Introduction

What is decolonization : decolonization can be defined as a process by which enslaved and

dependent countries seek autonomy from there inslaves.
the Portuguese paved the way for the slave trade, and Nigeria was a big area of business
for them. They sold slaves in order to obtain spices and weapons in other areas .The
decolonization of Africa was conquered by European imperial powers in the late 19th and
early 20th centuries.The process of decolonization coincided with the new Cold War
between the Soviet Union and the United States, and with the early development of the new
United Nations. Decolonization was often affected by superpower competition, and had a
definite impact on the evolution of that competition. It also significantly changed the pattern
of international relations in a more general sense. The abolition of the slave trade was the
key moment when the British truly “intervened in the region.” They placed their focus on
obtaining goods to increase their ability to trade, as well as on converting the people of the
area, which was previously heavily Muslim, to Christianity.

Reasons for colonization

Colonialism can be seen as the pursuing, establishing and maintaining of control and
exploitation of people and of resources by a foreign group of people
Why the nigerian people were Colonialism is the pursuing, establishing and maintaining of
control and exploitation of people and of resources by a foreign group of people
One predominant reason for they colonisation and the enslavement of the
Nigerian people by the British and the Portuguese were economic reasons and the
resources of the people . The British targeted Nigeria because of its resources. The British
wanted products like palm oil and palm kernel and export trade in tin, cotton, cocoa,
groundnuts, palm oil and so on because at that time due to imperialism countries needed
more land and resources to feed its people .

How they were colonised

slavery in 1807 and pushed for forms of “legitimate commerce” , the British began to explore
British colonialism began under the pretense of policing the slave trade. Britain outlawed
avenues through which the resources of the indigenous peoples could be exploited and
maximised . To achieve this, they needed to create a structure for indirect rule to achieve
this they had to control Africans through their traditional authorities. The British reasoned
that approaching the people through their local leaders would minimise opposition to British
rule . In Northern Nigeria, they used the existing emirs and their traditional institutions.
Indirect rule was also extended to the south, where commensurable offices did not exist, and
new chieftainship lines were created .Lugard worked through the Fulani ruling classes, who
used the British in order to retain their power and to acquire wealth. Because rulers were no
longer accountable to their people, corruption and poverty spread . The measures were
greeted with opposition, particularly in southeastern Nigeria . The British accomplished the
colonisation by using its military After.he British government gained control over the Royal
Niger Company’s territories, and added on lower regions near the river to create the
Protectorate of Northern Nigeria and Protectorate of Southern Nigeria . the British conquest
of northern and southern Nigeria and the merging of the two to establish Nigerian colonies
and protectorate, the British seeks the best interests between direct rule and indirect rule.
They will not hesitate to use the means of direct rule if they think that indirect rule cannot
guarantee their colonial status. The divide and rule policy is always adopted by the British
over the colonisation of Nigeria. The consequences of colonisation consist of many parts.
Politically, slavery was abolished. Economically, the tax system and transportation system
deepened the British’s plunder and control over the economy in Nigeria. Culturally, the
British controlled the religious culture in Nigeria through training a group .
In the 1850s, the British used trade policies to influence African politics, including deposing
rulers who stood in the way of the lucrative palm oil trade. In the 1880s, competition with
French colonial powers in Africa prompted a policy shift and in 1882 the northern and
southern “protectorates” were established.f local people to spread Christianity in Nigeria,
opening missionary schools, and other ways ..
The measures were greeted with opposition, particularly in southeastern Nigeria
some notable british colonists were Frederick Lugard ,James Wilson Robertson ,Hugh
Clifford ,John Stuart Macpherson as all of them were in charge of different states and
protectorates, they were also lawmakers.

