By Adisa Habeeb
The Nigeria of today comprises kingdoms, empires, and non-centralized states prior to 1900. These indigenous polities had been established before British took control in the late 19th century.
In the North were several centralized and non-centralized states with developed systems of livelihood. These states includes; the Hausa states of Kano, Kastina, Zaria, Gobir..; others are Kanem Bornu and the Jukun states of Kwararafa, Kona, Pinduga,Wakari and some other smaller entities like Igala,Nupe and Ebira.
In the South were the Yoruba states of Ife, Oyo, Benin, the Itsekiri, state of Warri, the Efik state of Calabar ,and the Ijaw city of Nembe, Elen Kalabari,Bonny.
These states all have origins, myths, history, legends, dance, etcetera peculiar to them. For example the Hausa states did not until the 19th century Sokoto jihad become one political entity despite the similarities among them; they were disunited. Ife and Oyo in the South hold a prominent position in the Yoruba people’s history as the spiritual and political home respectively. Most of the Igbo states remained non-centralized up to the 19th century and made use of age grades, cults groups and religious head as a means of political organization.
Prior to the coming of the colonizers in the late 19th century certain events culminated in the suppression and loss of sovereignty, owning to the disturbances in most of what later became Nigeria. For instance, the Yoruba civil wars and the collapse of the Oyo Empire that ruled over vast population and land of the southern Nigeria. The Sokoto or Fulani jihad of Usman Danfodio beginning in 1804-1809 which had unified the Hausa states under one political entity.
The arrangements meant that the colonizers needed to serve as mediators in some of these wars, thereby signing peace treaties and protection treaties from one power house to the other.
By 1900, all the area that later became Nigeria had become a colony with two protectorates (Northern and southern) to be controlled and monitored by the colonial officers (British).
By 1906 the Southern protectorate was amalgamated with the colony of Lagos, for economic and other reasons best known to the colonizers. The Northern protectorate was said to be yielding deficit for the colonizers and an amalgamation with the Southern “lady of means” was important; that is the South was providing surplus profits and was to be connected to the North. The reasons for this are not farfetched as the colonizers also lacked the required personnel to carry out day to day activities of colonization business. The colonizers then turned to indirect rule, having succeeded in India and other colonies of Britain.
In 1914, the northern and southern protectorates were amalgamated to become one. These colonies were then introduced to the global economy as a peripheral, to serve the interest of the colonizers. Then, steamed different economic policies, constitutions, taxes and other kinds of repressive modules favorable to the colonizers vis- a -vis the colonized.
The Abba women riot of 1926, which had been referred to as a rebellion is a good testament of the resistance level of the colonized. The riot led by women in the provinces of Calabar and Owerri in the Southeastern Nigeria in November and December 1929, was a massive revolt against the policies imposed by the British colonial administrators in the Southern Nigeria, touching off the most serious challenge to the British rule in history of the colony.
The “women’s war” took months for the government to suppress and became a historic example of feminist and anti-colonial protest.
The roots of the war evolved from January 1914, when the first Nigerian colonial governor, Lord Lugard instituted the system of indirect rule in Southern protectorate. Under this plan British administrators would rule locally through “warrant chiefs”, essentially Igbo individuals appointed by the governor. Traditionally Igbo chiefs had been elected.
Within a few years the appointed warrant chiefs became increasingly oppressive; they seized property, imposed draconian local regulations and began imprisoning anyone who openly criticized them. Although much anger was directed against the warrant chiefs, most knew the source of their power was British colonial administrators. They plan to impose special taxes on Igbo women, who were responsible for supplying the food to the growing urban population in Calabar, Owerri and other cities.
These women fear these taxes would drive many women out of business and disrupt the supply of food and non-perishable goods available to the populace. In November 1929, thousands of Igbo women congregated at the Owerri as well as small towns to protest against the warrant chiefs and taxes on the market, using traditional practices of censoring men throughout all night with songs, dance ridicule, chanting and in some places forced warrant chiefs to resign their positions.
Although they were subjugated later, the colonial police fired into crowds killing more than 50 women and injured at least 25,000 Igbo women. The Abba riot prompted colonial authorities to drop their plans to impose a tax on market women, and to curb the power of warrant chiefs. The women’s uprising is seen as the first major challenge to British authority in Nigeria and West Africa prelude to independence.
Other female actors in the struggle for independence included, Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti.
The Abeokuta Women’s revolt also known as the Egba women’s tax riot was a resistance movement led by the Abeokuta Women’s Union (AWU) in the late 1940s against the imposition and unfair taxation by the colonial administrators.
As a result of the oppressive tax conditions, the women Union leadership was led by Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti a head teacher of a local school, who had heard the struggles of the market women.
She led nearly a thousand women in a march to the palace to protest the increase. The response of the colonial authorities was brutal. But at the end the government authorities promised the suspension of tax and final decisions on the issue communicated to them within three days.
The promised was later not attended to and by 8th of December the women camped outside the palace, refused to leave until all the women arrested were released. The Abeokuta Women’s Union like other women associates was victorious in colonial Nigeria. The women continued to advocate for women’s right in Nigeria and play a role in Nigeria nationalist movements. The group emerged as one of the first proto-nationalist feminist activist groups in Nigeria. Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti would go on to serve as a political leader later in the 1950s.
