Frederick John Dealtry Lugard


The cause of this turnabout in Lugard's fortunes was basically that which had previously taken him to Borgu. In the interval, continuing French expansion had built up such a perilous state of tension in the region that Chamberlain—whom Lugard knew and who had earlier shown sympathy with Lugard's assessment of the French presence there—determined to check France on the Niger by creating a military force of 2000 African soldiers. The fact that his chosen man of action was hated by the French was, in Chamberlain's eyes, a bonus. Lugard was appointed in 1897, with the dual title of her majesty's commissioner for the Nigerian hinterland and, in the temporary rank of colonel, commandant of the West African Frontier Force which he was to raise. As his second in command he asked for his old transport chief from India, Colonel Willcocks. The force was soon committed to implementing the Chamberlain–Lugard policy on the Niger, though Lugard's strategy was a far more forward one than Chamberlain's chess-board policy. Lugard's promotion to substantive major came in 1896 and to lieutenant-colonel in 1899.

In 1900 the government terminated the Niger Company's charter and declared a protectorate over Northern and Southern Nigeria. Lugard's African record made him a prime candidate for the first charge of the north. Although the company had entered into treaties with a number of chiefs, it had taken no effective steps to bring the area above the Niger–Benue confluence under administration. Some of the Fulani states in Hausaland enjoyed an established military history and could be expected to fight for their independence. Lugard's time in Africa had taught him how a combination of military force and firm diplomacy could ensure control. It had also given him a realistic and statesmanlike conception of the relationship which could most effectively exist between an administrator and chiefs. A long-suffering War Office gazetted him in the temporary rank of brigadier-general and in 1900 Lugard assumed office as high commissioner of Northern Nigeria, and was appointed KCMG a year later. Thus reinstated in official esteem, Lugard's transformation from seconded soldier to imperial administrator was complete.

It was not in public life alone that Lugard now entered the establishment. He came to know well Flora Louise Shaw, the brilliant colonial editor of The Times, whom he had first encountered, in reproof, when he had gone to seek a sympathetic review of his forthcoming book on east Africa. Her admiration of Chamberlain and Goldie brought her and Lugard closer. Their friendship deepened, and during his first tour in Nigeria they married, in Madeira, on 11 June 1902, he sailing from Lagos and she, a month before the wedding, from England. Together they returned to Nigeria, sailing up the Niger to Government House at Lokoja.

Lugard's administrative staff was small and his finances restricted, but the speed with which he brought the protectorate under control was remarkable. A measure of force was inevitable, but by 1902 the kingdoms of Nupe, Kontagora, Yola, and Bauchi had submitted, and Bornu too, despite the confusion generated in the north-east by Rabeh, the French, and the Germans. A greater trial of strength, however, would clearly be called for in such traditional strongholds of Fulani supremacy as the emirates of Sokoto, Kano, and Katsina. Lugard, well aware that the Colonial Office was opposed to armed intervention, did not hesitate: the office could be told later that the expeditionary force had already been ordered to advance. He marched against Kano, which surrendered in early 1903, and Sokoto fell in March after a brief battle. Lugard, gaunt and dust-covered, and looking anything but a high commissioner, rode into the sultan's capital, and on 21 March delivered a subsequently famous address in which he elaborated the principles of British rule outlined in Kano a fortnight earlier. The chiefs were to be recognized and supported, yet firmly guided by British officials in their rule and unambiguously controlled in the abolition of slave trading and the administration of taxation and justice. Under this system of indirect rule, which Lugard codified and with which both his name and his major writings are indissolubly linked, the traditional rulers were not to be treated as semi-sovereign princes in the Indian and Malayan fashion but as an integral part of a single administration. By 1905 the protectorate was functioning well, though in the first months of 1906 the thunderclap news of a grave setback at Satiri, where British officials were murdered, and of an armed revolt in Hadeija—both resulting in military reprisals and heavy casualties—clouded his achievement.

Lugard resigned his post in September 1906. If he felt dissatisfied with the restraints put on him, the Colonial Office was equally disturbed by the frequent friction that coloured relations and by his military tendency to act first and request permission after. On both sides, too, there was the irritation of the idea he urged on Whitehall of allowing him, quite exceptionally, to carry on the administration of Northern Nigeria while he was on leave in England. The scheme had been devised by both the Lugards, combining his continuous distrust of the Colonial Office and its senior officials, his reluctance ever to take a holiday, and his inability to delegate with his desire to spend as much time as possible in England with his wife, whose health had broken down after five months in Nigeria and who could not return there. Together they conjured up a new dimension of tropical administration at the Colonial Office, with Lugard spending half the year in his territory and the other half administering it from Downing Street. The office was less than enthusiastic, especially when Lady Lugard published an article in The Times praising the merits of the scheme. Colonial Office staff felt alienated and sidetracked. In March 1906 the much lobbied scheme was ruled out and Lugard was recalled for consultation. Disappointed by what he interpreted as Lord Elgin's reneging on a promise given by his predecessor, Alfred Lyttelton, disillusioned by his reception at the Colonial Office, and determined never again to let Africa come between him and Flora, Lugard sent in his resignation.

In 1911 the Colonial Office had privately sounded him out on whether he would consider the post of governor of the single unit of Nigeria which it intended to create out of the current two protectorates and colony. 'We are agreed that you are the right man', Sir Reginald Antrobus added. Lugard weighed grave considerations of his wife's health against his belief that here was 'the biggest job in the whole empire' and one which would set the seal on his work in Nigeria. He accepted, taking his Chinese servant, A. You, with him. From September 1912, as governor of both territories, he drew up a plan of amalgamation (not of unification), and from December 1913 he was given the personal title of governor-general against the inauguration of the single Nigeria on new year's day 1914. It was a rank not revived until 1954.

Despite the extra burden resulting from establishing a new government during a war which brought severe fighting to its eastern border, Lugard did not shirk the labour involved. His industry was indomitable and his abnormal hours of work were legendary; so too was his will to retain everything possible in his own hands. Yet a grim crisis occurred in his confident extension of the principles of indirect rule from the emirates, where the system had worked well, to the very different kingdoms of Yoruba. It took place in Abeokuta, the capital city of Egbakoo, initially in 1914 with disorders centred on his interpretation and definition of sovereignty, and again in 1918, when a grave breakdown of law and order occurred. Troops were ordered in, over 500 people were killed, and a commission of inquiry was set up. The report, which was critical of the local administration, was not submitted until after Lugard had left Nigeria. It criticized him for pushing through a major reorganization during wartime and with insufficient staff. The report was not made public, but the tragedy cast a shadow over his last year in Lagos. A quarter of a century later he confided to his biographer, 'You will blame me about Abeokuta.'

Indeed, however justifiably his name is linked with Nigeria, much of Lugard's term of office there was scarred. There was, as always, frustration and friction with the Colonial Office, Lugard describing the new permanent under-secretary, Sir George Fiddes, as the rudest man he had ever met. If Lugard refused to admit he was tired by 1914, half-way through the war he acknowledged that he was becoming tired. When it ended he wrote to Walter Long, the secretary of state, to express his grievance over the fate of his scheme for continuous administration, adding that his task in Nigeria was concluded. Perversely or ironically, this was taken in the office to be his resignation. Long accepted it, thanked him for his work, and offered to recommend him as GBE. Lugard replied that it was not his intention to resign from the colonial service, but the answer made it clear that he was unlikely to be offered any further crown appointment. He retired in November 1918.


Northern Nigeria | Northern Nigeria Administrators


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