The question of economic development is on the same plane. That peace, the advent of railways and the growth of population will eventually result in the creation of a large commercial movement of affairs with Northern Nigeria—apart from the mineral output—is not to be doubted. But exaggeration as regards immediate prospects is to be deprecated, and the claims of economic development, important as they are, should not be allowed to play too great a part in administrative solicitude. The main concern of the Administration for the next few years should be that of placing the political, financial and educational organization of the country upon secure foundations. Political unrest and social confusion are stumbling-blocks to commercial progress, and everything should be done to avoid them. Those in a position to realize the marvels already accomplished in this region of Africa by the handful of British officials administering the country, and the many problems requiring on the part of those who are called upon to deal with them the utmost delicacy and tact in adjustment, cannot but enter a caveat against all tendencies, from whatever source they may emanate, be they of self-interest or of unselfish devotion, to “rush” Northern Nigeria. Rapid expansion does not necessarily mean progress. Sometimes it means exactly the reverse. Let us, rendered wise by experience elsewhere, set our faces like flint against the “Europeanizing” of Northern Nigeria. In Sierra Leone, in the Gold Coast, in the Western Provinces of Southern Nigeria we have daily object-lessons of the deplorable results of this denationalizing process. That Northern Nigeria should be preserved from it must be the earnest wish of all who are acquainted with its peoples and alive to their possibilities.
CHAPTER XIII
A PAGE OF HISTORY AND ITS MORAL
If we have the imagination to grasp the true significance of the events which led, a century ago, to the break-up of the Hausa dynasty by the Fulani, we shall find the key to the moral side of permanently successful government in Northern Nigeria. The motive of the Fulani jihad has usually been attributed either to mere religious fanaticism or to personal and racial ambition; or, again, as an incident in the prolonged struggle for power on the part of this or that ruler or dynasty which has destroyed the fertile uplands of Western Africa south of the Sahara since the shattering of the ancient Niger civilizations by the Moorish invasion at the end of the sixteenth century. It appears to me that this appreciation is superficial, and that we must look deeper than the surface results. I am not sure that these surface results themselves do not suggest the need of doing so. A man of letters galvanizing a whole countryside to revolt against oppression. Shepherds and cowherds flinging away their sticks and staves and rallying to his standard. Initial defeat turned into victory. A number of independent States converted into a homogeneous entity acknowledging a temporal and spiritual over-lord. An immense region ill-provided with means of internal communication brought to recognize one common authority—and all within a year or two. These are remarkable occurrences. They insinuate the existence of some driving force below the surface. Is it possible to trace that force in the chequered annals of this part of Africa?
The Moorish invasion dealt the great Negroid Empire of the middle Niger—the Empire of the Songhay—a blow from which it never recovered. The invasion did not actually swamp the Hausa States, but its indirect consequences must have been felt throughout them in everywhere shaking established order, and in the decay of spiritual influence following upon the heels of anarchy. In the absence of any continuous written records, the history of the period following the advance of Morocco’s musketeers into the Western Sudan, appears to Western minds as a confused medley of internecine strife without defined objects of any kind. One can imagine, let us say, a Chinese historian picturing the history of England from the tenth to the fifteenth century much in the same light, if his materials for composing it were almost wholly confined to oral traditions. But a close study of the few documents at our disposal must, I think, induce the belief that, dating from the introduction of a higher spiritual influence into the country—Mohammedanism had begun to acquire a footing by the eleventh century—the land was never free from an agency which sought the uplifting of society. Before the Moorish generals carried fire and sword into the Niger Valley, holy voices were raised in protest against the “decay of faith with the increase of infidelity.” “Not one of the acts forbidden by God”—lament learned Arabic historians—“but was openly practised; wine was drunk, and adultery had become so frequent that its practice seemed to have acquired legality.” The terrible punishment which ensued was ascribed to these lapses: “It was on account of these abominations that God avenged Himself by calling in the victorious Moroccan army.” We seem to be listening to another Moses denouncing the wickedness of the people of Israel. In the midst of all these disordered turmoils, when the worship of the true God was being swept aside by a wave of recrudescent paganism, when mosques were being destroyed and desecrated and social lawlessness reigned supreme, little knots of true believers gathered, forming as it were islands in the sea of turbulence and moral abasement, to which Christian Europe added a renewed element of subversion by her demand for slaves, thus intensifying internal warfare by furnishing it with a new and deadly incentive.
There is evidence that in the middle and towards the close of the eighteenth century the Hausa Kings were relapsing into paganism (in Zaria, for instance, the old Hausa “Tsafi,” customs—rock worship—had been revived). It was at this period that the spark of a spiritual renascence arose in the most northerly of the Hausa States, Gober. Othman Fodio, a Fulani, ultimately the leader of the uprising, was above all a moral and spiritual reformer, as was his teacher the Mallam Jibrila. He sought to raise the whole tone of society. He used his influence at the Court of the Hausa King to secure the building of schools and the spread of letters. He himself and his brother and his son—into whose hands he placed affairs of state after the conquest—wrote a number of books whose titles are sufficient to indicate their character. Here are some of them: “The Book manifesting the Path of Righteousness and Unrighteousness,” “The Book for the saving of the People of the Time and the Teaching of the Ignorant to understand the Knowledge of the Word,” “Explanation to the Rulers as regards their Duties and what is due from them in the execution of their Duties,” “The Book expressing the Difference between Right and Wrong,” “The Book the Window for Students in the holding of the Doors of the Faith in God the Giver,” “The Book to prevent others from following the promptings of the Devil,” “The Book plainly showing that the love of the World is the cause of every Fault.” A reflection by the way. When the Fulani reformers were composing these works, and for many years afterwards, European and American slavers were periodically visiting the lower Niger, six hundred miles south, and, by presents of guns and powder, hounding on the natives to raid one another for the benefit of the Western plantations!
Othman’s converts were by no means limited to men of his own race, as was subsequently shown in the adherents he obtained. But it was not unnatural that such a man should have been an offence to many; that his converts should have been molested; and that finally, by his personal action in releasing a number of them from bondage, a collision with the authorities should have been precipitated, which eventually led to the proclamation of a holy war. Othman engaged in the struggle with the words: “If I fight this battle that I may become greater than my fellows, may the unbelievers wipe us from the land.” Upon its successful termination, the statesman and the warrior became once more the social reformer. Othman returned to his preaching and to the compilation of his books.
A consideration of these facts irresistibly suggests that the root causes of the Fulani outburst were spiritual in their nature. Othman led a moral and spiritual revival, among a people who, like all negroes and negroids, are naturally more accessible to spiritual influences than are the white peoples of the earth. He gave a renewed inspiration to letters. That the country, after half a century, fell back once more into political chaos does not in the least weaken the moral to be gleaned from these events. The religious revival has not gone back. From that political chaos the country has been rescued by the British power. One of the obvious duties of the Administration is to continue the work of the great Fulani reformer in everywhere extending and broadening the intellectual horizon, and doing nothing to weaken the national spiritual influences, of the people of the land. The creation of a system of education which shall be truly national is imperative at this moment when the whole fabric of native society is being shaken by disturbing elements. The field is clear: the slate clean. We are here unfettered by those bitter experiences of the West Coast of Africa and of India which are perpetual reminders of past blunders and daily handicaps to true progress.