Naraguta is the centre of administration for the Central, formerly the Bauchi, Province. Naraguta bulks so largely in men’s minds that some persons who have not seen the place regard it as a small town. Nothing of the kind. Except for the scattered houses and offices, all but two of mud, for the half-dozen or so English officials, there is nothing, beyond the alluvial tin operations a few miles round and the native village which has sprung up in consequence, to mark the country from the virgin land it was 10 years ago.
“The office of the Government Inspector of Mines” sounds imposing. That building Mr Langslow-Cock had to have put up by his native servants. No windows or doors are fitted to the mud structure; only openings. I have seen him drawing a Government map whilst rain came through the roof, dropping at the side of the table at which he worked.
The Resident, Mr F. Beckles Gall, has the luxury of a three-roomed stone bungalow. He deserves it. For nine months, when stationed here, which included the wet season of 1911, his dwelling consisted of two circular mud huts, both having merely holes in the walls for light and ventilation, and through them the rain swept night and day. I learnt by chance conversation that his present abode is the first with doors he has lived in for 8 years.
The Naraguta Resident has the attributes which help to make the best form of administrator in a high position: the qualities of open-mindedness, a capacity for taking any amount of trouble in order to fully understand every view-point of a question, and, not least, a sympathetic temperament which inclines him to help people instead of baffling them or putting difficulties in their way in an effort to enhance his own importance.
I think the Government are fortunate in having at Naraguta a man of the type of Mr Beckles Gall, for however indifferent a Resident may be to irritating or causing resentment among people who are not in his coterie, the Government at Zungeru, certainly the Colonial Office at home have no wish to see the resultant friction, bad feeling, and public comments in England. It is bad enough for a person to plume himself on being superior to all mankind; it is infinitely worse to parade belief of that superiority and to try and enforce it by contemptuous acts to those who, though not within his circle, by reason of his position must communicate with him from time to time. The supercilious attitude which I saw to an offensive extent towards non-officials at another place—I cannot help concluding, bearing seeds of possible mischief in the event of trouble with the natives—is altogether absent at Naraguta.
Besides being the chief centre of the mines administration away from Zungeru, Naraguta is the headquarters of the Hill Division, which is that section of the political service which deals with the Pagan tribes of the Province. The department is in charge of Mr C. L. Migeod, who in the course of his service has had two horses killed under him by poisoned arrows aimed at the rider. Those occurrences did not take place whilst hostile measures were being taken against the wild people of the hills. That is a step which every Governor of the Protectorate has frowned upon. Political officers are expected to allay, not aggravate, any resentment natives may feel towards the white man’s presence and to get recalcitrant tribes round to a spirit of sweet reasonableness and an accommodating manner without necessitating the use of troops. Mr Migeod was endeavouring to carry out this policy, and whilst riding up a hill to a village on the top for the purpose of more fully explaining a message he had sent pointing out how nice it would be for the villagers to pay taxes, he received the welcome stated. He was a passenger on the ship by which I left England, but though we spoke freely on board he mentioned no word of what is now related. I only heard of the matter when I came to live in the district.
In a subsequent chapter the method and manner of ruling these Pagan tribes is explained. They, unlike the Fulani, the Hausa and cognate people, have no corporate life.
A single instance is rendered to show the spirit which animates the Government of Northern Nigeria in dealing with the inhabitants of the country.
A native was charged with murdering another and the case came before the Resident at Naraguta for trial. The prisoner, who had been brought in from some distance, was taciturn, but pleaded “Guilty,” that is to say, he declared, “I did kill him.” He repeated the phrase, but would say nothing more. He remained obstinately silent when pressed why he did it. The witnesses could explain no cause. The only reason they knew was that the prisoner and the man killed had quarrelled. Mr Gall did not forthwith sentence the prisoner to death. He reflected that no individual takes the life of another unless there is a strong motive, and he remembered that the poor wretch on the ground in front of his table was, after all, like the rest of us, a human being, though black and friendless.
Although prompt justice is generally esteemed in Northern Nigeria, Mr Gall put the case back and sent one of his native political officers to make enquiries in the district where the crime took place. Those enquiries showed the prisoner to have been provoked and wronged to such an extent that instead of being sent for execution he was given a month’s imprisonment.