THE NECESSITY OF AMALGAMATING THE TWO PROTECTORATES
No interested student of Nigerian affairs can fail, I think, especially
after an examination of the problem on the spot, to arrive at the
conclusion that the present dual system of administration, with its
artificial territorial boundaries, its differing methods, and its
inevitable rivalries, has served its turn and should be brought to an
end as speedily as possible. The situation, as it obtains to-day, is
incongruous—in some respects almost absurd; and the absence of a sense
of proportion in estimating responsibilities and acknowledging public
services is conspicuous. No comprehensive scheme of development and, what
is more important, no unity of principle in public policy is possible
while it lasts. Moreover, just as each Administration settles itself
more firmly in the saddle and pursues its own aims with increasing
determination, so will differences in the handling of great public
issues accentuate themselves and eventual adjustment on a common basis
of principle be attended with additional perplexity. It is not only
quite natural, but under the existing circumstances it is right that
the Administration of Southern Nigeria should work for the interests
of Southern Nigeria and the Administration of Northern Nigeria for
the interests of the latter. But Nigeria is geographically a single
unit, and Imperial policy suffers from a treatment which regards the
interests of one section as not only distinct from, but in certain cases
antagonistic to the interests of the other. It is not suggested that
administration should everywhere be carried out on the same pattern.
No one would contend that the problems of government in the Northern
Hausa provinces can, for instance, be assimilated to the problems of
government in the Eastern Province of the Southern Protectorate. But
that the main principles of government should be identical, and that
the governing outlook should be directed to a consideration of the
interests of Nigeria as a whole, can hardly be disputed. Take, for
example, the question of direct and of indirect rule. The tendency in
Southern Nigeria, as the Secretariat gets stronger and the initiative
of the Commissioners decreases, is towards direct rule, especially in
the Western Province. Northern Nigeria has resolutely set the helm in
the contrary direction. Take the question of taxation. North of the
imaginary line which separates the two Protectorates the native pays a
direct tax to the Administration, and tribute from the people to their
natural Chiefs and to the Government is assured on specific principles.
South of that line the native pays no direct tax to Government, and in
the Western Province the Central Administration doles out stipends,
apparently suspendable, to the Chiefs, while the paying of native
tribute to the Chiefs, where it has not altogether ceased, exists
only by the internal conservatism of native custom. Take the question
of education. The Southern Nigerian system is turning out every year
hundreds of Europeanized Africans. The Northern Nigeria system aims at
the establishment of an educational system based upon a totally different
ideal. In Northern Nigeria the land question has been settled, so far as
the Northern Protectorate is concerned, on a broad but sure foundation;
but the Southern Nigerian native is an alien in Northern Nigerian law.
In Southern Nigeria there is no real land legislation, and the absence
of such, especially in the Western Province, is raising a host of future
complications. Every year the gulf widens between the two ideals, and
its ultimate bridging becomes a matter of greater difficulty. While on
the one hand the Northern Nigeria Administration has had the priceless
advantage of “starting fresh” and has been compelled to concentrate upon
political and administrative problems, British rule in Southern Nigeria
has been the slow growth of years, advancing here by conquest, there by
pacific penetration, here by one kind of arrangement with native Chiefs,
there by another kind of arrangement. Politically and of necessity
British rule in Southern Nigeria is a thing of shreds and patches. The
last two Governors, both very able men in their respective ways, have
had, moreover, strong leanings in particular directions; sanitation was
the load-star of the first; road construction, clearing of creeks and
channels, harbour improvements and commercial development the chief
purpose of the latter. It is no reflection upon either (the material
advance of the Protectorate under Sir Walter Egerton’s administration has
been amazing) to say that, between them, questions vitally affecting the
national existence of the people, the study and organization of their
laws and courts and administrative authority, have been left somewhat
in the background. In criticizing a West African Administration it must
always be borne in mind that no broad lines of public policy are laid
down from home. None of the Secretary of State’s advisers have ever
visited Nigeria, and however able they may be that is a disadvantage.
There is no West African Council composed of men with experience of the
country, as there ought to be, which would assist the Permanent Officials
in advising the Secretary of State. The result is that each Governor
and each Acting-Governor “runs his own show” as the saying is. One set
of problems is jerked forwards by this Governor, another by another.
The Governor’s position is rather like that of a Roman Emperor’s, and
the officials responsible for large districts, never knowing what a
new Governor’s policy is going to be, look upon every fresh change with
nervous apprehension, which has a very unsettling effect. A vast wastage
of time as well as many errors would be avoided if we had clear ideas at
home as to the goal we are pursuing, and laid down specific principles by
which that goal could be attained. This could be done without hampering
the Governors. Indeed, the very indefiniteness of the home view on all
these problems is often a serious handicap to a Governor who, for that
very reason, may hesitate to take action where action is required,
fearing, rightly or wrongly, the influence which Parliamentary questions
may exercise upon the Secretary of State, and who may also find himself
committed by an Acting-Governor, in his absence, to actions of which he
personally disapproves. In other instances the existence of definite
plans in London would act as a salutary check upon sudden innovations by
a new and inexperienced Governor. Frequent changes of Governors there
must be until the conditions of life in Nigeria are very much improved;
but the inconveniences arising therefrom would be largely mitigated if
there were continuity of a well-thought-out policy at home.
