The fact that the church was mainly involved in the abolishment of slave trade further helped matters, as it promotes their popularity among the locals. Nigerians embraced the churches and the western ways of life and this further quickens penetration of the Nigerian hinterlands by the British. The missionaries were part of the unarmed forces used by the British government to penetrate into the Nigerian minds. Internal tension however followed the 1914 amalgamation and this still persists till this very day. They demanded that Nigerians pay taxes in British pound sterling or they asked them to pay to cooperative natives and they were also charged various other levies. This system was referred to as money economy and the British pound was the currency being spent in Nigeria in those days. The British later imposed an economic system on Nigeria with a view to profit from African labour, after military conquest over Nigeria.
The administration and military control were carried out both in London and Nigeria. The white Britons were mainly the ones overseeing the military control and administration of the region during this period. They later named the whole area as Colony and Protectorate of Nigeria. The two were later merged with the northern Nigeria protectorate in 1914. The Lagos colony was however merged with the Southern Nigeria protectorate in 1906. At the earlier days, the British adopted indirect rule over Nigeria. The British rule during most of the colonial days was more of bureaucratic and autocratic rule. Even after the amalgamation, the two territories still maintained some measure of regional autonomy among all the three major regions involved.Īfter the World War II, a progressive constitution was put together and this gave Nigerians more representation at the National Assembly and more Nigerians had electoral positions. The two territories now became the Colony and Protectorate of Nigeria. The two territories however got amalgamated in 1914 after governor Frederick Laggard urged the British crown to do it. This was also the year that the region was passed to the British crown by the company. 1900 marks the year that the Northern Nigeria Protectorate and the Southern Nigeria Protectorate were merged into one entity.
0 kommentar(er)