What colonization affected

Colonial rule transformed political, economic, social, and cultural dynamics among
indigenous peoples. Indirect rule bound “traditional” rulers to British authority. The economy
became increasingly dependent on exports.When the colonists took over the country's rule
during the colonial era, the natives suffered a massive culture and identity loss. The British
brought and imposed their culture, language, behaviour, beliefs, and other ways of life on the
Nigerians. This then led to the natives abandoning some of their customs and culture in
favour of those brought by the colonisers. For most natives, though, the conformity to the
new way of life was more out of fear of the colonialists than a belief in their ways of life. In
economic perspective and with the view of Neo-Marxist, Nigeria is clearly exploited of her
natural resources and Europeans (Britain) were the beneficiaries. One of the dominant
activities that was taking place in Nigeria economy in terms of labour was the exploitation of
women.Women were working for several hours above the working hours description and
they were forced to pay huge tax, which is a negative benefit. One clear advantage could
have been the instalment of cotton factories, but with the policy of poll tax system levied on
all Nigerians caused instability of wealth in the colony, states that because of the tax
imposed on every person in the colony put pressure on individuals to seek work in the
British companies or grow cash crops in order to pay tax. Also one benefit is the use of
indirect rule,it helps in shaping the leaders on how to run an administration in a democratic
system.Nevertheless, despite its whooping advantages, there's still some questions
regarding the impact of British rule on Nigeria politics. According to Nigeria Infopedia, claims
that politically Nigeria was put in a state of disunity, enmity, debased, discrimination
mediocracy, regionalism and absence of patriotism. Because the British officials never had
interest in improving Nigeria's politics. That’s why they implemented the division rule without
considering the massive ethnic differences .

Pre colonial era

The pre colonial era in Nigeria is seen as occurring or existing prior to a colonial period or
colonisation of a given area or country in this era social political systems were already
established there were Kingdoms, empires, city-states etc . Nigeria as a whole only dates
back to 1914, that’s when the British formed the country by grouping several small northern
and southern regions. The region of Nigeria itself has been in existence for a very long time
and has been home to many different Africans and their different civilizations. From the 12th
century up until the actual creation of Nigeria in 1914 many different groups have lived and
governed in the area, but not all of them lived and obeyed the same kings and rulers.During
the 12th century in West Africa, there were no specific countries just various empires,
kingdoms and states of sorts . In the pre colonial Nigeria we had the hause , the Yoruba ,
5hr edo and the junkun . A distinguished feature about this is the existence of one ruler that
focuses power and sources in one authority. The main ‘Nigerian’ empire was the Yoruba
Empire, which is located in modern day Nigeria and is what I’m going to highlight. Within the
Yoruba Empire there are three states/kingdoms; State of Ife, Kingdom of Benin and the
Kingdom of Oyo. The State of Ife was established roughly around 1100 CE strategically in
the southern area of Nigeria. In the southern part of Nigeria, the state borders the forest-
filled southern Nigeria and the Northern savannas making it a hot spot for trade. A big place
for ivory, gold, pepper, kola cuts and also slaves, the State of Ife stayed supreme until the
Kingdom of Benin in 1500 CE rose to power. Today there are currently around one million
people who consider themselves as ‘Ife’ while speaking the Yoruba language, which comes
from the old state.The Kingdom of Benin despite the name is located in modern day Nigeria.
The kingdom spanned over seven hundred years and was home to many different kings.
Because of the seeming agelessness of the monarchies, they have come to be re referred to
as "natural" or "traditional" rulers as if they always were part of the natural environment of
their societies. Hence, claims of state leadership often go with claims of having founded the
particular political community. In reality, these leaders acquired their state power either
through the manipulation of peoples' religious and spiritual beliefs or because they had
economic power. In structural terms, monarchical systems are generally complex, elaborate
and hierarchical. The kings often governed in alliance with titles and position either from their
families, wards or they had it conferred on them by the king. The kings and their councils
constituted the apex of the centralised state systems.

Decolonization in nigeria (1957-1960)

