The Fulani jihadists moved southwards into Ilorin at a time when Oyo Empire was disintegrating. Thus, the conflict between the Alaafin and Afonja, the kakanfo or General of the Oyo army and governor of Ilorin, was exploited by a Fulani teacher Mallam Alimi, whose descendants established Fulani control over the area. Meanwhile, before the entire north was conquered by Lugard, events had made British occupation of Yorubaland a real possibility. The most crucial of these was the threat of French encroachment into Yorubaland.
As a result, Lagos Colony, annexed by Britain in 1861, signed a treaty with the Alaafin of Oyo in 1888 that placed all Yorubaland south of Ilorin under the control of the government in Logos, leading to the creation of the Colony and Protectorate of Lagos eight years later. Before then, in 1893, the Niger Coast Protectorate covering areas in the Niger Delta and extending inland to Lokoja and River Benue was established. On January 1, 1900, it was renamed the Protectorate of Southern Nigeria. An important step taken by the colonialists to pool together the economic resources of the various areas in order to use them more efficiently in Britain’s interests was the merging in 1906 of the Lagos Colony with the Protectorate of Southern Nigeria by Sir Walter Egerton to form the new Colony and Protectorate of Southern Nigeria.
Interestingly, the fiercest resistance to British colonialism was in the east, especially Igboland. Having set up its essence in the Niger Delta, the British were on edge to expand their control into the Igbo hinterland. It took a time of consistent barrage from around 1900 to 1910 by the British expeditionary compel before real Igbo people group like Arochukwu, Afikpo, Abakaliki and Onitsha among others were brought under British control. From the previous, it can be gathered that the means prompting the establishment of Nigeria were developed out of the blocks and mortar of viciousness by a royal power inspired by over the top craving to abuse the regions it had vanquished by compel. In otherwords, the British enslavement of the autochthonous groups that that were cobbled together to make the Nigerian state was not inspired a high good motivation to convey the advantages of western civilisation to the indigenous people groups; it was simply a show of the fierce theory of "might is ideal" for the financial interests of magnificent Britain.
Having been repressed with the Maxim firearm, northern Nigeria and its southern partner were separate British settlements for over 10 years with various methods of political organization. In the Southern Protectorate, the provincial representative administered through the authoritative and official gatherings while in the north he did as such through declarations. In 1912, Lugard was presented back on West Africa from Hong Kong and selected Governor-General of Nigeria, with an unmistakable command to amalgamate the two protectorates. The assignment was expert on January 1, 1914. A few reasons have been propelled why amalgamation was set out upon by the colonialists two of which are of vital significance.
To start with, the larger reason was ideal financial abuse by the British Crown of the enormous human and common assets in the Niger regions. Verdure Shaw's legitimization of the thought process in the forceful and exploitative sanity of British imperialism by and large applies similarly to her significant other's amalgamation extend in Nigeria: "In almost every one of the states there is much fruitful land which as of now creates probably the most essential and important crude materials of exchange. Cotton, silk, rice, elastic, sugar, espresso, tea, oils… and other imperative components of edified industry are home results of our tropics. … the expansion which may bring about British exchange by an insignificant opening of the business sectors that lie so far unapproached inside the Empire is past count. Such opening would fundamentally be proportional in its activity, and each market of supply over which our organization expanded would naturally turn into a market of utilization for made products."
The second reason was to free Britain of the money related weight of northern Nigeria. There is adequate confirmation that the Protectorate of Northern Nigeria was landlocked thus monetarily ruined that it needed to depend from the earliest starting point on the concede in-help of around three hundred and fourteen thousand five hundred pounds per year from Britain (a circumstance which repudiated the exploitative rationale of colonization) and, later, on sponsorships by the legislature of the Colony and Protectorate of Southern Nigeria. This guide needs toward be stressed in light of the strange endeavors at reversal or distortion of history by crazy scholarly people and theoreticians of caliphate expansionism drove by Prof. Ango Abdullahi who guaranteed as of late that "… none of the western and eastern areas had the cash to successfully run the undertakings of the district until the point when they got budgetary help from the northern locale." Prof. B.I.C. Ijomah, in an exposition entitled "Open Letter to Prof. Ango Abdullahi," gives a conclusive nullification of the idea that the north gave money related help to southern Nigeria that I require not recreate the Tables contained in his article.
