Lagos as the Mother City: A Review of Olasupo Shasore’s Possessed – A History of Law and Justice in the Crown Colony of Lagos, 1861-1906

By CHUKS OLUIGBO

When you have read Olasupo Shasore’s Possessed – A History of Law and Justice in the Crown Colony of Lagos, 1861-1906, you would no longer be in doubt regarding the special status of Lagos within the Nigerian context. While it has never been in question that the Kingdom of Lagos by far predates modern-day Nigeria, it has perhaps never before come out so glaringly that Lagos was indeed an independent, sovereign nation-state before the British invasion and bombardment of 1851, more than half a century before the term Nigeria was coined by Flora Shaw.

 

To do justice to the subject matter, the author divides the book into eight chapters, namely, The Lagos Kingdom in the Law Courts, 26 Upper King Street – Legal and Traditional Settings, Bombardment and War on Lagos 1851, The 19^th Century Treaties, To Do Justice to this Place – Legal History, Challenge To Authority – The Eleko, Land and Property Ownership, and The Sun Sets on The Colony of Lagos. He goes further to add an ‘Afterword’ and ‘Appendices’ as well as reproduce pictures and documents that not only embellish the work but also aid the reader’s understanding of facts.

The beauty of Shasore’s account lies essentially in its close attention to detail – no detail is too minute to escape the thorough researcher in him. The author records that by 1850, Lagos had an estimated population of 30,000 people who predominantly spoke the Oyo dialect of what was to be later widely referred to as Yoruba. The small port city-state was a monarchy ruled by the Ologun (or possibly Eleko or later Oba), and its political power structure rested on this dynastic line, a line that had by this time been in continuous rule for over 200 years. And so, Lagos is not a ‘no man’s land’, and to continue to bandy such falsehood reflects “poor learning, ignorance and mischief”.

The contribution of Lagos to the making of modern Nigeria comes out clearly in Possessed. Having severed itself from the Benin Kingdom and asserted its independence by discontinuing the payment of tributes to the Oba at Benin, and having by this time acquired great prominence and wealth, Lagos proved too powerful to be challenged by any local authority. It took only the superior naval power of Britain to subdue Lagos, but not without stiff resistance from the Lagos Africans. The British bombarded Lagos in 1851, and in 1861 took active possession of the island city-state with the fraud called the Treaty of Cession of 1861. With the establishment of formal authority, it became, effectively, The Crown Colony of Lagos, “with a flag, its own constitution, government and subjects, some 53 years before the establishment of Nigeria”. The need to harness the resources of Lagos would in 1906 lead to its forced amalgamation with the Southern Protectorate, and in 1914, the absence of funds to run the Northern Protectorate necessitated the creation of Nigeria through amalgamation in order, it would appear, to run the whole country with resources from Lagos.

So, whether in the pre-colonial, colonial or post-colonial era, Lagos played – and continues to play – “a prominent, inevitable, eminent role” in West African trade and society as well as in the making of modern Nigeria. As Shasore argues, “Without Lagos and the events that led to intervention in its internal affairs, the entire atmosphere for amalgamation may not have been contrived. In some ways, Lagos is the mother city. This is no less than Lagos deserves, for it endured its own tribulations in the constituent formation of Nigeria” (p.22).    

As he says elsewhere in the book, had there not been first the Lagos Consulate and then the first imperial colony established by the British in the Gulf of Guinea area in 1861, there may not have been, in all likelihood, the country which some 50 years later was to be known as Nigeria, at least as we now know it.

Again, Possessed throws up an alternative narrative regarding the true reason behind British ‘possession’ of Lagos (for, indeed, Lagos was a British possession from 1861). And contrary to what Eurocentric historians would have us believe, the author argues, with evidence-backed facts, that Lagos was never ceded to the British (for cession implies a voluntary handover of territory), but that it was taken possession of by armed force, and that the people of Lagos resisted this possession vehemently. The method of taking possession of Lagos was itself fraught with a lot of bloodshed, a fact that was hitherto un-narrated in books on colonial Lagos.

