Lifestyle
PHOTOS: HOW NIGERIA WAS SOLD TO THE BRITISH FOR £865,000 IN 1899
This is not just the story of colonial conquest. It is the story of the first OIL WAR, a war not fought over petroleum, but over palm oil, in the territories that would later become Nigeria.
Before the first drop of crude was ever drilled in Oloibiri, there was already a fierce battle for control over a different kind of oil: the red gold of the tropics.
In the 19th century, as the Industrial Revolution thundered across Britain and Europe, the demand for lubricants to keep machines running was insatiable. And at the heart of that demand was palm oil, a sticky red substance extracted from the fruit of a native African tree. This oil was used to grease machines, produce candles, soaps, etc.
The Niger Delta, then part of the region Europeans called the “Oil Rivers,” was the world’s richest source of this commodity. For centuries, the same Delta had served as a major slave-exporting hub, but by the 1870s, as abolition gained ground, slaves were replaced by palm oil as the primary export. The coast once known for bondage was now valued for commerce. African traders, many of them former slaves or descendants of returnees, became immensely wealthy. One of the most famous among them was King Jaja of Opobo, a self-made merchant-king who built a thriving trade empire on the strength of palm oil and personal diplomacy. These African merchants understood global trade and negotiated directly with European companies.
But African prosperity was never allowed to grow unchecked for long. By the late 1800s, European commercial rivalry was boiling over into political intrigue. British, French, and German merchants vied for dominance in the West African market. In 1879, a Cornishman named George Taubman Goldie began consolidating several British trading firms into a single entity. He formed the United African Company (UAC). With this company, Goldie initially envisioned dominating the palm oil trade on the Niger River. After that, he envisioned something more than trade, he wanted sovereignty.
Through aggressive expansion, Goldie’s company secured treaties with local chiefs along the Niger and Benue Rivers, gaining de facto control of vast inland territories. By 1884, Goldie’s company operated about 30 trading posts and used its economic leverage to argue at the Berlin Conference (the infamous 1884–85 summit where European powers divided Africa among themselves) that Britain should be awarded exclusive rights to the Niger Basin.
The British won the argument. The next year, in 1886, Goldie’s company received a Royal Charter from the British Crown, becoming the Royal Niger Company (RNC), a private corporation with governmental powers, similar to the old British East India Company. It could make treaties, raise its own military force, collect taxes, administer justice, and govern the vast areas along the Niger and Benue Rivers.
In effect, Nigeria was not yet a British colony, it was a private corporate colony ruled by a for-profit company headquartered in London.
To the local chiefs, the new company agents spoke of free trade and mutual prosperity. But behind these assurances were binding English contracts designed to establish monopolies, giving the company exclusive trading rights and ceding sovereignty to the British Crown. This meant the chiefs could only sell palm oil to the Royal Niger Company. Any attempt to export independently was treated as economic rebellion. Many chiefs, including King Jaja of Opobo, resisted.
King Jaja of Opobo was one such rebel. Despite his previous cooperation with the British, he refused to be dictated to. When he began exporting palm oil directly to Liverpool merchants, he was arrested in 1887, exiled to the West Indies, and never saw his kingdom again. He died in 1891 on his way home, allegedly poisoned with a cup of tea.
By the 1890s, resistance was rising. In the kingdom of Nembe, in today’s Bayelsa State, a new monarch, King Koko Mingi VIII, ascended the throne in 1889. Koko was an educated Christian convert and former schoolteacher. But he soon found himself at odds with the Royal Niger Company’s chokehold on trade. Like Jaja before him, he tried to bypass the company’s monopoly by seeking commercial ties with the Germans in Kamerun. But the company retaliated by blockading his kingdom from its traditional markets.
Tired of negotiations and betrayal, King Koko struck back. On 29 January 1895, before dawn, he led over 1,000 warriors in a surprise attack on the Royal Niger Company’s heavily guarded headquarters at Akassa. In what became known as the Brass Raid, Koko’s forces captured the station, seized arms and ammunition, including a Maxim machine gun, and took 60 European hostages. Koko demanded that the British lift their monopoly and allow Nembe to trade freely.
