Year: 2005
Type: book-chapter
Abstract: Introduction: Framing citizenship in colonial Nigeria In exploring issues of citizenship in Nigeria, we need to begin with the history of how we came to be Nigerians (or how we are not!).What is now known as Nigeria is the product of the British colonial imagination; a patchwork country whose component parts have refused to fuse as one (Okwori 2003).Although the interest in Nigeria began with trade, it moved to conquest and ownership.The British first showed a serious interest in Nigeria after Sir George Goldie (Goldie 1898) promoted the Niger Delta area: "This heart of Africa was not a barren desert.They found that it was filled with populous and organised States, that it possessed a fertile soil and intelligent and industrious inhabitants."This interest was pursued first as trade, when Sir George Goldie and his Royal Niger Company were drawn in to the region by the attractions of trade in rubber, timber, palm oil and, later, slaves.In return for these goods, it provided local chiefs with gunpowder, mirrors and other trivia.The gunpowder later proved useful for slave raiding and disciplining the population.The transition from a source of valued, traded goods to an owned territory was an interesting business transaction.Sir George Goldie, the director of the Royal Niger Company, sold the territory around the Niger to the British Crown for £850,000 in 1900.One may argue, therefore, that modern Nigeria began its life both as a commodity and as a corporate slave!
Authors: Jenks Zakari Okwori, Oga Steve Abah
Language: English
Subfield: Anthropology
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W881280762