As the author mentions in the Preface, “The British-controlled narrative of the justification for the bombardment and related events has consistently been the taking over of a slave haven; deposing a usurper king and the saving grace of the British invaders. That narrative is not without some self-serving interest. In any event, we do however see an alternative narrative, that is, a dynastic struggle and legitimate claim for the throne, an imperial quest for an important developing economic harbour and the determined, resistant people of Lagos” (p.6). He goes on to show, through records, especially the minute records of Lord Palmerston, then prime minister and former secretary of state for foreign affairs, that the actual overwhelming British objective in Lagos was trade.

The nomenclature ‘Lagos Africans’ comes out very glaringly, for the first time ever, to refer to people who lived within the territory of Lagos at the time. Of course, it couldn’t have been otherwise for to talk about Nigeria before 1914 is to sound anachronistic. In fact, as the author highlights, names such as Goldesia (in honour of George Goldie) and Negrettia were considered, until Flora Shaw, Lugard’s girlfriend, came up with the name Nigeria.

The author does not mince words in condemning colonialism, which he rightly equates to apartheid. “Colonialism and apartheid are kindred,” he writes in page 273 of the book. “Apartheid’s racial segregation was an obnoxious and abhorrent system; colonialism – the legal establishment, exploitation, acquisition and possession of a territory by foreign power – is no less pernicious. Racial segregation and colonialism are inextricable. It manifested in colonial (white) hospitals, European recreation clubs and racial residential segregation.”

Shasore’s passion for Lagos runs through the eight chapters and 313 pages of Possessed, but this passion does not becloud his sense of judgment or lead him to unduly romanticise the subject matter. But like a thorough-bred scholar, and like the legal luminary (being a Senior Advocate of Nigeria) that he is, he rigorously searches out for evidence, in form of records, body of laws, treaties, legal instruments, decided judicial cases, public inquiries, parliamentary hearings, and other legal material hitherto available in different sources. These records turn out to be “priceless in giving real insight into the motives and motivations of the principal persons that brought about and sustained the colony during its existence” (p.7). This medley of legal stories also has the added advantage, in the author’s words, of offering “an unassailable record from which there can only be a dispute as to interpretation but not on facts, a view that a pure historical analysis may not provide” (p.24). After all, it is not accidental that the book is subtitled A History of Law and Justice.

If the whole essence of scholarship is to add to existing body of knowledge, share new information, and illuminate hitherto dark corners, then Possessed has succeeded as a great work of scholarship. But it has also achieved much more. As Governor Babatunde Fashola of Lagos writes in the Foreword, “Not only does this book share new information, it assists us all with a clear picture of the special status of Lagos in the creation of our country. It sets the scene of a bitter battle fought by the people of Lagos to resist conquest by foreigners and presents a more accurate view of the infamous but false giving-away of Lagos by one of its rulers. It even gives us a sense of the lack of certainty in the mind of the colonisers as to how to execute the plan of possession.”

But no single work of research can claim to have said everything that there is to say about a particular subject matter. And so, Shasore admits to me in an interview, “There are a lot of things that I reflect now that perhaps I could have included, but the truth is that you have to draw the line, otherwise you will never be able to get to the end of this sort of exercise. I hope this is going to be the first in a three-part series, and I hope I will have the time to reflect on some of those things as I go along.”

All in all, Possessed is one great book that every Nigerian must endeavour to read.

The artist in Kaye Whiteman

CHUKS OLUIGBO

Kaye Whiteman, in a Q&A session published on the Africa Centre website dated February 1, 2012, was asked what he would say had inspired him to take up writing/in his writing career. “From very young an involvement with words,” he answered.

Anyone who encountered Kaye Whiteman in any of his works in all the years he lived as a journalist and a writer couldn’t agree more. Whiteman was a master of words. He did not just use words – he engaged with words. A firm believer in Alexander Pope’s maxim that “Words are like leaves; and where they most abound, much fruit of sense beneath is rarely found”, he was very economical with words, picking them with much care and precision, the same way a conscientious painter would pick colours.

Kaye was indeed a wordsmith. His fascination with words was evident in all his writings. In one of his BusinessDay columns he entitled “Summits remembered”, this was how Whiteman describes the frustrations a journalist sometimes faces trying to cover one of those high-powered summits: “Memories of hours of boredom surge back – of ante-chambers, sofa-bestrewn lounges littered with a thousand coffee cups or corridors (and cooped up in the increasingly stifling confines of media centres), waiting for the inevitable release of a communiqué, or tight-lipped conferences. It sometimes conjures up semi-religious rituals – each organisation playing the role of a church, with secular cardinals, bishops and their minions releasing indulgences and other spiritual placebos to the wondering masses, in this case the motley media gang with their cameras and notebooks, now increasingly furnished with arrays of digital gadgets.”

