The Upsurge of Nationalism

Britain conquered and pacified Nigeria, but she never subjugated the country. From an early date, therefore, the spirit of nationalism expressed itself in various forms and manners. The earliest expressions were necessarily sporadic and unconcerted. They were directed towards specific acts of the local or national government, or towards objective grievances. Economic causes operated most frequently, and others, religious, social, administrative, and educational, exerted their own forces.

In 1895 when the Land and Houses Tax was introduced into Lagos, about five thousand souls demonstrated against it in Tinubu Square. They also paraded the streets shouting anti-British slogans, rejecting 'taxation without representation'. The Ordinance was never enforced.

Less than a dozen years after that another Ordinance, the Lagos Island Land Acquisition, caused intense resentment. The Bill VI as to enable the Government to acquire land for official residences. Mass meetings passed resolutions against it; crowds massed everywhere and sent waves of protests against it; newspaper waged war against it. The African Mail of January 31, 1948, wrote:

...the natives are beginning to see that it is they who are finding money to build all the fine places... The extravagance of the government is becoming more than the people can stand. It is particularly visible in the luxuries of official Lagos life...

During the World War I the Government exerted control in all spheres of economic activities. Imports, due to shortage in Europe, were limited, and exports were placed in the hands of the West African Produce Control Board. Movements of internal traffic and trade were regulated by ordinances. These measures drove home to the people the all-pervading might of the new Government, and awakened them to their economic realities.

A decade after the War, a riot, the most dreadful of its type, was set afoot east of the Niger. It later assumed the name of the ‘Aba riots’. In its fierceness it spread over the whole of the Eastern region, south of Onitsha. The first direct tax had been collected in the region only in the previous year; only men paid it. The levy had caused much resentment, especially because, at the time of assessment, officials had encouraged the convenient rumour that they were only taking the census. Now in order to assess more realistically, officials went about taking statistics of properties. Suddenly a new rumour was sparked off - that women and children were all being enrolled to be taxed. This rumour started in a small town, Oloko, where about five hundred women immediately gathered at the house of the local assessor. They demanded his arrest - and got it. Being less than satisfied, they attacked native courts and destroyed many administrative centres. The rioting spread like wildfire.

Women everywhere behaved in the same way and attacked similar objects. They shouted, “...we depend on our husbands, we cannot buy food or clothes ourselves, and how shall we get money to pay tax?" After many days, when the masses of people had reached enormous proportions, an administrative officer ordered them to be fired upon. Nearly fifty were massacred and more than that number injured. An overt act: The Commission of Enquiry appointed to investigate the causes of the disturbances was headed by Chief Justice W.E. Hunt. It reported - among other things - that the women had good grounds for suspicion and that they had really expressed their feelings about the new administration.