Last week my friend, Babs Sobanjo, forwarded me the following piece said to be an extract from a Confidential Document by the British colonialist, Lord Frederick Lugard, who established the geographical contraption he, with the help of his lover, gave the name Nigeria.
The piece, snotty in the extreme, typifies the British in their calculating, self-serving, devilry. It represents Lugard’s appraisal of the African as represented by Nigeria and Nigerians.
But, for me, it provides food for thought, even if his generalization is silly. The characterizations are grave, grievous and damning. But I cannot blame Frederick. It cannot be his fault. As the Yoruba would say, akuko wa lo fi ogbe ori e fun kolokolo je – our cockerel volunteered its flaming crown for the scared fox to feel and see that its nothing but flesh!
And as Babs says, it is “nasty but true.” Babs goes further to say, and I agree: “For our fathers and grandfathers, this was pardonable but for us not to have moved dramatically from this perception, it is worrying to say the least..”
Here goes Lord Frederick Lugard: (Caps mine)
"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 jewelry. 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)
Sheathe your dagger, fellow Nigerians, the imbecile Lugard is long dead. There’s no point in getting mad at him. On the other hand, our madness should be directed at ourselves: leaders and followers alike.
Let us look all around us and see how much of “self-control, discipline, and foresight” we possess or exhibit, be it in our personal or public lifestyles. What “self-control, discipline and foresight” did our Heads of State, Presidents and Governors have in looting the public treasury with abandon and carrying their loot abroad to benefit foreign countries? What “self-control, discipline and foresight” have we, as citizens got in the manner we drive on our roads, or show complete disregard for the next person? What thoughts of communal or common interest do we have in our actions and behaviour? How much do we care about not littering the street, not blocking drainages, not building houses haphazardly, not blocking streets with our parties such that other people’s right of way are trampled upon?
Aren’t our thoughts “concentrated on the events and feelings of the moment”? Don’t we demonstrate a “lack of ability to visualize the future”? Otherwise, would we remain the way we are, doing things the same way and expecting different results? Would the need for a holistic electoral reform in conformity with Justice Uwais’ recommendation be such a difficult thing to grasp? Would we still be running a system of governance whereby three-quarters of national revenue are being consumed in wages, salaries, allowances, etc of legislative and executive gravy train? Would Local Government Councilors, House of Assembly members, be on full time and be earning more than a professor? Many things just don’t make sense, but we go ahead nevertheless as no one can be bothered, and feathers must not be ruffled. Would we, at this point in our lives and at this juncture of the 21st century still be grappling with electricity, with pot-holed roads, without a modern rail system, without good education for our youth? What kind of beings are we?
Lugard says: “the African appears to have evolved no organized religious creed”. Shame. Serves us right. Would he say such nonsense if we as Africans had worked at our own religion, allowed it to evolve, refined it, upheld it, intellectualized it, rather than swallowing the foreign ones handed down to us that makes us invoke experiences of foreign lands and spirits of their ancestors rather than ours? Granted that Lugard himself, foolish as he was, forgot that the religion he practiced and saw as of his people belonged to some other races.
The Nigerian “loves the display of power”. Doesn’t he? Isn’t our bigmanism – “you-no-know-me? – a character trait? Isn’t the world sniggering at our leaders as the strut about the place like demi-gods helping no one and serving no one but themselves?
Lugard says, the Nigerian “lacks the power of organization”. Doesn’t he? I would imagine that goes without saying. I have just come back from Abuja and the bedlam I saw on the roads made me weep. I am left in no doubt that in another five years’, Abuja would be unrecognizable by its filth and chaos. What are we doing? Why is it so difficult to organize the traffic, effect road markings, and set some order to life? Why, in so short a time from the departure of el Rufai, is Abuja going to the dogs? Why couldn’t we organize our sports such that credible age-group categories competitions field only those truly within the categories? Why are our values so warped?
Why has it been such a problem establishing and maintaining durable and credible structures for the sustenance and growth of the country? Why would basics like credible census, compulsory birth and death certificates, be such rocket science for us? Why would it be so difficult to see that the Federal Government has no business in funding Local Governments that are arbitrary creation of the military in the first place?
Why are so many things wrong with us, so many obviously wrong things carried on same way while expecting different results and mouthing a 20-2020 nonsense?
What a country – Lugard, methinks you’re right after all.