The British government refused to negotiate. In response, King Koko executed about forty of the hostages, an act the British termed cannibalism, a fabrication meant to justify vengeance.
On 20 February 1895, the Royal Navy retaliated under Admiral Frederick Bedford, launching a brutal punitive expedition. They bombarded Nembe town (Brass) and burned it to the ground. Hundreds were killed. Survivors suffered famine and diseases such as smallpox.
King Koko went into hiding. The town of Brass was fined £500, a fortune at the time, and forced to surrender weapons and surviving hostages.
In 1898, King Koko, declared an outlaw and unable to rally sufficient support for further resistance, died by suicide in exile. Around the same time, Oba Ovonramwen of Benin was also deposed following the Benin Punitive Expedition in 1897, signalling the final collapse of powerful indigenous resistance in southern Nigeria.
Back in London, the public outcry over the Brass Massacre and the RNC’s excesses led to parliamentary pressure. The British Parliament opened an inquiry, but rather than punish the Royal Niger Company, the Crown did something far more significant, it decided that a private corporation could no longer be trusted with the government of a people.
In 1899, the British revoked the Royal Charter of the Royal Niger Company. But it did not come for free.
The British bought out the company’s rights, territories, and infrastructure for the sum of £865,000, the equivalent of £108 million today. That was the price Britain paid to acquire the territory that would become Nigeria.
It was not a conquest in the conventional sense, it was a transaction. Nigeria was, quite literally, sold.
And who sold it?
The man at the centre of the deal was Sir George Taubman Goldie, the imperialist who had envisioned and built the corporate company that took over Nigeria’s territories. In many ways, he was Nigeria’s unofficial founder, though he never ruled the colony formally. He sold Nigeria to the British Crown in 1899 for £865,000, and for his services to empire, he was later knighted.
On 1 January 1900, the Southern and Northern Protectorates were formally declared under British rule.
The company was gone. But its legacy of economic exploitation, monopolistic control, and indirect rule would persist.
The company itself didn’t die. It rebranded and evolved. The Royal Niger Company merged into what we know today as Unilever, a multinational that still trades in Africa.
This is not just a footnote in colonial history. It is the story of how an entire country people, kingdoms, resources, rivers, was commodified, negotiated, and sold. It reminds us that empire was not only built with gunboats, but also with contracts, shares, and profits.
Nigeria, long before independence, had already been bought and sold.
FOLLOW US ON:
Ilorin… a city of mystery, history, and endless debate.
When you walk through its streets today, you hear Yoruba language, see Yoruba dressing, and feel Yoruba culture everywhere. But when you look at the palace, you bow to a Fulani Emir, not a Yoruba king.
So the question that has divided historians, politicians, and ordinary people for two centuries remains:
Who is the true owner of Ilorin – the Yorubas or the Fulanis?
Let’s break it down:
The Ancient Yoruba Roots
Before the names Afonja and Shehu Alimi ever entered the story, Ilorin was already a Yoruba settlement.
It was originally part of the powerful Oyo Empire. Hunters, farmers, and blacksmiths settled there, using a grinding stone to sharpen their tools. That stone gave the town its name: “Ìlórin” – literally meaning the place of sharpening.
Ilorin was not an isolated village. It was a frontier outpost of the Oyo Empire, positioned to guard against northern invaders. The early inhabitants were Yorubas—people tied to Oyo’s traditions, religion, and political system.
So from the very beginning, the roots of Ilorin were Yoruba. Its name, its land, its people.
The Rise of Afonja and the Turning Point
The real drama began in the early 1800s with Afonja, the legendary Are-Ona-Kakanfo (the generalissimo of Oyo).
Afonja was stationed in Ilorin, but conflict broke out between him and the Alaafin of Oyo. Hungry for independence, he rebelled against the king. To strengthen himself, Afonja invited Shehu Alimi, a Fulani Islamic scholar, to Ilorin.
