Nigeria Modern History
According to RRRJEWELRY.COM, Nigeria continues to maintain the privileged position that its natural resources and dense population give it among all the colonies of West Africa. Palm oil and palm nuts represent the main production in the process of constant increase. Thus the production of oil which had been 1.144.000 quintals in 1927, reached in 1936 the quantity of 1.654.000 quintals, while the production of walnuts (or almonds) went from 1.171.000 to 1.765.000, representing a third and half of world production. An even greater development presented the production of peanuts, which went from 1,497,000 to 3,170,000 quintals, remaining however considerably lower than that of French West Africa which holds the primacy in the whole of the continent. But alongside these oily productions, which have assumed considerable importance in the world economy, it should be noted the development that is taking in Nigeria also the cultivation of cotton, whose production in 1935 reached 107,000 quintals and that of cocoa. that from half a million quintals, the annual average for the period 1927-31, it rose in 1935-36 to 812,000 quintals; what assigns it the second place, after the Gold Coast, in African production. Strong fluctuations due to the variable conditions of the market underwent and undergoes the production of tin which in 1936 reached 9200 tons, equal to half of African production and one twentieth of world production. Considerable remains that of coal which since 1933 has however fallen below 300,000 tons. The export trade,
Finance. – In the financial years 1933-34, 1934-35, 1935-36, revenues were respectively 4.9, 5.0, and 6.0 million pounds sterling and expenses 5.0, 4.8, 5, 8 million. As of March 31, 1936, the public debt amounted to 28 million.
History. – Today’s colony is the result of the merger which took place at different times of territories belonging to several companies.
The coasts, already known at the time of the first Portuguese discoveries and occupied by some trading post, were in the sixteenth-eighteenth centuries very popular with slave traders, who found there rich loads to transport to America. When trafficking was abolished in the nineteenth century, traffickers from various European and especially British nations found another source of profit in the export of oil, so much so that the coast began to be indicated on maps as “oil coast”, and ” rivers of oil “(Oil rivers) were called the waterways to the north of the mouths of Niger. While Mungo Park; H. Clapperton, H. Barth and others explored Niger and ascended it up to the confluent of the Benué, England took possession of the islet of Lagos in 1861, to make it a base for hunting slavers; however, due to the unhealthy climate, the colony did not have a prosperous life. Administratively it depended first on the possession of Sierra Leone and then on that of the Gold Coast, until, having expanded its hinterland by inducing one of the indigenous sultans to accept the English protectorate, it became autonomous in 1886, under the title of Cologne and Protectorate of Lagos. In the meantime, in 1879 the United African Company had arisen, which subsequently acquired and occupied vast territories on Lower Niger, and eliminated a competing French company, buying its shares, which led to the proclamation of the protectorate of that region after the Berlin congress of 1884., while the company of the Oil Rivers did the same (1885). until, having expanded its hinterland by inducing one of the indigenous sultans to accept the English protectorate, it became autonomous in 1886, under the title of Cologne and the Protectorate of Lagos. Meanwhile in 1879 the United African Company was born, which was subsequently acquired and occupied vast territories on the Lower Niger, and eliminated a competing French company, buying its shares, meant that after the Berlin congress of 1884 the protectorate of that region was proclaimed., while the company of the Oil Rivers did the same (1885).
These protectorates (Lagos, Lower Niger, Oil Rivers) were merged together in 1906 to form the Colony and Protectorate of southern Nigeria, which, having tamed the indigenous people who had risen, also aggregated Benin to its possession.
Meanwhile, in northern Nigeria, England was carrying out work of penetration, in part by negotiating, in part by fighting with the coastal populations of Niger and Benué, who gradually submitted (1900-1903), including the sultanates of Kano and Sokoto., after an expedition that cost a lot of blood. In 1909 a definitive agreement was reached between the French and the English. In 1912 northern Nigeria and southern Nigeria had a single governor and this preluded to the merger of the two colonies, which took place in 1914.
During the World War Nigeria took an active part, in collaboration with the French, in the colonial struggle against the Germans of neighboring Cameroon, which lasted from 1914 to 1916, so that, at peace, the northernmost part of that Germanic colony was placed under the English protectorate.