NB:
“The Dual Mandate in British Tropical Africa” was published in 1922. It discusses indirect rule in colonial Africa. In this work, Lugard outlines the reasons and methods that he recommended for the colonization of Africa by Britain. Some of his justifications included spreading Christianity and ending barbarism.
Lord Frederick John Dealtry Lugard (22 January 1858 – 11 April 1945) was High Commissioner of the Protectorate of Northern Nigeria till 1906, having earlier, in August 1897, organized the West African Frontier Force which he commanded until December 1899. He was Governor-General of Nigeria from 1914-1919,
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Comments Page: 1  posted on 11-24-2009, 10:31:50 AM Patonaiyekan Re: What Lord Lugard Thought About NigeriansShocking!!! That we were described in these terms almost a century ago and for those traits to still be recognisable today makes me tremble with fear for the future. How can one dispute this assessment of a Nigerian even today? Agreed Lugard was writing typically as a self serving colonial devil whose motivating factor is pure greed, any objective mind has to be taken aback. I recommend we all read this book in the hope that we will have a rethink and prove him wrong.  posted on 11-24-2009, 11:50:56 AM DraftmanRe: What Lord Lugard Thought About NigeriansTunde, nice article. Any objective mind would agree with Lugard, as painfull as it maybe. I have so many whys however; Why do we dislike eachother, why are we so disorganise like Lugard says, why do we think less of eachother, why the jealousy, why we view anything foreign as good, but anything from us is bad; including religion, language, fashion, pigmentation, etc. why the crab in the barel mentality, I can go on and on. With all these education, title, and natural resources, our nations are in poor shape.
If "god" is our father as we've been taught, without a prove, then why is he purnishing his children like this. With all the intellectuals, which they earn from foreigners, named one substantial product we contribute to the modern world, i.e plane, cars, major technology, major health discoveries. We are just a followers like Fela says. Now, what is the solution? We can start by stop complaining and start doing, love, respect our self and culture. Respect creative mind and support it. Encourage small business and enterpreneur. The market will dictate. posted on 11-24-2009, 20:18:42 PM AdejintaRe: What Lord Lugard Thought About Nigeriansegbon tunde.thanks for your insightful,but self flagellating commentary about what lord lugarg thought about us.the same perception about us still persist till today but do we have to 100percent buy into what these people thought about us egbon?????yes u have comment on the reality of our situation and i agre with you that your points are salient and relevant,but i disagree about many of us nigerians going about as if this reality are peculiar to our race.the fact is that all these malidies afflict most human race wether yellow,white,black or brown.
Fact check1-concentrate on event and feelings of the moment,a race which bearly a year after indepence concieve and built a great university like obafemi awolowo university which was at it,s inception was one of the most achitecturaly beautiful in the world can not be said to contrate onthe events and feelings of the moment,if that was the case they would have go ahead and built something like las vegas or disneyland.Fact check2 are the awolowos,ahmedu bello,azikwe,nkruma,et al lack in self control,discipline and foresight.3,nigerians love display of power,but who publicly bust out against poor congolese student "i,m the secretary of state not my husband" and al haig after reagan was shot,i,am in charge.fact check 4the african appears to evolved no organised religious creed,well egbon tunde u yourselvet in one of your open letter to oni of ife in1997 or there about stated the fact about ifa religion beign widely practised among the african diaspora if it were not an organised religious creed how could it have survived up till now faced with such horendous persecution and moreso in captivity,and also how come it produced intellectual theologians such as prof wande abimbola as you mentioned in your open letter of 1997 and if you want to how organised and mordernised ifa religion is go to olla my home town in ejigbo local government in oshoun state they have there on temple and service is on sarturdays. Last fact check.lacks of organisation any group of race that can organise an internet forum as sophisticated as this nigerian village square is not on the road to perdition as the pundits and the doomsayers are prognosticating. the grasshopper and the locust generations are the catalyst of these present malaise and dangerous winds blowing across the niger and it shall very soon be rectified we know the evil ones among us and they will be castigated mr kum will surely come.again i reitrate the point that we got problem ,but we are not the only ones ,look at the the british of lord lugard who knows how to focus on the future and yet can not contain gandhi and subsequently lost allow the sun to set on the empire,the americans with self control,discipline and foresight almost plunging the whole world into financial ruins if not for the chinese who were before 1948 worse off than nigeria in whatever paradigm u want to use to measure it.yes we lack organisation