Way back in the mid-nineteenth century, an interesting way to get rich was to play finders-keepers. While Vikings were plundering several villages, People from various countries in the west would journey towards the ends of the map, hoping to find lands that they could sell, or make a profit from.
On one of such journeys, A Man, Richard Lander stumbled upon an area called which is known in present-day as Nigeria. He immediately ran back to get his brother John and a few other men so they could lay claims to the newly discovered territory and hoist their flag. They met a little bit of resistance from the locals in the area but were able to set up a trading post so they could do business properly with the locals while being able to cart out whatever treasures they could find.
Guess what? it turned out to be a disaster, they got bitten by mosquitoes and could not cope with the harsh weather. A total of 40 men died of fever and wounds from attacks that were carried out by people from the local settle meets in the area they resided. With only 9 persons left, the richest man amongst the group left them and headed back to Britain. Nevertheless, he had seen great potentials in the region so he continued to fund the expedition which was known as the Niger Expedition of 1841 until he died.
Having lost their benefactor, the expeditors who had managed to set up a company known as the West African Company were barely able to make any profits from trades in the region because the french men and the Germans had also discovered the region. As each one tried to outdo the other in order to make the natives like them better, they crashed the value of their imported products so much that it became hard for each group of businessmen to make any profit, so the brits went around to look for other brits who they could find in the region, they merged and created a single and bigger front which became the United African Company. But they were not alone, The French also allied within themselves and went ahead to create numerous trading posts on all the available rivers in the area.
In 1882, a clever business mogul named George Goldie came into the market with a whole lot of cash, he bought over the United African Company and all their trading posts and took them under his own company, the National African Company. He went on to advance deeper into the territories until he completely frustrated the efforts of the Frenchmen and the germans. Goldie became the bomb and started to call the shots in the entire region. He enjoyed a monopoly and with adequate backings from the British government, competed over 400 local groups in the region to only trade through them. No one could stand against the National African Company, because they feared for their lives.
A king from Opobo named Jaja was only successful a few times, he had shipped palm oil from Opobo to Britain and seemed to be making some cool bucks so Goldie’s men called him up for an interesting business deal, So jaja followed them into a British warship. He was bundled, tied and shipped into exile for breaking the treaty which was initially signed by the 400 local groups.
The locals were not happy and started to yield towards the germans, so the British businessmen changed their name once again from the from the National African Company to the Royal Niger Company. The locals still were not comfortable with the new company and both groups would often attack each other, so the Royal Niger Company secured a deal with the British Government to sell off their assets to the company to the government which included a complete control of trades and power in the conquered territories for the sum of eight hundred and sixty-five thousand pounds. After the transaction was concluded, the government realized that the region was too big to be controlled by just a few personnel, so the merged all the local groups into two major protectorates which later became the Northern and Southern Nigeria.
Even after the British Government took over, it was difficult for them to completely maximise on commercial activities in the Southern Region, so they armed the obedient people in the Northern region, and had them fight against other groups down south. At this time, the locals in the northern part of Nigeria were now the bulk of the Army with which the British empire conquered the Ijebu Kingdom, and the Edo empire, after which they drove the Oba of Benin into a forced exile. When they got to the east, it was a completely different ball game. The Brits had no idea on who called the shots because the Igbos lacked a central political figure.
They launched an Anglo-Aro War in hopes that the Igbos would be subdued, but for every village they conquered, they realised that the next village had it’s own autonomy, so the British forces decided to pacify the locals and preach to them about the supremacy of the British Empire, and how the British government can protect them from external attacks, the igloos believed them and yielded their territories to the British Government.
With the entire Northern region and the Southern region now under the authority of the British government, the British empire decided to to join both protectorates and make up a single Colony, the merger was completed in 1914, and Nigeria was born.
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