Born into a family of journalists, Kaye began his journalism career in 1960 and was immersed in the world of writing for over 50 years. “I come from a family of journalists and I see no reason why I should not become one. But I did have two interludes, including international bureaucracy, which was a mystery to me and still remains a mystery. I was at the Commonwealth Secretariat with the former Secretary-General, Emeka Anyaoku. It was a new dimension to me, but essentially, I am a writer,” he once told an audience.

And an excellent writer he was. In his masterpiece on Lagos, entitled Lagos: A Cultural and Historical Companion, Whiteman pays close attention to detail in a very striking, remarkable way. As I wrote in a review of the book titled ‘Inside Kaye Whiteman’s Lagos’, “The book is clearly the work of a thorough-bred historian and articulate, eagle-eyed researcher before whom nothing is lost and to whom no detail is considered of less importance. Whiteman puts the tools of his training in historiography to good use, combining primary and secondary sources in good measure, adopting a fusion of narrative, analytical and descriptive techniques, and presenting his findings in free-flowing prose that makes the work a reader’s delight. This free flow also has the consequence – perhaps unintended – of making the book racy, more like the fast-paced city that Lagos is.”

But his fascination went beyond involvement with words. He was an artist through and through. His interest spanned through all of the arts – history, journalism, culture, music, art, literature, film, theatre, etc. Much of this comes out glaringly in the book on Lagos, where Whiteman dedicates chapters to Lagos in literature, music, film, art, and, ultimately, to Fela Anikulapo-Kuti as “the archetypal Lagos boy”.

In exploring Lagos as a city of imagination, Whiteman x-rays the many representations of Lagos in works of literature across the generations, the journalist as a hero in Nigerian fiction and non-fiction, as well as the history and development of the media industry in Lagos, beginning from the 1860s with the “short-lived Anglo-African” owned by Jamaican immigrant Robert Campbell, through Iwe Irohin, a Yoruba-language paper produced in Abeokuta by missionaries from 1859-1867, Herbert Macaulay’s Lagos Daily News, Nnamdi Azikiwe’s West African Pilot, among others.

On the representations of Lagos in works of fiction, particular mention is made of Cyprian Ekwensi’s early works, especially Iska, Chinua Achebe’s No Longer at Ease and A Man of the People, T. M. Aluko’s Kinsman and Foreman and Conduct Unbecoming, Flora Nwapa’s 1971 book of short stories, This is Lagos, Wole Soyinka’s Interpreters, Ken Saro-Wiwa’s play, The Transistor Radio, Ben Okri’s The Famished Road, Okey Ndibe’s Arrows of Rain, Helon Habila’s Waiting for an Angel, etc.

In the chapter on ‘Music, Film, Art and the Havens in the Wilderness’, Kaye Whiteman showcases the art enthusiast in him, incorporating his personal adventures in the potpourri of music, literature, entertainment, art, culture, film and night life that is Lagos. He explores the origins of such music genres as Sakara, Asiko, Juju, Highlife, etc, citing generously the musicologist John Collins, Christopher Alan Waterman, Bobby Benson, among others. Such names as the mandolin-playing Tunde King, the guitarist Ayinde Bakare, the drummer Lamidi George, Isaiah Kehinde Dairo, King Sunny Ade, Ebenezer Obey, Victor Uwaifo, Nico Mbarga, Victor Olaiya, E. C. Arinze, Cardinal Rex Lawson, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, Lagbaja, Osita Osadebe, Roy Chicago, etc also prop up. Musical venues, art galleries (which the author refers to as “havens in the wilderness”), the bars, and the cinemas also come into perspective.