but not on the scale of what in recent years used to be 14th on pennsylvania close to whitehous whre pimps and prostitute rules the night or 42nd street in newyork b4 mayor guiliani.i,am currently living in central america and most central american countries had there indepence more almost 200 years ago and they all close neighbor of america and yet none of them can bost of intellectualism of nigerians up to the present moment none of the universities here have faculties that offers phd level degrees it was as recently as 4 years ago few universities started to offer postgraduate courses.and if you don,t know nigeria is the only country fromafrica an asia offerring technical assistantance programs for most of the carribean countries,recent past supreme court justice of bahamas was a nigerian and bahamas is only 35 minutes flight from us.i,m in honduras and i,m eating my favourite nigerian dish 4 dinner bought in honduras market.GOD BLESS NIGERIA,LONG LIVE NIGERIA,GOD BLESS EGBON TUNDE FOR BEEN AN INSTRUMENT OF JOINING THIS FORUM AND LONG LIFE TO EGBON ALSO AND MOST IMPORTANTLY GOD BLESS THIS FORUM A MAY GOD THROUGH HIS DEVINE PROVIDENCE GUARANTY ITS SURVIVAL TILL ETERNITY. posted on 07-07-2010, 13:00:13 PM M.t. usmanRe: What Lord Lugard Thought About NigeriansApt, very apt Tunde....our yesterday has failed to guide us to our today...the consequence is that tomorrow will be worse than today....the future is created by the present ...what Lugard saw in the 1920s, and which we agree is still true, was a baby of our past (as at then)...that the characterisation, though self-serving as rightly noted, is true today is under-stating the obvious. In reality, things have gotten much worse. The issues are not only still the same, they have eaten deeper into our fabric. The failures of our grand-parents that resulted in the decay Lugard met have only been aggravated by the ignorance and inaction of the succeeding generations.
As we wail and lament our woes, we need to take heed that unless we get our acts together to change things for the better, our children will inherit an even worse country...and it shall be that Lugard's great grand children will visit us a few decades from now, when we would have 'disintegrated' into tribal enclaves, and make the same damning conclusions about our barbarism..... Most certainly any group of humans that cannot harness God-given potentials to achieve greatness (to the glory of God) cannot but be worse than animals..... It will be interesting to hear our religious leaders' comments on our lack of religious creed. posted on 07-07-2010, 18:11:48 PM M. AkosaRe: What Lord Lugard Thought About NigeriansQUOTE:
Oh...Yes. For over 52 years that Lord Lugard penned those innermost thoughts on the character of the Nigerians; it is still the same. Hate & Deciet. That is I 'm afraid is the Nigerian blood line. No matter the levels and intensity of religious participation or educational attainments. posted on 07-07-2010, 18:25:53 PM DeepThoughtRe: What Lord Lugard Thought About NigeriansI didn't read the article and have no intention of doing so.
WHat is interesting is the commentary of agreement from commentators. First of all, whose lord is Lugard? Your lord or mine? It is one thing to be forced to be abase. It is another thing for one to voluntarily stay in the position of abjectness. Anyway, you all should go and read what the Romans wrote about the quanlities of an ideal slave and which type of people made the best kind of slaves. You should go and search your history books to see what conquerors often think of the conquered. posted on 07-07-2010, 19:13:38 PM M. AkosaRe: What Lord Lugard Thought About NigeriansWow !!! Speaking of people being in denials indeed !!! Tufiakwa.
Regardless of whether it is the lord or mistress Lugard exposing their inner most deep thoughts on the character of the Nigerian people. I wonder if the man (Lugard) was wrong in the first place about this assessments ? then how come this set of "conquered people" haven't proven their conquerers wrong, for 50 plus years now ongoing? After all, the Roman empire also witnessed their conquered people turn the table on them, even now and again? until the empire, both near and far (Ethiopians as of the most recent), dwindled and came crashing to a halt. I am afraid the concerns and perceptions of Lord Lugard or his mistress over 50 years ago, about Nigerians, is eerily my deepest nightmares still today, as of this very minute. Nothing has changed !!! posted on 07-07-2010, 19:19:35 PM DewdropsEtuto A Maa Abuba!...(Boil Has Developed Puss!)Lugard was not wrong at all. Just look around you. Is there any kind of meaningful relationship......you can have with the average Nigerian on ANY level?(male or female.....personally or professionally) You can expect some basic things for sure....lies......hate....envy.........deceit! Absoulutely nothing positive or progressive to point you to the direction of any meaurable amount of success. If not why is Nigeria still the way it is after some 50+ years after Lugard? Even ancient civilizations and societies saw some measure of cognitive or environmental human evolution or success after 50 years. Name it. Is it the Roman empire or the Greek empire. Okay....look at the only documented ancient civilization in Afica ...Egypt and see how far it has regressed just for being in the African continent. What ever happened to the great pyramids?