In any case, it is important to express a few actualities to brace Ijomah's contention. In 1913, Lord Harcourt, the British Secretary of State for the Colonies, recognized the way that northern Nigeria required southern Nigeria to survive monetarily, which provoked the amalgamation with the goal that Britain would never again give money related help toward the north, when he declared: "We have discharged northern Nigeria from the main strings of the Treasury. The promising and very much directed youth is currently without anyone else and is going to impact a partnership with a southern woman of means. I have issued the unique permit and Sir Frederick Lugard will play out the service." obviously, there is a justifiable reason explanation behind Lord Harcourt's triumphal affirmation: before the amalgamation, sends out from southern Nigeria added up to five million, one hundred and twenty-two thousand lakes though the immaterial aggregate of two hundred thousand pounds was acknowledged from the north.
Normally, southerners contradicted the British pioneer strategy of financing the north with stores got from the south. For example, on Tuesday, January 31, 1911, the pioneer secretary was seriously condemned for proposing that the south should propel an advance of two hundred thousand pounds toward the north to complete the Baro to Kano railroad, notwithstanding the royal total of one million, two hundred and thirty thousand pounds required from the south. Hon. Sapara Williams, a frank pundit of northern reliance on the south, demanded that before the credit would be endorsed, Lord Harcourt ought to clear up the sort of relationship that existed amongst Lagos and Zungeru, the authoritative base camp of the south and the north individually. It is perfectly clear, along these lines, that the amalgamation was expected primarily to support the economy of Britain and utilize assets of the south to build up the land-bolted, monetarily distraught northern Nigeria. To the extent Lugard and other British radicals were concerned, the authentic interests and worries of southern Nigeria must be subordinated to the interests of Britain and the north.
In any case, why were the British colonizers so fascinated of northern Nigeria to the degree that they were eager to pass the weight of keeping up it toward the south, regardless of the way that Britain's social impact through teacher instruction and Christianity was much more common in the south than in the north? I think it is on account of Lugard and his associates saw unskilled northerners as basic, humble, and more managable to submission to brought together expert – qualities increased in value by colonialists and individuals in control for the most part. This is reasonable, considering that the Islamic religious government built up by Usman Dan Fodio and his relatives in the north had a tendency to empower conservatism, accommodation, crowd attitude and aversion for anything that may challenge set up arrange. Balance this with the south where individuals were more open to western instruction and qualities presented by Christian ministers. Furthermore, on account of Ndigbo, the dynamic, individualistic and accomplishment arranged estimations of Igbo culture tended to make them a people that can't be effectively scared or overawed by the white man. Little ponder, at that point, that the British provincial bosses typically portrayed the Igbo as "snooty" and as "the most troublesome of West African people groups."
The disproportionate topographical arrangement of Nigeria after the Lugardian amalgamation which has stayed in place right up 'til today appears to have been purposely intended to guarantee that the north keeps on overwhelming Nigeria's geopolitical scene, since it constitutes more than 70% of the landmass of the nation. Most scientists on Nigerian history agree that the dry, overwhelmingly Muslim north and the south with an immense populace of Christians are diverse nations. Max Siollun, in Oil, Politics and Violence: Nigeria's Military Coup Culture (1966-1976) states that Nigeria was misleadingly made by a pioneer control and that she is so ethnically, socially, religiously and semantically assorted that it is for all intents and purposes unthinkable for her nationals to have any shared trait of reason. However, the British settlers, blinded by simply monetary interests and authoritative comfort, proceeded to amalgamate without the assent of the general population and without profound considered the unintended repercussions of amalgamation.
To be proceeded.
The Nigeria Police Force is irked angry that some officers are taking photographs with pro-secession leader Nnamdi Kanu, and warned that authorities will not take the action with levity.