1 - Fighting for the World

Summary

This chapter critically analyzes Nigeria’s status as one of Britain’s imperial possessions and its strategic importance during the war. This chapter shows that the mantra of the “people’s war” was effectuated through the systematic implementation of new policies and regulations, changes in existing economic policy, and specific regulations introduced to garner support for the war. This chapter then demonstrates how Nigerians were subjected to even greater demands to fight in what was seen as a glorious defense of civilization against barbarism. It presents how Nigeria was woven “into the tapestry of British warfare and Britain’s presence on the world stage as the foremost power,” to use Ashley Jackson’s expression. It argues that government policies during the war conveyed a highly paradoxical attitude toward colonized peoples: consistent with the goals of imperialism as an economic venture on one hand, and on the other, with the Allies’ commitment to the preservation of liberty and self-determination through specific wartime colonial policies.

Every day that passes by brings to the people of Nigeria … the reality that confronts the people of the British Empire in this war which is being waged against “bad faith, injustice, oppression and suppression,” the evil things of Nazism.

West African Pilot, May 12, 1941, 2

On December 4, 1939, Sir Bernard Henry Bourdillon, the British governor of Nigeria, addressed the Legislative Council in an extraordinary session. It was hitherto the custom to address the Council formally only at the opening of each session when the estimates for the forthcoming year were to be laid before the Council for approval. This address marked a departure from custom because of what was described as “exceptional circumstances.”¹ In his speech, Bourdillon justified conspicuously introducing fresh taxation in the middle of a fiscal year. The address drew attention to Nigeria’s expected role as part of the British Empire during the war:

This war will not be won solely by the efforts of the [A]llied navies, armies and air forces. Its winning demands a determined, coordinated and sustained effort on the part of the whole civil population of the British Empire, and we in Nigeria must take to the full our share in that effort … providing men for the fighting forces … placing at the disposal of Great Britain the whole of the natural resources of this country.²

Bourdillon’s address carried a clear association between the “war with Nazi Germany” and the demands the empire would make upon Nigeria.³

Bourdillon, who officiated as governor for most of the war period (1935–1943), arrived in Nigeria during a time of great economic uncertainty. Thus, his policy of increasing taxes and enjoining Nigerians to partly bear the burden of prosecuting the war was not necessarily a departure from the past. Nigeria, like other colonial territories, had borne the burden of supporting the empire throughout the prewar period. The introduction of taxation had already led to violent rebellions in parts of the country five years earlier.⁴ Although the war indirectly affected colonial subjects, the colonial government embarked on an aggressive policy of extracting more resources and cash from the local population. The programs and regulations implemented during the war show an undeniable continuity between prewar expectations about supporting the empire and wartime attitudes and actions toward Nigerians. This chapter focuses on the changing nature of colonial policy and the specific regulations introduced to garner support for the war, the optimism expressed by colonial officials, and how ordinary Nigerians perceived their roles as subjects of the empire and as participants in the war against tyranny.

As they had in the Great War, the most global war of its time, Nigerians from all walks of life, diverse regions, and various ethnicities were involved in the struggle to win the Second World War. Daniel Travers and Stephen Heathorn have noted that the Second World War “holds a special place in the British national narrative.”⁵ With significant reliance on a large-scale mobilization of the civilian population, the Second World War was viewed as the “‘People’s War’ – a term that connotes both a war of the whole people, united in common cause, and a moral war, fought by decent people for decent values against an indecent enemy.”⁶ Nigerians, like other colonial subjects, were required to contribute to what Raphael Samuel has characterized as a “glorious defense of civilization against barbarism.”⁷ Thus, wartime policies developed from the prior foundations of the colonial relationship, rather than a moment induced by the war. British colonies, historian Ashley Jackson has remarked, were “woven into the tapestry of British warfare and Britain’s presence on the world stage as the foremost power.”⁸ Nigeria’s status as one of Britain’s prized imperial possessions (colonies of commerce and conquest) in a vast mass of territories spread across tropical Africa, Asia, and the Pacific positioned it as a strategic resource during the war. Nigerians were deployed as soldiers, workers, and suppliers to theaters of war in Europe and the Middle East on a large scale. But as Indivar Kamtekar describes in the case of India during the same period, “states inaugurate wars and then try to make them the business of the peoples over whom they govern.”⁹ This premise is reflected in how Britain and colonial Nigeria intersected and complemented each other during the Second World War, and the harmony and contradictions that defined their relationship in this period. It would be fruitful, however, to briefly explore the socioeconomic and political conditions in Nigeria in the interwar years as an era of significant change when disparate ideologies created a level of economic and political crisis and agitation.

