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Friday 29th March 2024,
Hope for Nigeria

What Lord Lugard Thought About Nigerians – An Excerpt from The Dual Mandate in British Tropical Africa…Written Over 80 Years Ago

Lord Lugard

“In character and temperament, the typical African of this race-type is a happy, thriftless, excitable person. Lacking in self control, discipline, and foresight. Naturally courageous, and naturally courteous and polite, full of personal vanity, with little sense of veracity, fond of music and loving weapons as an oriental loves jewellery. His thoughts are concentrated on the events and feelings of the moment, and he suffers little from the apprehension for the future, or grief for the past. His mind is far nearer to the animal world than that of the European or Asiatic, and exhibits something of the animals’ placidity and want of desire to rise beyond the State he has reached. Through the ages the African appears to have evolved no organized religious creed, and though some tribes appear to believe in a deity, the religious sense seldom rises above pantheistic animalism and seems more often to take the form of a vague dread of the supernatural” 

 

“He lacks the power of organization, and is conspicuously deficient in the management and control alike of men or business. He loves the display of power, but fails to realize its responsibility ….he will work hard with a less incentive than most races. He has the courage of the fighting animal, an instinct rather than a moral virtue…… In brief, the virtues and defects of this race-type are those of attractive children, whose confidence when it is won is given ungrudgingly as to an older and wiser superior and without envy…….Perhaps the two traits which have impressed me as those most characteristic of the African native are his lack of apprehension and his lack of ability to visualize the future.”

—Lord Frederick John Dealty Lugard, The Dual Mandate, pg.70 (1926)”

 

WATCH VIDEO:

 

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Frederick John Dealtry Lugard, 1st Baron Lugard (22 January 1858 – 11 April 1945), known as Sir Frederick Lugard between 1901 and 1928, was aBritish soldier, mercenary, explorer of Africa and colonial administrator, who was Governor of Hong Kong (1907–1912) and Governor-General of Nigeria (1914–1919).

Early life and education

Lugard was born in Madras (now Chennai) in India, but was raised in Worcester, England. He was the son of the Reverend F. G. Lugard, a British Army Chaplain at Madras, and Mary Howard (1819–1865), the youngest daughter of Reverend John Garton Howard (1786–1862), a younger son of Yorkshire landed gentry. Lugard was educated at Rossall Schooland the Royal Military College, Sandhurst.

The Dual Mandate in British Tropical Africa

From 1922 to 1936 he was British representative on the League of Nations’ Permanent Mandates Commission. Lugard’s The Dual Mandate in British Tropical Africa was published in 1922. It discusses indirect rule in colonial Africa. In this work, Lugard outlined the reasons and methods that he recommended for the colonisation of Africa by Britain. Some of his justifications included spreading Christianity and ending barbarism. He also saw state-sponsored colonisation as a way to protect missionaries, local chiefs, and local people from each other as well as from foreign powers. Also, for Lugard, it was vital that Britain gain control of unclaimed areas beforeGermany, Portugal, or France claimed the land and its resources for themselves. He realised that there were vast profits to be made through the exporting of resources like rubber and through taxation of native populations, as well as importers and exporters. In addition, these resources and inexpensive native labour (slavery having been outlawed by Britain in 1834) would provide vital fuel for the industrial revolution in resource-depleted Britain as well as monies for public works projects. Finally, Lugard reasoned that colonisation had become a fad and that in order to remain a super power, Britain would need to hold colonies in order to avoid appearing weak.

Lugard pushed for native rule in African colonies. He reasoned that black Africans were very different from white Europeans. He did speculate about the admixture of Aryan or Hamitic blood arising from the advent of Islam amongst the Hausa and Fulani. He considered that natives should act as a sort of middle manager in colonial governance. This would avoid revolt because, as Lugard believed, the people of Africa would be more likely to follow someone who looked like them, spoke their languages, and shared their customs.

Olufemi Taiwo argues that in fact Lugard blocked qualified Africans educated in Britain from playing an active role in the development of the country, preferring to advance prominent Hausa and Fulani leaders from traditional structures.

 

Published works

  • In 1893, Lugard published The Rise of our East African Empire, which was partially an autobiography. Also, Lugard was the author of various valuable reports on Northern Nigeria issued by the Colonial Office.
  • The Dual Mandate in British Tropical Africa, 1926.
  • Reading the Colonizer’s Mind: Lord Lugard and the Philosophical Foundations of British Colonialism’ by Olufemi Taiwo in Racism and Philosophy edited by Susan E. Babbitt and Sue Campbell, Cornell University Press, 1999

– Wikipedia

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