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.
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Lifestyle
PHOTOS: The issue of Deborah Samuel Yakubu is one of the most tragic and controversial religious-related incidents in recent Nigerian history.
The issue of Deborah Samuel Yakubu is one of the most tragic and controversial religious-related incidents in recent Nigerian history. It highlights deep tensions around religious intolerance, mob justice, and the misuse of social media in the country.
Deborah Samuel Yakubu was a 200-level Home Economics student at Shehu Shagari College of Education in Sokoto State, Nigeria. She was a Christian from Niger State. On May 12, 2022, Deborah was brutally killed by a mob of fellow students who accused her of blasphemy against the Prophet Muhammad.
The incident reportedly began on the class’s WhatsApp group where students used to share academic information. During one of the discussions, Deborah reportedly expressed frustration over religious messages being shared in the group chat, insisting that it was meant only for academic purposes. Some of her Muslim classmates considered her comment to be disrespectful and blasphemous toward Islam. The message quickly spread beyond the group, sparking anger among students.
A violent mob formed within the school premises, dragged Deborah out of the security room where she was temporarily sheltered, stoned her to death, and set her body on fire. Videos of the killing circulated widely on social media, causing outrage both within and outside Nigeria. The gruesome footage showed some people proudly claiming responsibility for the act, saying it was justified under Islamic law.
The Sokoto State Police Command later confirmed the incident and announced that two suspects had been arrested in connection with the killing. However, many Nigerians and human rights organizations criticized the authorities for not doing enough to prosecute all those involved in the mob action. The federal and state governments condemned the killing, calling it a criminal act that could not be justified under any religion or law.
The Sultan of Sokoto, Muhammadu Sa’ad Abubakar III, and several Islamic scholars also condemned the act, stating that the Prophet Muhammad himself would not have supported such violence. Christian leaders, including the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), demanded justice and urged the government to ensure the protection of religious minorities in the country.
Deborah’s killing sparked nationwide protests, international condemnation, and renewed debates about blasphemy laws, religious intolerance, and freedom of speech in Nigeria. In Sokoto and other parts of Northern Nigeria, protests broke out after the arrest of the suspects, with demonstrators demanding their release. In contrast, across Southern Nigeria and in the international community, vigils and memorials were held to honor Deborah’s memory.
The Nigerian government faced strong criticism for failing to prevent such acts of mob violence, which have occurred several times in parts of the country. Many activists and human rights organizations, such as Amnesty International, urged the government to take decisive action to end the culture of impunity surrounding religious killings.
Deborah Samuel’s death remains a symbol of the urgent need for stronger laws against mob justice and greater protection for freedom of religion and expression in Nigeria. Her story is a painful reminder of the dangers of religious intolerance and the misuse of social media to incite violence.
In the years following her death, calls for justice continued, though there has been little public progress in prosecuting those responsible. Her family relocated for safety reasons after facing threats, and several groups have offered them support. Deborah’s legacy endures as a voice for justice, tolerance, and peaceful coexistence among Nigeria’s diverse religious communities.
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Early Life & Background
Binta Ayo Mogaji was born in 1964 and hails from Agbo-Ile, Ibadan in Oyo State, Nigeria.
Her father was an Islamic cleric, while her mother worked as an education administrator.
From an early age she showed interest in acting, starting her career in the early 1970s as a child actor.
Career in Acting
She first gained recognition on television. For example, one of her early appearances was on the TV series Why Worry the Barber.
Her debut in home-video cinema (in the Yoruba language) was with the film titled Mojere.
Over the decades, Mogaji has acted in both Yoruba-language and English-language films and television series. She has been cited as being part of at least 400–800 stage, screen and home-video productions.
Notable works include:
Ti Oluwa Ni Le (1992)
Owo Blow (1997)
The Bridge (2017)
In a 2018 interview she spoke about the Nigerian film industry’s tendency to favour younger actors, and argued that older actors are still fully capable of delivering professional performances.
She has also spoken about how her religious background (Islamic) informed her decisions about roles — for example, she stated she has never acted semi-nude or participated in kissing scenes throughout her career.
Personal Life
Mogaji has had a varied personal journey:
She was in a relationship with actor Jibola Dabo, and together they have a son.
In 2006 she married retired footballer and physiotherapist Victor Ayodele Oduleye.
She later revealed that the marriage lasted about 13 years, and that it involved physical and mental abuse which led to her leaving the marriage.
On motherhood:
She revealed that she conceived and gave birth to her only child at age 40 — despite having already undergone removal of one fallopian tube due to an ectopic pregnancy.
In an interview she recounted being taken to “seven different hospitals” as doctors were uncertain she’d survive the ectopic pregnancy.
On advice & views:
Mogaji has said that women aged 35 or older who want children should not necessarily wait for marriage, but could consider having a child outside wedlock or adopting, if they are capable of caring for the child.
Achievements & Recognition
She is widely regarded as one of the veteran and accomplished actresses in Nigeria’s film industry — in theatre, television and home-video.
Among her awards, she has been recognized as “Best Actress” at the REEL Awards.
Selected Filmography
Here are a few highlights (not exhaustive):
Mojere — her first home-video appearance.
Ti Oluwa Ni Le (1992)
Owo Blow (1997)
Motherhood
Ileke
Ojuju
Ilé Olorogun
The Bridge (2017)
My Village People (2021)
Legacy & Impact
Mogaji’s career spans many decades and multiple eras of Nigerian cinema (from early television to modern Nollywood).
She is seen as a mentor or “auntie” figure to younger actors, many of whom admire her longevity and professionalism.
She has been candid about the challenges faced by actors in Nigeria — for example, she has said that despite fame, many actors must still “toil” for little reward.
Current Status
As of 2024-2025, she remains active in the industry.
Recently she celebrated her son’s graduation from university (Lead City University, Ibadan) in 2024.
She continues to speak publicly about personal and industry issues (e.g., motherhood, marital abuse, the film industry).
Interesting Facts
Despite having only one fallopian tube, she was able to conceive and give birth — a story she shared publicly to encourage others.
She has been frank about regards marriage and motherhood — for example stating that waiting for marriage should not prevent someone who truly wants a child from having one (if they can care for it responsibly).
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