),they would have merged Finland with China or Vietnam. Simple.
From that perspective, it becomes very easy to understand that Lagos/SW had to be attached to the East once they detached administratively from Ghana et al.
I don't blame them, I blame our fathers that allowed them to do that. Heck I even blame some of our fathers for abandoning the Biafran war/campaign. lol
You are only as progressive as you are determined to fight. If you give up easily, you should not complain when poverty and deprivation comes knocking.

I'm not failing to understand anything.

You can't just insinuate that because cocoa is not a traditional African crop that it was only being sold in the 50s when that is false (rather, it was only worth a lot more starting around the early 50s), and you can't also just insinuate that the sale of palm oil from the rest of southern Nigeria was covering the costs of the colony of Lagos when the colony of Lagos was itself selling palm oil unless you can show that the palm oil and other revenue from the colony of Lagos was so much less than that of the rest of southern Nigeria that it would not have been able to stand alone. This is a very simple thing to understand.

This is probably the most insignificant thing ever to make the front page on this forum.

Obiagu1: See question Could you give a reference on where the money used to develop Abuja with specifics on which money came from where?

Well the thing is, I tried looking up what was being exported from the Western part of Nigeria, and the references I came across suggested that cotton, palm oil, and cocoa were being exported from there (the part of Nigeria that would be considered in the territory of the Lagos colony and protectorate) since the early days of British colonialism, not just in the 50s. So if one wanted to make the argument you're making one would have to prove that the revenue from there over the years was small enough compared to the revenue generated by the other parts of southern Nigeria that the rest of southern Nigeria was effectively subsidizing that area's development. That's why you would need specifics.

Ethnically, culturally, religiously Where did you get this nonsense from? How did this 3 criteria eliminate Ilorin?

At the time of the British occupation, Ilorin was considered a Northern territory though, what with there being an emirate there and all.

So Colony of Lagos has more ties with Urhobos, Igbos, Esans, etc or your mind just thinks Bini?

Who is talking about Bini? Don't project your own assumptions onto me.

In that particular case (the Western region's eastern border) they seem to have just settled for using part of the Niger river, but if you look at the other boundaries of the western region and eastern region it's very clear that they were not interested in using the "y" shape formed by the Niger and Benue to divide the country into 3 and that they definitely did not just determine the boundaries of the regions completely arbitrarily from the existing provinces. The northern boundaries of the western and eastern regions give away what their real motivations were in making the regions.

Colony of Lagos has ties with Ghana too Mister, it was done for economical reasons with the believe that the remain part of Southern Nigeria could stand on their own.

The British had, from onset, set out to merge the three protectorates, Lagos, Southern Nigeria and Northern Nigeria even before Lord Lugard set foot on Nigerian soil.
They had to find a balance.

Well that's one theory, but like I said, one would need to produce the actual specific figures to support it. We know the North was joined so that the South could cover its costs, but for the other one, we would need the figures or at least a statement to that effect from the British colonials.

You're talking about cocoa, was Nigeria a major player then? NO! When Lagos was made capital in 1906, Nigeria was not known as a major cocoa exporter, where they? The whole money used to develop Lagos and even develop cocoa production in Western Region came from where? It was later that cocoa became a major source of income. It's not a traditional African crop like Palm oil or is it?

Yes, obviously cocoa is not indigenous to Nigeria. Could you give a reference on where the money used to develop Lagos and then cocoa production actually came from with specifics on which money came from where?

Talking about losing economically, we lost a lot! Seaports in Southern Nigeria were neglected in favour of Lagos.

Yes. But my point is not that the other parts of Nigeria didn't lose, but that that part of Nigeria also lost economically as well as politically - their money was not spent wholly on them, but they had to contribute a certain amount to the center whether it was with oil money or cocoa and it's unlikely that the economic gain outweighed the losses. Even on the issue of seaports, if on their own, probably they would have more ports than just those at Lagos.

Southern Nigerians started moving to Lagos, the new capital, pay taxes to which government? What did Lagos have that Calabar lacked? Both have no known mineral resources that you will point as the reason for the change, so there was no reason to move it to Lagos

I would imagine that they paid taxes to the British government in Nigeria, wherever they were, and that those tax monies were used at the discretion of the British, not the people of the Western part of Nigeria.

