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Lord Frederick Lugard and the Amalgamation of Nigeria.
Before 1914, Britain administered Nigeria as two separate protectorates, the Northern Protectorate and the Southern Protectorate (with Lagos Colony). Each had different administrative structures and levels of economic development. The South, with its coastal trade and cash crops, generated far more revenue than the landlocked North, which depended heavily on British subsidies.
In 1914, Lord Frederick Lugard, then Governor-General, carried out the Amalgamation of the Northern and Southern Protectorates. This unification was designed to simplify administration, reduce costs, and balance economic disparities by pooling resources under a single colonial government.
While often presented as an administrative convenience, the move was also deeply economic, ensuring that revenue from the South could support governance in the North.
Lugard is also remembered for entrenching the policy of Indirect Rule, governing through traditional rulers. This system worked more smoothly in centralized societies of the North and parts of the West but proved less effective in the decentralized Igbo societies of the Southeast, where village republicanism left no single authority for the British to co-opt. Lugard’s limited grasp of these political systems often led to tension, resistance, and the imposition of warrant chiefs, figures with little legitimacy in local communities.
The long-term effects of his policies remain significant. Indirect Rule reinforced regional differences, influenced the development of Nigeria’s federal structure, and contributed to the enduring North-South divide in political and economic life.
Today, Lugard’s legacy is remembered as both formative and divisive, laying the foundations of modern Nigeria while also sowing structural challenges that continue to shape national politics.
Sources: F. D. Lugard, The Dual Mandate in British Tropical Africa (1922); Toyin Falola & Matthew Heaton, A History of Nigeria (2008); Tamuno, The Evolution of the Nigerian State (1972).
Photo Credit: Florence via pinterest.
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