Particularly intriguing was the sub-chapter ‘The Night Club as Metaphor’, which also relates to Lagos nightclubs as represented in Nigerian fiction. Such works as Achebe’s No Longer at Ease (where there is a nightclub called “the Imperial”) and Jude Dibia’s Walking with Shadows (where we encounter “Champagne” nightclub) are mentioned. But in all, Maik Nwosu’s Alpha Song stands out. As the author admits, “The nightclub known as The Owl in Maik Nwosu’s Alpha Song is one of the most striking in all Nigerian fiction as it is a focus for all the alienation expressed by the novel’s hero, as if only in a nightclub can he find existential ease. This is where the role of the nightclub in Nigerian fiction becomes truly emblematic as a kind of symbol of the Nigerian condition, a place of shadowy ‘managers of the night’ who people the novel.”

But beyond the fictional nightclubs, Kaye was also captivated with the real-life ‘Kakadu nightclub’, dedicating a full page of the book to spirit and soul of ‘Kakadu’, which he describes as “a well-remembered icon among West African open-air night-clubs, the memory of which still deserves eulogy”.

In his column in BusinessDay, where he wrote about ‘Kakadu the Musical’ – an exciting, inspirational and moving musical play that takes its name from the famous Lagos nightclub of the 1960s, written by Uche Nwokedi, a prominent oil and gas lawyer – Whiteman recalls being taken to Kakadu the nightclub by Peter Enahoro, then editor of Daily Times. “It was October 1965 and I had just been in Ibadan covering the Western Nigerian election, and the tension still in the air formed a poignant background to the club’s enjoyment and its memorable highlife music plangent in the night air. I wasn’t to know then, but this was the Kakadu which, in Nwokedi’s idea, was a symbol of unity, indeed a ‘metaphor for Nigeria’ in its years of crisis and civil war which were already about to break,” he wrote.

Following the release of the book, he was in Lagos last year where he was hosted by the Committee for Relevant Arts (CORA). The event held at Kongi’s Art Gallery, Freedom Park, and served as an occasion for conversations around the book on Lagos.

During that visit, Whiteman, then 77, told his audience, “I have found more fulfilment in finally being able to write the book that I have written. I have written so many articles in some publications but now that I have done this book, I feel able to do more. I can do two, three more books. I have my memoirs to do,” adding, “Just like a famous song, in my mind I feel 25. At some points I have been unwell. I did some surgery. I carry on doing what I am inspired to do. In the past 10 years I have concentrated in writing. When I was the editor-in-chief of West Africa, I was also writing books.”

He also had interest in poetry and even did a song. “I did a song and I have done poetry, which I hope to publish in future. There is a song I intend to perform with Tunde Kuboye. It is titled ‘Oyinbo where you dey go?’” he once said.

Beyond Lagos: A Cultural and Historical Companion, he also edited a book of extracts from the magazine, West Africa Over 75 Years, and co-edited The EU and Africa: From Eurafrique to Afro-Europa – a book of essays that confront the historical, political, socioeconomic and cultural dimensions of the European Union's relationship with Africa – with Adekeye Adebajo.

Kaye Whiteman arrived in Lagos in 1964 as a young journalist with influential West Africa magazine and began writing for Daily Times, during which period he covered the Nigerian Civil War. He worked as editor, then editor-in-chief, of West Africa. During this period, he developed expertise in West African affairs and subsequently wrote on the sub-region (particularly Nigeria) and Africa with much authority, understanding and affection that were rarely found among Western writers on Africa.

Kaye was head of Information for the old European Economic Community (EEC) which became the European Union (EU), as well as head of the Information and Public Affairs Division in the Commonwealth Secretariat, serving under Secretary-General Emeka Anyaoku in the late 1990s.

Until his death on Saturday, May 17, 2014, aged 78, Whiteman was a weekly columnist in BusinessDay, Nigeria’s leading business and financial newspaper.

Celebrating Kaye Whiteman

CHUKS OLUIGBO

The death of Kaye Whiteman, eminent British journalist, historian, author and columnist, on Saturday, May 17, in London, once again reaffirms the timeless words of William Shakespeare in ‘As You Like It’, that “All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances, and one man in his time plays many parts.”

Kaye Whiteman (1936-2014)

Kaye Whiteman was, indeed, one man who played his part very well while on earth and whose commitment to the journalism profession would continue to provide inspiration for the younger generation. He chose journalism, was passionate about it, and dedicated his whole life to it even to the very end.

Until his death, aged 78, Whiteman was a weekly columnist in BusinessDay.