Nigeria and Britain during the Interwar Years

The Colony and Protectorate of Nigeria, including the Mandated Territory of the Cameroons, had an estimated population of more than 22 million people and covered an area of 373 square miles, exceeding the combined sizes of Belgium, Holland, France, and Italy.¹⁰ With a population greater than Canada, Australia, and New Zealand put together, Nigeria was a tremendous potential source of human and material support for Britain. With the conclusion of World War I and the acquisition of new territories under the Treaty of Versailles, the British Empire reached its height geographically and in terms of population. The new territories given under the treaty added 1,800,000 square miles (4,700,000 km²) and 13 million new subjects to the empire, but despite this growth, cracks within the imperial façade were growing – and not without significant consequences for the colonies. As part of a global conglomerate, British colonies faced economic difficulties from the end of World War I. The colonial economy in Nigeria remained largely agrarian with the local population laboriously working the land to survive. But for most of the years before World War II, British policy had favored noninterference with agricultural production. Rural farmers sought to raise the standard of living and to expand export production through the monetized economy, which was stimulated by strong demand in Europe. In 1903, for example, Nigeria exported 131,898 tons of palm kernels and 54,257 tons of palm oil to Europe.¹¹ Revenue from palm kernels exported in 1921 amounted to £3,189,000 and by 1930 had reached £4,429,000. The value of exports had increased more than sevenfold and export volume fivefold, representing an annual growth rate of 7 percent and 5.5 percent respectively, as well as an increase from 5 percent to 7 percent of the gross domestic product.¹² The growth in oil palm planting and rehabilitation was more dramatic, beginning in the late 1920s. By 1932, there were about 200 native-owned new oil palm plots and 54 extensions of old plots in the southern provinces.¹³ Most of these oil palm plots were locate in Owerri and Onitsha Provinces.¹⁴ In the western and northern provinces, farmers made significant investments in cocoa, cotton, and groundnut production.

Yet the overall economic conditions in Nigeria toward the late 1930s were less than ideal for the local population. The worldwide depression that occurred before the war also began to affect the economic fortunes of the colonial state and the native population.¹⁵ By the mid-1920s, farmers were already facing challenging times financially due to the low prices of produce and the prohibitive cost of imported goods. The low cash flow within the local economy exacerbated the effects of the depression.¹⁶ Between 1929 and 1935, the value of the palm produce trade dropped by more than 70 percent, causing a substantial fall in farmers’ incomes and in government revenue.¹⁷ Nigel Cookes, a colonial administrative officer, recalled in his memoir of service in Nigeria from 1938: “No economic depression in my lifetime is in any way comparable to that of the early thirties. All countries and every class were affected. Britain fared somewhat better than some countries, such as, particularly, Germany and countries like Nigeria and the West Indies which were dependent on primary products.”¹⁸ Historian Moses Ochono has rightly noted that the drastic fall in the price of Nigeria’s major agricultural exports “undermined the personal economies of peasant producers, diminishing their ability to pay taxes and their capacity to produce more.”¹⁹

The Great Depression in the late 1920s and early 1930s made control of the colonies more challenging and highlighted the inadequacies of government policies. Yet British colonial policy in this period tended to support metropolitan interests rather than colonial interests.²⁰ The economic challenges of the Depression era created ideal conditions for protests.²¹ The most important protest against direct taxation was the 1929 women’s revolt in eastern Nigeria, in which women protested against the perceived extension of direct taxation to them.²² In his diary, J. C. Bull recorded in his entry for December 12, 1929:

News from Aba that there is struggle by the way. The women of that locality have engaged in fighting with Europeans. The soldiers and policemen are up there. (This is a reference to the famous Aba riots by women.) It was due to a misunderstanding. The women had been counted and they thought that they were now going to be taxed as well as the men, so they organized themselves and rioted in large numbers.²³

