The ‘colonial State’ was one possessing of a ‘colonialist designer label’, white on the inside black on the outside, meaning that the State retained the colonialist’s
1. territory,
2. coercive mode of governance,
3. language as official language,
4. law as state law,
5. exploitative economy,
6. disdain for things native, and
7. denial of self-determination.
According to this definition, Nigeria is a Colonial State. On the eve of the Proclamation of Amalgamation of Nigeria in 1914, Britain did not know the type of State it was creating. As Colonial official, AJ, Harding commented in 1913:
‘Sir F. Frederick Lugard’s proposal contemplates a state which is impossible to classify. It is not a unitary state with local government areas but with one Central Executive and one Legislature. It is not a federal state with federal Executive, Legislature and finances, like the Leewards. It is not a personal union of separate colonies under the same Governor like the Windwards, it is not a Confederation of States. If adopted, his proposals can hardly be a permanent solution, and I gather that Sir F. Lugard only regards them as temporary...’
In fact, Nigeria was not a State of any kind until Britain recognised it as a State (Doctrine of Recognition) on 1 October 1960, and invested it with sovereignty. No other established state rushed to recognise Nigeria as a State until 7 October 1960 when the UNSC recommended to the UNGA that Nigeria be admitted to the UN as its 99th Member (UNSC Resolution S/RES/160 (1960)).
Nigeria was not a natural State; neither evolutionary nor revolutionary. Nigeria was an artificial construct created in 1913 by a British legislative act, the Colony of Nigeria Order in Council 1913. The Nigeria was constructed of different indigenous Nation States located either side of the Niger and Benue Rivers. Each indigenous Nation was a ‘State’ as understood at those material times. Each indigenous Nation had the Montevideo attributes of population, defined territory, independent government, and capacity to form foreign relations, whether by war or by peace. It was Britain that gave labels, such as, emirate, empire or kingdom to describe these indigenous Nations but each still was a State in its own right under the 19th century international law.
Nigeria was a capitalist construct not a political one, as had been acknowledged by Lugard in his Amalgamation Report. It all began with Taubman Goldie whose wealthy family in1875 bought a bankrupt firm that had been trading on the Niger. He employed the means of treaties to establish administrative rights using the National African Company that he had formed in 1882. By 1884, Goldie had seen off other European interests in the area. Consequently, at the Berlin Conference in 1884, Britain was able to claim commercial dominion over the lower Niger area. In 1886, Goldie formed the Royal Niger Company to which the British gave a Charter (official seal of approval). In 1899, Goldie sold ‘his’ land and people to the British Government for £865,000 (£1 = £1500 in today’s money). In other words, Nigeria started life as a commercial investment by Britain.
In 1914, Britain amalgamated Nigeria but the Amalgamation was for commercial purposes only, not political. The Amalgamation was arguably Nigeria’s first (originating) constitution. According to Lugard, the amalgamation’s architect, the colonial administration was formed to use budget surplus in the south to offset deficit in the north, and to build a rail way to enable goods from the north to be brought down to the coast for sale.
The first pertinent question arising was this: was Nigeria, prior to independence, a sovereign State in the legal sense? There was no evidence to suggest that the peoples now called Nigerians would themselves have ‘pooled’ their sovereignties and created Nigeria. Without the British, Nigeria would never have happened. Under the international law obtaining at the time prior to 1 October 1960 when Nigeria was granted independence, the individual indigenous Nation State not Nigeria had sovereignty. The indigenous peoples did not contemplate, or envision, or desire Nigeria’s birth so, Nigeria’s statehood from their perspective of the natural law could not be said to be legal or legitimate.
The second pertinent question was this: have the peoples now called Nigerians nevertheless bought into the Nigeria project? There was a secessionist war between 1967 and 1970. Military dictatorships occupied 29 of the 33 years between Nigeria’s first coup d’état in 1966 and the end of the last one in 1999. The military imposed Nigeria’s 1999 Constitution. Ex-military dictators ruled Nigeria as ‘civilian’ for 16 of the last 24 years (ie 1999 to 2023). Western-style government systems – parliamentary and presidential – failed Nigerians. Nigeria’s existence as a State has depended on an imposed coercive ‘ruling class’ not on the genuine desire or will of its peoples so, Nigeria’s statehood from its peoples’ perspective of the natural law could not be said to be legal or legitimate.
Accordingly, Nigeria was a ‘colonial State’ not a true State as contemplated by international law, which defined a state as one that had inherent sovereignty over a territory. Sovereignty in the case of China, for example, derived from its being a civilisation not because it fulfilled the Montevideo; the same would be true of the Yorubaland. A true state had a degree of homogeneity which supported the people’s sense of belonging and allegiance, and of not belonging to another community. Nigeria was a contrived sovereignty not a true sovereignty, which made Nigeria a contrived State not a true State.