The only European trading establishment in Zungeru is the store of the Niger Company. It adjoins the Cantonment. With a white population composed entirely of Government officials, all of whom bring their main requirements for a twelve-month’s term, it cannot be said there is room for another firm. The store is a great convenience, as men frequently miscalculate what they will need, or occasionally run out of some article of diet or clothing. The store is comprehensive, and stock is kept of provisions, hardware, men’s wardrobes, and wines.
During one of my purchases over the counter a man who had been up-country for a considerable period, and whose attire was much the worse for what it had undergone, came in to be equipped for a visit to comparatively fashionable Lagos. He was fitted literally from head to foot, if not in Bond Street style, at least in striking contrast to what would pass muster in the bush districts.
The store stands in a compound wherein grow trees bearing paw-paws, limes, oranges, mangoes, cactus and rubber shrubs.
A mile or so from the Cantonment is the native town, which shows in miniature the principle on which the government of the country is carried on, that of ruling the natives through and by natives. At Zungeru a native settlement came as a sequence to the selection of the place as the administrative headquarters. The people were given plots 100 feet by 50 feet. The town has been designed on thoroughly sanitary lines and wells were sunk. A market, with iron roof and concrete floor, is in the centre of the town. For a pitch in it two shillings and sixpence per month is paid. Another market has been put up with thatch-covered stalls, and here ninepence per month is the due.
These market dues go entirely to the native Treasury, which has to render a strict account to the Cantonment Magistrate, and are used for the upkeep and improvement of the native town and for payment of native officials who are appointed by the Chief, including the market and the Alkali’s court officials and the town police.
First-class plots for houses are rented at sixteen shillings a quarter, second-class plots eight shillings a quarter. Half the rent goes to the Government and half to the native Treasury.
Reverting to the direct British administration, Zungeru possesses a model prison, where the inmates have humane treatment without being made so comfortable that they welcome a sojourn within its walls as a place where the tasks are light and regular food is in larger quantities than they would get “on their own.” The prison, which is used for convicts sent from various parts of the country to serve long sentences, is controlled by Captain A. E. Johnson, D.S.O., who is also Inspector-General of the Northern Nigeria Police. He is making good use of his hobby as a skilled amateur gardener. Prison labour has been used to lay out a rubber plantation of 100 acres, started 3½ years ago and added to annually. It promises to yield good results.
He has also had fruit trees set along the left bank of the Dago: orange, lime, mango, guava, banana, covering 30 acres, all of which are doing well; and these at the proper stage will give Zungeru and surrounding districts the luxury of fresh fruit supplies. It may be asked why the step has been left to the Director of Prisons to utilise suitable soil. The answer is that with an 8 months’ severe drought in 12, the necessary watering could never be done by private and paid labour at a remunerative sum.
The interior organisation of the gaol is equally estimable. Whilst a number of prisoners are put to road-making, railway construction—they made the first five miles from Zungeru to Minna—the best behaved are taught trades. There are five workshops—detached structures of brick, put up by delinquents—where carpentry, blacksmithing, tailoring, boot and slipper making, and grass mats (coloured and used as window and door screens) are turned out.