Women used the opportunity offered by the tax incident to articulate other matters of economic concern. On December 4, 1929, for example, women gathered at Umuahia in the Eastern Region to discuss the low price of produce. At a meeting with agents of European trading companies at Umuahia, one of the women leaders, Nwanwanyi, said: “We wish to discuss the price of produce. We have no desire or intention of making any trouble, but we have fixed a certain price for palm oil and kernels and if we get that we will bring them in. We want 10 shillings a tin [4 gallons] for oil and 9 shillings a bushel for kernels.”²⁴ By that time, the price of a four-gallon tin of palm oil in Umuahia District had fallen to five shillings from six shillings and eight pence.²⁵

Other districts in the Eastern Region were experiencing this wave of protest by rural women. The district officer for Owerri Province reported in December 1929 that the women in the district demanded the abolition of male taxation, an increase in the price of produce (particularly palm oil and kernels), and a decrease in the price of imported goods.²⁶ The women of Obowo in Okigwe District in eastern Nigeria petitioned the district officer regarding the falling prices of produce and demanded ten shillings for a tin of palm oil and seven shillings for a bushel of palm kernels.²⁷ Considerable unrest and discontent continued in the poorer areas of Owerri. F. W. Tristram, the assistant commissioner of police at Okpala, noted that “the slump in the price of oil and kernels, coupled with the fact that the demand for these commodities has decreased, has hit them [the farmers] very hard.”²⁸ At Oron in Calabar Province, about 1,500 market women demanding an increase in the price of palm oil from the United African Company staged a trade boycott and broke up markets to enforce an embargo in 1933.²⁹

Rural protests relating mainly to taxation on the local population continued intermittently throughout the 1930s and 1940s in various parts of Nigeria.³⁰ In April 1927, the colonial government enforced the Native Revenue (Amendment) Ordinance. Direct taxation was introduced in the Eastern Region in 1928 without major incidents due to widespread and careful propaganda during the preceding twelve months.³¹ Deputy Governor Baddeley noted considerable “agitation against the tax” from Awka District in the Eastern Region in 1928.³² In addition, the assistant commissioner of police at Okpala, C. H. Ward, remembered: “Every inhabitant of the Division is against both the rate and principles of tax and in my opinion it will take years of propaganda before the people are convinced of its benefits.”³³ Mass protests against taxation by both men and women in Okigwe and Bende Divisions of Owerri Province broke out a decade after the women’s revolt in 1939.³⁴ The prices of palm products, the main source of trade and revenue for these areas, had fallen sharply and farmers’ purchasing power continued to decline up to the end of World War II.³⁵ As the colonial government acknowledged, the low prices of oil and kernels in recent years had not made the work of governance easier.³⁶ Conditions in other parts of the country were not much better. British colonial officer H. P. Elliot blamed the Great Depression and its effect on farmers’ income for what he called “the embarrassing condition of British colonialism in Northern Nigeria.”³⁷

Urban unemployment increased significantly in the wake of mass movements from the rural areas. Cities like Lagos were affected by joblessness and the declining income due to the Great Depression. The fall in the price of cocoa, the mainstay of the economy of the Western Region, did not help the joblessness that Lagosians faced due to European and Levantine domination of commercial firms.³⁸ As historian Oliver Coates has reported, “whereas 1,000 jobless individuals were recorded in Lagos in 1920, as many as 27,000 traders alone had lost their jobs in the city by 1929, in addition to the 20,104 railway workers who were also unemployed.”³⁹ Indeed, toward the end of the 1930s, food shortages were more evident, prompting the Nigerian press to criticize the colonial authority for its failure to curb inflation and for its pursuit of an unbalanced economic policy.⁴⁰

Nigeria faced political challenges related to the nature of colonial administration in the late 1930s. Although pacification seemed a conclusive part of the imperial mission, the political reorganization of the local polity harbored lingering mistrust and anger against the British. British colonial administration was generally guided by the ideology of indirect rule and was conceptualized as an indigenization of the colonial administration – a process by which the British imposed colonial rule through African social and political institutions.⁴¹ Indirect rule was based on the Lugardian Doctrine, which argued that African institutions were best suited for colonial governance, except where they were repugnant to European ideas.⁴² Frederick Lugard expounded his theory in his classic The Dual Mandate in British Tropical Africa, where he emphasized the need for “collaboration” between natives and colonial masters. Yet the appointment of a chief over peoples whose traditional institutions were largely egalitarian was a challenge to both the colonial authorities and the indigenous peoples. So the new administrative and economic system, which was still on trial in some parts of Nigeria on the eve of the war, had not improved the lives of the Nigerian population.⁴³ Although pacification seemed to be a settled part of the imperial mission by the 1920s, the reorganization of the local societies generated lingering mistrust and anger toward the British.

