ENTRANCE TO THE “AFIN” OR RESIDENCE OF THE ALAFIN OF OYO, SHOWING TYPICAL YORUBA THATCHING.
Take, for example, the land question. If there is one thing upon which all the most experienced Nigerian administrators are agreed it is the absolute essentiality, for the future of the people of the country, that their use and enjoyment of the land should be secured, not only against a certain type of European capitalist who covets this rich soil for his own schemes, and, under the pretence of industrial expansion, would cheerfully turn the native agriculturist, farmer, and trader into a “labourer,” but against the class of native who, for his own ends, for speculative purposes mainly, seeks to undermine native law and to change the right of user upon which native land tenure is based, into that of owner at the expense of the community at large. More especially does this become a question of vital importance to native communities where, as in Yorubaland, you have a comparatively dense population which under the pax Britannica is bound to increase at a very rapid rate, and thus requires every inch of land for its own future uses. But as matters stand at present, we cannot, in the Egba district, which, being nearer to Lagos, is more accessible to certain undesirable influences, both European and native, and to the infiltration of European laws and customs regulating the tenure of land, take effective measures to counteract these influences. We could, of course, if we chose, not in the Egba district only, but throughout Yorubaland. But there has been a lamentable reluctance both at home and in the Protectorate to foresee and cope with a predicament which all realize, which some from a natural bent of mind inclining them to favour the substitution everywhere of direct for indirect rule, and others who are of the same way of thinking but from motives of self-interest may secretly rejoice at, but which the officials whose hearts are really in the country and who have sufficient experience to understand the endless and disastrous embarrassments that the disintegration of native law relating to land would produce, deeply deplore. What has been the result? The Egbas are beginning to buy and to sell land among themselves in absolute violation of their own customs and laws, thereby laying up for their country a heritage of trouble and inserting the thin edge of the wedge of their own undoing by letting in the land monopolist and speculator. This, according to all its professions and to its actions in some specific circumstances, for which it is to be warmly commended, is, in the view of the Administration, inimical to the public interest of the Protectorate. What is springing up in Abeokuta to-day will spread to the other districts to-morrow—nay, is doing so.
Take another example. The welfare of an agricultural community demands, for many reasons scientifically substantiated, that a stop should be put to the reckless destruction of timbered areas such as has been proceeding all over Yorubaland. This is inherently a public interest, and the Forestry Officer in the discharge of his duties is merely a servant of the public. But in the Western Province, for the same reasons, we cannot or are unwilling to put our case to the native authorities for the protection of the people against themselves with the same moral force as in the case of the other two provinces. We are confined, or think we are confined, to simple persuasion. Now, persuasion by the Forestry Officer alone is one thing, and persuasion by the Forestry Officer supported by direct representations from the Executive at Lagos is a very different thing. It is the latter form of persuasion that has been absent, and very great credit is due alike to the Forestry Officers and to a Commissioner trusted by the native rulers, Mr. W. A. Ross, as well as to the intelligence of those native rulers themselves, that in the Oyo district both State and communal reserves have been created, the latter of great extent including the entire valley of the Ogun. But in the Abeokuta and Ibadan districts persuasion has failed hitherto to secure any really tangible results. It is almost unnecessary to point out that the interests of the population do not suffer merely indirectly and potentially, but directly thereby. Not only does Southern Nigeria import quantities of timber from Europe when the country should itself provide for all requirements, but even so primitive a necessity as firewood is beginning to make itself felt round such towns as Ede, Abeokuta, and Ibadan.
In these problems the policy of the Southern Nigeria Administration has been to leave the matter to the native authorities, in other words, to let the land question slide down a perilous declivity, and to allow the question of forestry preservation to be left to the unsupported efforts of the Forestry Department. If this policy of non-interference had been consistently applied in other directions an intelligible case, at least, might be made out for it. But the facts are notoriously otherwise. To mention but one instance. Two years ago pressure was put upon the Ibadan authorities to vote unpopular licensing regulations in the interests of temperance, and one of the incidents subsequently arising out of it was the stoppage of the Bale’s stipend by the Acting Resident with the concurrence of the Executive at Lagos! Only last February a Bill called the “Foreign Jurisdiction Ordinance, 1911,” was passed through the Lagos Legislative Council, which provides for the extension of the laws of the colony to the Protectorate of Yorubaland (except Abeokuta) without the native authorities being even consulted, the Attorney-General adopting, in effect, the extraordinary position that the Government could take no account of “agreements, understandings, or letters” (concluded or written by previous Governors) with the native chiefs! If the native chiefs realized what the logical outcome of the Ordinance might mean for them, by an Executive in Lagos, which adopted the legal argument quoted, there would be ferment from one end of Yoruba to the other.
It must be clear from what precedes that the time has come when the whole position of the Yoruba States in relation to the paramount Power should be reconsidered. The railway and other agencies are causing the country to move forward very fast, and conditions are being evolved through the attempt to drive in two directions at once, which can only lead, if not to the ultimate annexation of Yorubaland, then to what would, if possible, be even worse—viz. the strangulation by successive stages of every effective agency in native government, leaving the chiefs and their councils mere puppets in the hands of the Lagos Legislative Council. Now neither of these courses is, I am convinced, desired by the Imperial Government. The drift is, nevertheless, apparent to all that have eyes to see and ears to hear. There is a strong party in Lagos favouring direct rule. There is a combination of distinct influences—in many respects working unconsciously—making for the break-up of native land tenure and the undermining of native authority. There is the increasing danger of leaving the land question unregulated and the difficulty attending the adoption of adequate measures for forest preservation.
Only one course would appear open to the authorities if they desire to stop the dry rot. The first step would consist in getting the Native Councils—i.e. the Chiefs in Council—of all the districts in the Western Province to pass an identical measure of national land preservation which would become known as the Yoruba Land Act. Inalienability of land is the cardinal principle of Yoruba land tenure. The preamble of the measure would define Yoruba law and custom in regard to land. The body of the measure would declare to be illegal all buying and selling of land, either between natives and natives or between natives and non-natives, and would establish limitations of area and time for the holding of leased lands by private individuals or associations, with provision for revision of rentals at specified periods. The need of such a measure should be recognized and the action proposed sanctioned by the Secretary of State, and the matter should be represented to the native authorities with all the additional weight which in their eyes it would under those circumstances possess. It cannot be doubted that were the measure fully and thoroughly explained to the Native Councils and its urgency in the interests of their people emphasized, little or no trouble would be experienced in ensuring its adoption. In the improbable event of difficulties arising it would be the plain duty of the Administration to overcome them. The Administration should be able to count in a matter of this kind upon the support of every patriotic educated Yoruban. The second step would be more far-reaching—viz. the general reconstruction of the machinery of national government over the whole province, and the welding together under the headship of the Alafin of Oyo—the “King and Lord of Yorubaland,” as he is described in the British Treaty—working with a Council representative of all Yorubaland, of the separate districts which internal anarchy and external aggression between them have caused to fall away from the central authority. The existing Councils of the various districts would, of course, remain, but we should have what we have not at present, a true “Yoruba Council,” a strong central native Government through which the development, the progress, and the common welfare of the country could proceed on definite, ordered, national lines.
This would be Empire-building of the real kind. It would not be unattended with difficulty. It would require time, much tact, and, above all, full and frank exposition and explanation. But it is feasible of accomplishment, and by a policy of this kind alone can one of the most interesting and promising races of Western Africa hope to reach, under our supreme direction, its full development. The elements necessary to the success of such policy exist. They do not need to be created, but only to have their vitality revived and their course adjusted and guided.