My New Black Magazine - NYU Black Renaissance Noire BRN-FALL-206 ISSUE RELEASE | Page 187

2.

The Colony of Lagos ceded
to the British Crown in 1861
was ruled by Governors
responsible to the Colonial
Office based in Sierra Leone
(1866-1874) and Gold Coast
(1874-1886).
In 1886, Lagos had its
own Governor. Cession of
Lagos was through a highly
fraudulent treaty. There was a
treaty of Cession, nevertheless.

3.

The Niger territories of the
Royal Niger Company rule,
1886 to 1899 by the agents
of the private company, was
responsible to the Board of
Directors in London. This
corresponds to the present day
Northern Nigeria. Sir Frederick
D Lugard had, earlier as a
Captain, worked for this
company in negotiating a
series of treaties with
traditional rulers in 1897.
He was, as a Brigadier-General,
appointed the first High
Commissioner of the former
Niger Territories of the Royal
Niger Company to be called
Northern Nigeria with effect
from January 1, 1900.

This was the day the term
Nigeria was first used in
official communication.
It would appear that the term
was meant to refer to the
North of Nigeria and later the
other two governments were
renamed Southern Nigeria
and Lagos. They were merged
to form Southern Nigeria in
1906. From 1906, Northern
Nigeria and Southern
Nigeria were technically
two autonomous entities
responsible separately to the
colonial office.
This was the situation when
the design of Nigeria was
conceived between 1900
and 1912. It should be noted
that Lugard brought the
various parts of the North
together and produced an
administrative entity called
first, Niger Territories and
later Northern Nigeria.
(pp. 295-296)
L————————————————

[The 1913 Harcourt-Lugard plan of
permanent Northern rule.
(pp. 296-301)]

L
————————————————
q7) 1913
Lord Harcourt [British Secretary
of State for the Colonies] laid
down the kind of relationship that
should exist between North and
the South as a marriage with the
North as the “husband” and the
South as the “wife.” According to
Lord Harcourt:
We have released Northern
Nigeria from the leading strings
of the Treasury. The promising
and well conducted youth is now
on an allowance on his own and
is about to effect an alliance with
a Southern lady of means. I have
issued the special license and
Sir Frederick Lugard will perform
the ceremony. May the union be
fruitful and the couple constant.20
(Italics mine) (p. 300)
…
It should be further noted that
Lugard was privy to the thinking
in London about amalgamation.
This was why he campaigned
to be given the assignment of
incorporating the various units in
South constituting Southern
Nigeria into Northern Nigeria.
(p. 296)…

186

According to [Margery] Perham,
Lugard’s task was to unify
administrations not peoples. Lugard
was bent on keeping the North as
one entity. (p. 299)…