Through unknown Nigeria

by John R. Raphael

In 1850 the British Government sent a small expedition, consisting of Richardson, a German named Barth, and another of the same nationality, Overweg, to march from Tripoli southwards across the desert and explore the eastern territory of what is now Northern Nigeria. The trio broke up. Mr Richardson died in Nigeria, and whilst Dr Overweg went to report on the country in Lake Chad district, Dr Barth reached Yola, on the Benue River, 467 miles from where it forms a junction with the Niger facing Lokoja. Barth advised the Government that the Benue be utilised for trading with the interior, Lander having demonstrated that the double waterway communicated with the sea.

On the strength of Barth’s reports, and notwithstanding the deplorable experience of the previous parties, McGregor Laird in 1854 applied to the Government for permission to explore and trade on the Niger. His request was granted and he built a steamer, the Pleiad, for the purpose. It carried quite a mixed consignment, consisting of trading goods; a zoologist, who was to pursue his own branch of study; and several native missionaries in the service of the Church Missionary Society. Every health precaution was adopted, including quinine daily; and, in striking contrast to former results, after about five months every one of the Europeans was brought back.

Laird’s expedition had proved so promising that in January 1857 he offered, for a subsidy by the Government, to place a steamer on the Niger and maintain communication between the sea and about 400 miles up country. The proposal was adopted, and a few trading centres were soon established along the route. These, however, resulted in friction with the natives, and, after a period of three years, Laird’s death and other causes were followed by abandonment of the centres and almost the complete relinquishment of direct British interest in that part of the territory.

Dr Baikie, R.N., who had been in charge of Laird’s first expedition, on the second being arranged was sent out as British Consul and took up quarters on the river shore which had been acquired for the 1841 model farm and which in Baikie’s consulate was named Lokoja.

In 1868, in furtherance of the policy of the period to reduce, not to extend, British influence, Baikie was withdrawn, and the Niger territory, beyond a few miles from the mouth of the river, cut from our control. The ideas of the day had been expressed by the House of Commons Resolution of 1865, which directed that: “... the object of our policy should be to encourage in the natives the exercise of those qualities which may render it possible for us more and more to transfer to them the administration of all the Governments with a view to our ultimate withdrawal from all [West Africa] except, probably, Sierra Leone.”

Well, where pusillanimous Cabinets feared to go unofficial enterprise boldly stepped, and, whether the Home Government wished it or not, circumstances so willed that the Union Jack came to be eagerly planted on the Niger territories and subsequently carried far into the interior, or the British would have been hemmed in on the coast by other Continental nations. The former attitude of general withdrawal had in the course of a single generation become utterly discredited. In 1886 the Niger Company received its Charter, and from that time the peace and prosperity of Northern Nigeria has proceeded apace.

Lokoja was the administrative headquarters of the Company. Here, in 1897, Sir George Taubman Goldie—the Mr Goldie Taubman of those days—organised the force to proceed to Kabba City, which was the initial occasion Hausas were put to fight against their co-religionists. The care and thought these pioneers gave to the study of local feeling and tendencies is shown by the appointment for the first time of Mallams to accompany the troops, and, like army chaplains, minister to their spiritual requirements. That step prevented the enemy from undermining the soldiers’ staunchness on the subject most likely to touch their sentiment, and it also counteracted the risk of a jehad being preached on the ground that the white man sought forcibly to convert the Mohamedans to his own faith.

It was from Lokoja that Sir George Taubman Goldie set out the same year, and, with native regiments which numbered all ranks between 500 and 600, defeated, in a two days’ battle, the Emir of Bida’s army, estimated at from 10,000 to 15,000 first-class fighting men, including the famous Fulani horsemen, who until that encounter had been looked upon as invincible in war.