QUOTE:
.....and they would keep denying while living the same lives of deceit and hate every second.......No hope!!! Meeeeeeeeeeeeeeen...we have issues I tellya! I quote excepts of the article....... QUOTE:
....and the name-calling continues.......If Lugard is an imbecile according to some brilliant minds.......what maketh the Nigerian he so aptly describes ???. 
By Jove! 
If I wrote such......people will say oh...you hate Nigeria. Is it not when someone cares about you he or she would even bother to give you constructive criticisms as opposed to unfounded personal attacks and insecure counter attacks? Instead of reading the message......the messenger would be attacked of course.....and of course tell you 'it is the manner in which the message was delivered' that is the problem. In the end.....you use diplomacy or outright candor......you will get the same response.....out of sheer denial. Interesting article I say.......I love it! Well presented content and analysis.....shows the inner workings of a concerned and observant mind. Not one given to 'herd' mentality. There is hope afterall...... Hear ye.....hear ye!!!! posted on 09-02-2010, 09:49:58 AM JseRe: What Lord Lugard Thought About NigeriansBefore I agree with everyone here (including Lugard), I should point out that the Nigerian people who Lugard encountered are not the same Nigerians of today --at least they should not be.
In the time before colonialism, we were content with what we had. Lugard was appraising us based on the lifestyle and cultures of his own people. People who, I might add, behave in much the same way that Nigerians behave (they are merely subtler in their approaches). Nigerians of that era were happy because we didn't want what wasn't ours. It was the colonialists that came and said, "your religion is inadequate; your lack of fine garments is inadequate; your lack of central governance is inadequate; your lack of Christianity is inadequate." And we--seeing them in their excessive raiment, with their mightier-than-thou attitudes--accepted that they must know what they are about. Afterall, they came from across the seas, while we had been cooling our heels in the same village, same town, same city-state for ceturies! We were bemboozled then, and Lugard was a moron. But now we have no excuse. We have adopted the western culture and accepted their ways as superior. We have striven to emulate them in our mode of speech, dress, and prayer. So we must adapt ourselves to fit into that norm and be the best people we can be. Had Lugard made his observations today today, he would be dead-on, but for the era in which he made them, he was simply being a bigoted, self-serving fool. posted on 10-26-2010, 08:04:44 AM ShangothorRe: What Lord Lugard Thought About NigeriansI'm not interested in providing an intellectual rebuttal to Lugard's assertions, I'm only interested in disproving them showing that we as a nation are capable of complex organization; providing Nigerians with a constant source of electricity; protecting individual civil liberties and enforcing the 'rule of law'; providing security to citizens irrespective of 'ethnic descent', 'wealth' or 'class status' is order to unleash the real economic potential of the people, the invisible hand; reducing poverty in our generation; devising and implementing systems to prevent the Nigerian elite, top 10% from siphoning huge amounts of money and depositing in the West thus stabilizing their economies at the expense of ours; aim for currency parity with the USD $ as it was in the good old days in order to reduce the burden of suffering of ordinary folk; alerting citizens to participating towards 'wealth creation' as opposed to focusing on the 'redistribution of crude oil sale receipts'.
All my generation is interested in is providing 'solutions to problems' and marching on. Id love to be able to draw a line in the sand, shake off the nightmare scenario, look forward and start building, and I can't even do that. (signed - the voice of a frustrated Nigerian in the Diaspora) posted on 04-09-2012, 01:18:13 AM KRe: What Lord Lugard Thought About NigeriansWhat colonialism did was to rob every country of the self confidence to persist in their path, every now and then looking inward with self-disgust. Is that productive? Comments Page: 1 |
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