At first, this alliance looked clever. Alimi’s followers were brave, united, and inspired by the great Sokoto Jihad of Usman dan Fodio. They provided Afonja with spiritual legitimacy and military strength.
But what Afonja didn’t realize was that he had opened the gates of Ilorin to a new power.
The partnership broke down. Afonja was eventually betrayed and killed—many say through Alimi’s influence. With Afonja gone, the Yoruba grip on Ilorin collapsed.
This was the turning point.
The Fulani Takeover and the Birth of the Emirate
After Afonja’s fall, Shehu Alimi’s followers took charge. By the 1820s, Ilorin had transformed from a Yoruba outpost into an Emirate under the Sokoto Caliphate. The throne of Ilorin became the seat of a Fulani emir, tied directly to Sokoto.
But here is the irony—while the rulers were Fulani, the city itself remained Yoruba in culture. The people spoke Yoruba, dressed Yoruba, sang Yoruba, and still held on to their traditions—though now under
Islamic influence.
This created a dual identity that still exists today:
Yoruba by culture and population.
Fulani by rulership and political history.
That’s why Ilorin is unlike any other city in Nigeria. It is not fully Hausa-Fulani like Kano or Sokoto. It is not fully Yoruba like Ibadan or Oyo. It is something in-between, a hybrid identity born out of history, betrayal, and politics.
So, Who Truly Owns Ilorin?
Here’s where the debate never ends.
If you ask a historian, they will tell you:
Ilorin is originally Yoruba land. Its name, its founders, its early culture—all Yoruba.
But if you ask about rulership, they’ll say:
Ilorin has been a Fulani Emirate for 200 years. Its kingship belongs to the descendants of Shehu Alimi, tied to the Sokoto Caliphate.
So who owns Ilorin?
By origin and culture → The Yorubas.
By rulership and political history → The Fulanis.
And that is why Ilorin remains one of the most contested cities in Nigeria’s history. A place where Yoruba men bow to a Fulani Emir, where the call to prayer has replaced the talking drums of the Oyo priests, and where history itself refuses to be silent.
Now I throw the question back to you:
Do you see Ilorin as a Yoruba city under Fulani rulers?
Or has it become a Fulani city with Yoruba population?
Drop your thoughts below. Let’s settle this once and for all in the comments!
Credits: AfriVerse Diaries
FOLLOW US ON:
FG targets 20m pupils in school feeding programme by 2026
EPL: Guardiola declares Rodri ‘best player in the world’
Fleeing driver abandons car with bags of cannabis in Lagos
‘Sleeping Prince’ of Saudi Arabia dies after 20 years in coma
How A Class Of 24 Students Produced 2 Presidents, 4 Governors, 2 Ministers, 4 Emirs, 3 Justices, 4 Ambassadors and Other Influential Leaders
Why Do You Continue To Lie Against Your Motherland? Presidency Calls Out Kemi Badenoch
Must Watch – Yomi Fash Reacts as Nigerian Woman Laments on Indians Teaching Nigerian Kids Native Language in Canada
Video – Sunday Igboho Visits Yoruba Traditional Rulers
Video – Sunday Igboho Visits Yoruba Traditional Rulers | Powerful Meeting for Unity & Progress
-
Crime19 hours agoPHOTOS: 14 children ‘trafficked from Adamawa and sold for N800,000 each in Anambra’ are rescued
-
Sports19 hours agoSuper Falcons star Tosin Demehin signs new Galatasaray deal
-
Lifestyle9 hours agoThe Creation of the Council of Obas in South West Nigeria
-
Crime19 hours agoPHOTOS: Nigeria deports 51 foreigners jailed for cyberterrorism and internet fraud
-
News19 hours agoFRSC rewards officer for rejecting 104 bribes in one month
-
News19 hours agoAfrica could become a renewable superpower – UN chief
-
News19 hours agoBuhari was an angel in human flesh – Bisi Akande
-
Crime8 hours agoPHOTOS: EFCC declares Atiku’s Son-in-law wanted over alleged money laundering