Frank Aigbogun, publisher, BusinessDay Newspaper, said in his tribute to Whiteman, “He was a gentleman to the core, never a dull moment when Kay Whiteman was around. A great journalist who wrote about a subject with unrivalled passion and understanding. His articles would always inspire us and we will sorely miss him.”

Whiteman was an expert on West African affairs – having lived and worked in the sub-region for many years as a journalist in different capacities, especially as deputy editor, and then editor of the weekly West Africa Magazine. In his weekly columns in BusinessDay, Whiteman exhibited his wide knowledge of West Africa and Africa in general in the masterly manner he analysed issues and events concerning the continent. Whether he was writing about the crisis in Muammar Gaddafi’s Libya or the uprising in Mali or the ouster of Hosni Mubarak in Egypt in the wake of the Arab Spring or the Boko Haram insurgency in Nigeria, or even about ‘Kakadu the Musical’ – an exciting, inspirational and moving musical play that takes its name from the famous Lagos nightclub of the 1960s, written by Uche Nwokedi, a prominent oil and gas lawyer – which he was passionate about, Whiteman was always at his best. 

A widely acclaimed author, he co-edited ‘The EU and Africa: From Eurafrique to Afro-Europa’ – a book of essays that confront the historical, political, socioeconomic, and cultural dimensions of the European Union's relationship with Africa – with Adekeye Adebajo.

Whiteman also wrote extensively on Lagos, crowning it eventually with his masterpiece on Lagos in the ‘cities of imagination’ series. The eleven-chapter book entitled ‘Lagos: A Cultural and Historical Companion’ documents the history of the city by exploring its founding stories, founders, tradition, lore and culture of the people. The book covers such themes as The Story of Lagos; The Topography of Lagos; Changing Society and the ‘Look’ of the City; A True City of Imagination: Lagos in Literature; Prominent Personalities of Lagos; Streets of the Imagination: Everyday Mysteries of the City; Music, Film, Art and the Havens in the Wilderness; Fela Anikulapo-Kuti: Archetypal Lagos Boy, among others.

He dedicated a full page of the book to the spirit and soul of ‘Kakadu the nightclub’, which he describes as “a well-remembered icon among West African open-air night-clubs, the memory of which still deserves eulogy”. In his column in BusinessDay, Whiteman recalls being taken to Kakadu by Peter Enahoro, then an editor.

“It was October 1965 and I had just been in Ibadan covering the Western Nigerian election, and the tension still in the air formed a poignant background to the club’s enjoyment and its memorable highlife music plangent in the night air. I wasn’t to know then, but this was the Kakadu which, in Nwokedi’s idea, was a symbol of unity, indeed a ‘metaphor for Nigeria’ in its years of crisis and civil war which were already about to break,” he wrote.

Kayode Soyinka, publisher of Africa Today, said of him, “Kaye was a distinguished journalist and editor who, over five decades, developed an immense knowledge of Africa and reported on African Affairs for the international media, including our newsmagazine, Africa Today,” adding, “Nigeria, and indeed Africa, has lost a great and dependable British friend and a powerful figure – a powerhouse - in the British and Commonwealth media.”

Kaye Whiteman arrived in Lagos in 1964 as a journalist with the West Africa Magazine and began writing for Daily Times. It was during his visit that he fell in love with Nigeria and thereafter made Lagos his second home.

Recalling his first visit to Nigeria, Whiteman once narrated, “In 1964, I flew in from Kano onboard a British Overseas Airways as it was then. They had to stop in Kano but they couldn’t do local flights to Lagos. So, I went through Kano, Kaduna, and finally to Lagos. So, my impression of Lagos was pretty different. At that time, the lagoon stopped at the Marina.”

He covered the Nigerian Civil War and wrote on Nigeria and Africa with much authority, understanding and affection that were rare among Western writers on Africa.

He was head of Information for the old European Economic Community (EEC) which became the European Union (EU). After leaving the EEC in Brussels, he returned to London to become editor of West Africa after the retirement of David Williams. He was also head of the Information and Public Affairs Division in the Commonwealth Secretariat, serving under Secretary-General Emeka Anyaoku in the late 1990s.

Kaye Whiteman was in Lagos for the last time in the week of January 3-8, 2014 to attend the Kakadu musical concert in a special performance for Governor Babatunde Fashola on invitation by Uche Nwokedi. He visited BusinessDay new head office, The Brook, in Apapa, during that last trip.