Decolonization in Nigeria occurred in earnest within a timeframe of three years (1957-1960),
during which British colonial officers and Nigerian leaders tried to make sense of the loss of
authority and new powers and responsibilities, respectively. Prior to 1957, British post- WW2
colonial policy focused on the reform of colonial administration rather than prepare for the
collapse of colonial empire.For Nigeria, colonial reforms were initiated through a 1947 Local
Government Dispatch in which Arthur Jones, the Colonial Secretary indicated that Western
educated Africans were henceforth to become the bedrock of colonial administration at the
local level, thus displacing traditional rulers and native administrations through which colonial
government functioned to that point.The edict coincided with and further
encouraged nationalist groups, like the Zikist Movement, Nigerian Youth Movement, and
labour unions in their radical opposition to colonial policies and demands for constitutional
reforms
The Nigerian anti-colonial movement is a nonviolent movement which reflects responses
and resistance to British rule in Nigeria through strike actions, newspaper press and
propaganda, trade unionism, boycott, and mass migration. These actions succeeded in
causing a great setback to the colonial administration and forcing Britain to relinquish
political authority to Nigerians on Oct 1, 1960. Essentially, the chief weapon of the anti-
colonial movement in Nigeria in the twentieth century was the newspaper press. The
newspapers were an efficient vehicle of public opinion and the medium of political pressure
and propaganda. Those who owned and edited them were themselves actively engaged in
politics and this helped considerably to increase the scope of the influence which the
newspapers exerted. The pioneer newspaper press attracted a host of remarkable
personalities but the most prominent of them all was John Payne Jackson of Nigeria. In
politics, he was an acknowledged force, inspiring and directing movements of agitation. He
was the author of most of the petitions which the people of Lagos forwarded to the local and
imperial authorities during his lifetime. He made his newspaper, the Lagos Weekly Record,
not only the most commercially successful among its contemporaries but also an arsenal of
ideas from the masses and feared by the colonial officials who quaked before the pressure
of his propaganda. Hence, the press and pressmen thus functioned both as opinion molders
and nationalist leaders, mounting the podium and the soap box to popularize their
viewpoints. The facility with which the press accomplished the latter role, despite the
divergent goals and strategies espoused by its editor-publishers, was not lost on the colonial
overlords.

Another newspaper which served as a tool in the nonviolent struggle was the West African
Pilot, which was a daily newspaper, whose publication had signaled the inauguration of
popular journalism in Nigeria. It was the foremost nationalist newspaper in Nigeria during the
Second World War. It was founded by Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, an American-trained Nigerian
leading journalist and nationalist politician of the period, who had cut his journalistic wisdom
teeth in the Gold Coast as the editor of the Accra African Morning Post on November 22,
1937. The West African Pilot had consequently grown to be a fire-eating and aggressive
nationalist paper of the highest order. The West African Pilot spread across Nigeria. Starting
in Onitsha, the newspaper moved to Warri, Jos, Enugu and even Kano, in the North, taking a
more national posture. In 1949, Obamafemi Awolowo, politician and nationalist, also started
the Nigerian Tribune in Ibadan, Western Nigeria. For 20 years, ‘Zik’ and ‘Awo’, as they were
affectionately known to Nigerians, blew the nationalist trumpet without provoking any
significant repression from the colonial authorities who, since the late 1950s, had begun to
attune themselves to the reality of African independence. This attitude can be explained by
the fact that the British saw the press in Nigeria as a “stabilization factor.” Indeed, it allowed
radicals to voice their impatience loudly in Lagos or Ibadan.

