ONE OF THE SONS OF THE SHEHU OF BORNU.
It is, of course, true that the British Commissioner wields very great influence, but he is invested with no legal powers of intervention whatever, because the British treaty with the Egba section of the Yoruba people recognizes their independence in all internal affairs; and all Government notices and pronouncements posted up in the town are signed by the Alake and the Alake’s secretary. The Commissioner, Mr. Young, finds himself, indeed, in a position where the utmost tact is required. He has passed through very unpleasant times, and the confidence and respect he has ultimately won constitute a veritable triumph of personality. He has achieved the seemingly impossible task of becoming a real power in a native State over which, save in its external relations and in civil and criminal cases affecting “non-Egbas,” the British Government has no legal jurisdiction. The Alake, a burly African, has not—a matter of thankfulness—adopted European dress, as the bulk of his officials have done, but he lives in a two-storeyed European house boasting of a tennis-court which, I am confident, the ample proportions of its owner forbid him from using. The whole machinery of administration is on the European pattern, with its Secretariat, Treasury, Public Works Department, Police, Prison, Printing Offices, Post Office, etc.—all managed by Europeanized Africans. I visited most of the Government departments, the prison, and printing offices, and was impressed with the industry and business-like air which reigned within them. The revenues, thanks to the Commissioner, are in a healthy state. Excellent roads have been and are being constructed. A water supply is being arranged for out of a loan of £30,000 advanced by the Southern Nigeria Government. Labour-saving machinery is being introduced at the Commissioner’s suggestion. An imposing college is in course of erection. It is all very remarkable and interesting. Whether it is durable is a matter which I shall have occasion to discuss later on.
Very different is the state of affairs such as I found it early in this year in Ibadan, capital of a district of 4000 square miles with a dense population of 430,000 (107 to the square mile), an enormous, straggling, grass-roofed, rather unkempt town luxuriating in tropical vegetation and whose neighbourhood abounds with rich and delightful scenery. Here, administratively speaking, government is neither fish, fowl, nor good red-herring; neither African, nor European, nor Europeanized-African. All real influence has been taken out of the hands of the Bale (head-chief) and nothing has been substituted for it. Treated at intervals with unwise familiarity and with contemptuous disregard, the present Bale, a man obviously unfitted for his office, has no authority over his chiefs, who in council—as I have myself witnessed—openly deride him. The inevitable consequence is that the chiefs themselves constantly intrigue against one another and have no prestige with the people, while the people themselves have no respect either for their own rulers or for the white man. A visit to the Bale’s Court in company with the recently-appointed Acting-Resident was a surprising revelation—quite as painful, I am inclined to believe, to that official as to the writer—of unmannerly conduct, of total absence of respect for his Majesty’s representative, of utter lack of decorum and dignity. The “Ibadan Government,” as I saw it, is a caricature, and a dangerous caricature, of government, unlike anything, I am glad to say, which I observed in either of the two Protectorates. The town and the inhabitants are obviously out of hand, and in my opinion—an opinion which, having felt bound to communicate it to the responsible authorities in Nigeria, I am the freer to state here—is that if the whole place be not thoroughly overhauled, events must arise at no distant day leading to considerable trouble. I am inclined to think that some people would rather welcome trouble.
Oyo, again, is a singular contrast both to Abeokuta and to Ibadan. The seat of the Alafin, titular head of all the Yoruba-speaking peoples, Oyo is a clean, peaceful, sleepy town charmingly situate in open country and reverentially regarded by many Yorubas. Here the native form of government has been happily preserved against many assaults from both within and without. The Alafin’s abode—the Afin—consists of a collection of spacious compounds beautifully thatched with here grass and surrounded by a wall. Here the Court is held, distinguished by all the ceremonial inherent to what was once (and might again become) a wonderfully efficient national Government. In its courtliness, its simple if barbaric dignity, the decorum of chiefs and councillors, and the manifest honour in which the ruling head was held, this Pagan Court recalled the best type of native government I had previously observed in the Mohammedan Hausa provinces of Northern Nigeria, although differing radically from the latter in construction and formulæ. The Alafin himself, a man of great strength and stature, his head surmounted by the national casque or crown of heavy native coral, with a curious face which reminded one of the lineaments of the Egyptian Sphinx (the Yorubas profess to trace their descent from Egypt), is one of the most striking native personalities I observed in Nigeria. A notable incident in the State reception I witnessed was the presence among the prostrated chiefs of several whose dress showed that they had embraced Islam, doing obeisance to their pagan lord.
This brief description of the three most important centres of Yoruba life will serve to show how varied and haphazard are the forms which British policy takes in the Western Province. I fear that much trouble lies ahead if steps are not adopted to evolve something more closely approximating to statecraft in handling the problems of the country. An attempt to show what might be done and the reasons for doing it will be made in the next chapter.
CHAPTER VII
BRITISH POLICY IN YORUBALAND
The political situation in Yorubaland, some aspects of which were briefly sketched in the preceding chapter, is one that, obviously, cannot last. Its inconveniences are too numerous and too palpable and it bears within it the seeds of dissolution. The whole relationship of the different Yoruba States (or, rather, dismembered sections) between themselves and between them and the British raj as established by Treaty or by Agreement (which should have equally binding force) abounds in contradictions, irregularities, and potency for mischief. In the Abeokuta district we have theoretically no authority, since, as already mentioned, there is a Treaty guaranteeing the independence of the Egbas in their internal affairs. But every one knows that, given an untactful Commissioner or the development of some more than usually menacing intrigue against the Alake, circumstances might arise at any time which would compel British intervention. With Oyo we have a treaty of friendship and commerce and we have a separate treaty of the same kind with Ibadan, although Ibadan recognizes the paramountcy of, and pays tribute to, Oyo. In Oyo we have not materially interfered with native government. In the Ibadan district native government is, in practice, a myth. Such a state of things leads to singular inconsistencies, and the Southern Nigeria Administration would find it difficult to reconcile its actions in certain directions with its actions in others.