This digression is not, perhaps, altogether irrelevant to the subject
under discussion.
The position of Northern Nigeria is very anomalous. A vast Protectorate
shut off from the seaboard by another less than four times its size;
having no coastline, and the customs dues on whose trade are collected by
the latter. Southern Nigeria enjoying a very large revenue; its officials
decently housed and catered for; able to spend freely upon public works
and to develop its natural resources. Northern Nigeria still poor, a
pensioner upon the Treasury, in part upon Southern Nigeria; unable to
stir a step in the direction of a methodical exploration of its vegetable
riches; its officials housed in a manner which is generally indifferent
and sometimes disgraceful, many of them in receipt of ridiculously
inadequate salaries, and now deprived even of their travelling allowance
of five shillings a day. The latter measure is so unjust that a word
must be said on the subject. The reason for the grant of this allowance
[which the Southern Nigerian official enjoys] was frequent travelling,
expensive living, and mud-house accommodation. As regards the two first,
the arguments to-day are even stronger than they used to be. The safety
of the roads and the increased pressure of political work compels the
Resident and his assistants to be more or less constantly on the move if
they are worth their salt. When travelling about the country, 4_s._ to
5_s._ a day and sometimes a little more is an inevitable expenditure; at
present, a clear out-of-pocket one. As to living, it is a commonplace
that the price of local food supplies is very much higher than it was
seven years ago, while the price of goods imported from abroad have
not all appreciably decreased. So far as the mud-houses are concerned,
probably more than half the officials, except at places like Zungeru and
Kano, live in mud-houses to-day. The Resident at Naraguta, for instance,
lives in a leaky mud-house, while the Niger Company’s representative at
Joss, five miles off, has a beautiful and spacious residence of brick
and timber. A good mud-house is not to be despised, but the money to
build even good ones is quite inadequate. I could give several examples
where officials have spent considerable sums out of their own pockets
to build themselves a decent habitation of mud and thatch. Some of the
juniors have to be content with grass-houses, draughty, bitterly cold
at night and in the early morning, and leaky to boot. Moreover, many
of the brick-houses supplied are an uncommonly poor exchange for £90 a
year. They are made of rough local brick, which already show symptoms
of decay, and the roof is often so flimsy that in the verandah and
supper-room one has to keep one’s helmet on as protection against the
sun. I am not at all sure that the real official objection to all but
leading officials bringing out their wives is not to be sought in the
assumption that married officials, other than of the first grade, would
no longer put up with the crude discomfort they now live in, and would
be a little more chary of ruining their health by touring about in the
rains—at their own expense. That Northern Nigeria is not under present
conditions a fit place for other than an exceptional type of woman I
reluctantly admit; but that the constant aim of Government should be to
improve conditions in order to make it so I am fully persuaded. Our women
as well as our men have built up the Empire and made it, on the whole,
the clean and fine thing it is, and what a good woman, provided she is
also a physically strong one, can accomplish in Northern Nigeria is
beyond calculation. It is not too much to say of a very extensive region
in the eastern part of the Protectorate, that the moral influence of one
such woman is powerfully felt throughout its length and breadth. Other
aspects of this question will obviously suggest themselves, and they
ought to be boldly tackled; but the national prudery makes it difficult
to discuss such matters openly. The salaries paid in Northern Nigeria
fill one with astonishment. The salary of a first class Resident appears
to vary from £700 to £800; that of a second class Resident from £550 to
£650; that of a third class Resident from £450 to £550. Kano Province
when I visited it was in charge of a third class Resident, admittedly
one of the ablest officials in the country, by the way; that is to say,
an official drawing £470 a year was responsible for a region as large as
Scotland and Wales, with a population of 2,571,170! The Bauchi Province
was in charge of a second class Resident, drawing £570 a year; it is the
size of Greece, has a population of about three-quarters of a million,
and additional administrative anxieties through the advent of a white
mining industry. These two instances will suffice. The men saddled
with these immense responsibilities are really Lieutenant-Governors and
should be paid as such. It is perfectly absurd that an official in whom
sufficient confidence is reposed to be given the task of governing a huge
Province like Kano should be paid the salary of a bank clerk, when, for
instance, the Governor of Sierra Leone, with half the population,[12]
is drawing £2500, exclusive of allowances. A comparison of the Northern
Nigeria salaries with those paid to the Governors of the West Indian
Islands gives furiously to think. The Governorship of the Bahamas, 4404
square miles in extent, with a population of 61,277, is apparently worth
£2000; that of the Bermudas, with an area of twenty-nine square miles and
a population of 17,535, £2946; that of Barbados, 166 square miles and a
population of 196,498, £2500.