The choice of capitals was just another politically influential decision that the British made according to "administrative convenience." Lagos had been occupied by the British from the 1860s and was (correct me if I'm wrong) also more naturally capable as a port because of its natural deep water harbor.

Why was Ilorin, a Yoruba territory, not added to the Colony of Lagos? Why did they carve out Midwest and joined it to the Colony of Lagos instead?

The British deliberately merged the existing provinces into 3 ethnically/culturally/religiously based regions which roughly (but not exactly) corresponded to the actual major divisions between the peoples of the colony without any thought about what the consequences would be if it were ever an independent country. Basically it was all just for administrative convenience - i.e., there was no specific reason it had to be that way.

We equally lost cohesion we built over the years through trade. Through Calabar and Bonny, we built relationship over the years from trading slaves to palm oil to exchanging missionaries. Through Warri and Nembe, same thing. Those towns were dominated mostly by small groups yet the major groups like Ibibio, Igbo (East and West), Urhobo, Edos had to deal with those smaller groups like Efiks and Itsekiris. This was centuries of cooperation built through good and hard times, quarrels and conflicts, peace and harmony.

I don't think the picture is anywhere near as rosy as you're suggesting, but I see what you're getting at.

In Colony of Lagos, they dealt with no one. Just them! ... and one wonders why we don't agree politically?

I think there's probably more to it than that, but they did eventually create a political party that was to cater to Yoruba interests. So it's not as if the leaders (or at least the most popular ones) were really trying to join the mainstream of the country's politics (or at least not at the expense of their own people's interests.)

Obiagu1: The wealth from the Protectorate of Southern Nigeria (SE/SS) was used to develop Lagos. Before that 1906 amalgamation, Colony of Lagos was not viable and had to be attached to Ghana for survival. There was no known company, like Royal Niger Company, operating in the Colony. The only known source, slavery, ended in 1861. You guys were busy fighting wars and there was no known commercial activity going on.

To further sustain you guys, when Western Region was created, the British cut a part of Southern Nigeria, the former Midwest, and gave to you guys for survival in the whole ill advised scheme to make Nigeria work. All is bullshit.

You keep trying to construct some scenario where the West benefited either politically or economically from being united with the rest of Nigeria at the expense of others but I doubt that it's consistent with the facts. It makes sense to argue that the rest of southern Nigeria lost politically and maybe for some, economically, by being united with the colony and protectorate of Lagos, but there's no reason to ignore the reality that the colony and protectorate of Lagos, like almost every other region, also lost economically and politically by being attached to the other protectorates.

As far as I can tell, between 1962 and 1999, the area that originally comprised the colony and protectorate of Lagos frequently lost politically, ultimately not having much real control of their own destiny except for the times OBJ resurfaced from the depths through being at the right place at the right time. If that colony/protectorate had been on its own as a country, this would not have been an issue.

In the 1950s, the Western region was the richest region, off of cocoa produced in areas that would have fallen in the territory of the colony and protectorate of Lagos in earlier times. Not only was there oil found in Ondo since the 70s or 80s, there was oil that would much later be found offshore near Lagos, so there isn't really an economic argument there.

I think you should just acknowledge that even the group you set out to prove was some kind of leeching appendage would actually have been better off on their own and actually lost by being appended to others just like the other groups did. It's the only conclusion that makes sense.

MsDarkSkin: Something about Ebony skin and oriental features...it's a beautiful thing.

If this thread is anything to go by, it's an ordinary thing. I didn't see much actual beauty in this thread, but then again, beauty is subjective.

No reason for this to be on the front page.

PAGAN 9JA:
NOT THEY ARE NOT DARKER! YOU DONT GET MY POINT! what i am TRYING to say is that climate and other factors do AFFECT the appearance of people. IRanians are supposed to be as you described but the full-blooded ones in INdia are gradually adapting their features to the weather and other conditions. it is a natural process!

Oh. I totally misread you there. Sorry about that.