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 19th
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.