.Constitutional debates in 1951 and 1954 were all conducted on the terms of reforming
colonial administration to provide for Western educated Nigerians in local administration
rather than the dissolution of British rule. The dominant thoughts remained how nationalists
might acquire "difficult art of governing themselves, to train civil services in the ideas of
honesty and efficiency, and to improve the economic conditions of the territories so that they
may be able to face the future unaided. The Colonial Office continued to assume the
retention of an eventually ‘independent’ Nigerian with a Dominion status .However, partly as
a result of the sharp criticism of the constitutions by nationalists, and the urgency
consequent upon the independence of Ghana in 1957, nationalist leaders in the Eastern and
Western provinces pressured for and were granted internal self-government in 1957. Only
afterwards was decolonization set on an irreversible course; one which Nigerians and
colonial official alike, tried to make sense of and tried to resolve the ambiguities of freedom
in a colonial setting.In reality, decolonization also portended anxieties for the region’s chiefly
elite, the powers of which had been secured and enhanced by colonialism.3 Across Nigeria,
minority groups began voicing fears of domination by the dominant ethnic identities should
the British leave, for which reason a Commission was set up to find ways of providing
constitutional guarantees.4 Up till the end of the 1940s, the idea of Nigerian nationhood was
not firmly established and many groups imagined futures other than Nigeria, as
demonstrated when educated elite of Abeokuta in Western region convened a “national”
constitutional conference from 1948 to 1949, and in the anticipation that their nation would
become sovereign, they designed a national flag and anthem “fit for a place among nations.
These developments underscore the many different ideas and interests, which struggled to
impose upon the form and direction of decolonization. While there had always been calls for
the British to leave, there was no certainty that a transfer of power would happen.
Constitutions enacted in 1946, 1951, and 1954 progressively granted political involvement to
local elites, but they only hinted at the possibility of independence as some future point.
1957 marked a turning point with the implementation of internal self-rule signalling the
beginning of the end of colonial government.The granting of internal self-government had
profound implication for decolonization in Nigeria. It marked the first time Nigerians were
vested with real political powers under colonial administration. Even though the colonial
governors had involved Nigerians in administration, those did not exercise any political
authority. From 1957, elections into regional parliaments saw parties campaigning on
themes of governance and power other than against foreign rule that was previously the
case. Previous attempts among nationalists at forming a united platform against colonialism
began to break down into fierce rivalry among them and the political parties they formed .
These rivalries were not always peaceful and often resulted in violence among their
supporters. Up till 1957, the colonial government was in effective and impregnable control of
the colonial police and the colonial civil service, but the granting of self-government rendered
this control anomalous, opening up debates and controversies over the control of the police,
and over shifting conceptions of public order, public administration and political behaviour.
The new leaders held different interpretations of self-rule among them, and from British
colonial officials. For instance, where colonial officials saw internal self-government as the
next stage in tutelage and preparation, the Premier of the region, Awolowo claimed: “the
burden of administering the Region and providing for the general well-being of its people
now devolves entirely on the leaders of our party.

There were important consequences from the tension generated by decolonization. Political
elites do not unilaterally shape public order. Political and administrative restructurings
produced effects to which ordinary people reacted. Aside from the political rivalries between
political parties and their followers, and anti-colonial riots, decolonization was also marked
by manyanti-self-government demonstrations and what colonial officials saw as the break-
down of public order. Two instances namely the tax riots of 1957-1958 and the Ibadan riots
of 1958 demonstrate the shifting conceptions of public order and the challenges of policing
decolonization. The series of restructuring in the political and administrative transition proved
very costly; just as the implementation of the regional government’s programme of massive
infrastructural development, and expansion of educational and health services not only
expanded the bureaucracy, it drew heavily on state finance. For instance educational
expenditure, which stood at £56,000 in 1949, had risen to £1.16m by 1957. By 1958, only
one local government could balance its budget, most had expended their reserve funds and
at least twelve councils
were bankrupt.

Independence of Nigeria
The Federation of Nigeria formally achieved its independence from Britain and joined the
Commonwealth of Nations (CON) on October 1, 1960. On October 1, 1960, Abubakar
Tafawa Balewa, founder of the Northern People’s Congress (NPC), was appointed as prime
minister (head of government) of the Federation of Nigeria. Benjamin Nnamdi Azikiwe,
leader of the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons, was appointed as Governor-
General (representative of Queen Elizabeth II, the Nigerian head of state) on November 16,
1960. The Federal Republic of Nigeria was established on October 1, 1963, with Abubakar
Tafawa Balewa as prime minister (head of government) and Benjamin Nnamdi Azikiwe as
president (head of state). President Benjamin Nnamdi Azikiwe dissolved the House of
Representatives on December 8, 1964. Parliamentary elections were held on December 30,
1964 and March 18, 1965, and the NPC won 162 out of 312 seats in the House of
Representatives.

Conclusion
In conclusion, it is evident that the withdrawal of the colonialists from governance in Nigeria
and the subsequent handing over of power to Nigerians in 1960 did not come as a result of
the British act of benevolence. It came as a consequence of various demonstrations of
nonviolent actions, agitation, and efforts of various nationalists movements. The nonviolent
struggles were deeply rooted mass strikes and protests, enormous sacrifices largely by
Nigerian workers, taking cognizance of newspaper reports which played significant roles of
checks and balances in the early colonial administration of Nigeria.