F. B. Carr, the resident for Owerri Province and later the chief commissioner in charge of the eastern provinces in 1943, noted that the conditions of rural life in the Eastern Region, for example, were less than satisfactory on many fronts before the war began.⁴⁴ As Carr observed, there were “many problems of more material nature which had to be tackled,” and many demands for “improved material conditions many of which though far beyond resources led to heightened interest in progress and highlighted the urgent need for development on a vast scale.”⁴⁵ Carr’s statement aptly captures the general conditions in many parts of Nigeria when the war began. Despite the prevailing economic depression and unrest in the 1930s, however, there was public clamor and enthusiasm in Nigeria to join Britain in the fight against Germany.

The Politics of Wartime Control

Between 1939 and 1945, Nigeria’s population was drawn into the Second World War. The involvement of the colonial state in Nigeria, the imperial authority in London, the human and material resources of the Nigerian societies, and the financial support from all classes of Nigerians aided the war effort. Nigerians volunteered for the army, and the population at home produced agricultural goods, provided labor in the mines, and constructed infrastructure. Others contributed to the intellectual production that was essential in selling the war at home, generating moral support abroad, and explicating the conditions that gave rise to the war, including Germany’s threat to world order. Nigerians of all classes, from schoolchildren to native authorities to women’s organizations and groups, bolstered by new notions of imperial citizenship and membership in the free world, turned their attention to the task of supporting the British Empire in the war against Germany and its allies.

As a imperial power, Britain had a reputation for establishing a model colonial policy with its indirect rule system. The strategy of achieving economic and political transformations through the encouragement of local production, especially of agricultural goods, had laid a solid foundation that colonial Britain could draw upon when the war broke out. Nigeria was particularly important because the agricultural sector had been significantly developed by the 1930s. By the start of the war, Nigeria had become a major producer of palm oil and kernels, cocoa, peanuts, and a significant quantity of rubber. Britain understood the vital role that Nigerian producers would play in the prosecution of the war. The British laissez-faire policy toward the production and marketing of agricultural goods changed dramatically because of the war. The colonial authorities used all the means at their disposal, including the introduction of new regulations and control policies, to encourage more production as well as methods to systematically reduce the ability of local producers to control their own lives.⁴⁶

In the war with Germany, all parts of the British Empire and its dominions were regarded as integral to the empire. Apart from South Africa, where the Afrikaner position vigorously contested and opposed South Africa’s support for Britain, all other British colonial possessions and dominions regarded the war as theirs. British colonial subjects saw themselves as part of the empire and believed they were fighting for a noble cause. Demonstration of loyalty and solidarity across the British Empire began as soon as the war did, even among those who in peacetime “ha[d] been the most relentless critics of the British Imperial Government.”⁴⁷ As a British wartime bulletin noted, the subjects of the British Empire, from India, Palestine, and Jamaica, among others, have all “spontaneously and unreservedly placed their services at the disposal of [the] Government and pledged themselves to loyal cooperation.”⁴⁸ From Australia to New Zealand and India to the colonies in Africa, colonial subjects expressed their support for Britain as the empire sought the human and material support of its subjects. Indeed, the notion of the British Commonwealth was not just an abstraction. Joe Culverwell of Zimbabwe, who volunteered as a soldier the day the war began in 1939, reflected: “Don’t forget in those days we were very loyal Brits – stupid as that may sound now. … We were brainwashed into being little brown Britishers.”⁴⁹ And in an address to the Canadian people after the 1940 elections, William Lyon Mackenzie King, who had been reelected as prime minister, said: “The result is the proof that you felt that a vigorous united war effort by a united Canada was necessary above all things not only effectively to aid Britain and France in the struggle to preserve freedom in Europe, but also to preserve true freedom in our own land.”⁵⁰ Remarkably though, the colonies were treated differently from the “white” dominions, where the emphasis was on the internal defense of their territories. The colonies, on the other hand, were valued for the significant logistical support they provided to Britain’s war effort.

Nigerian young men consistently reminded British officials of their eagerness to join the war in order to prove their place as citizens of the empire. In a meeting with H. P. James, the British resident for Calabar Province, on June 3, 1940, a delegation of the Calabar branch of the Nigerian Youth Movement protested that Nigerians’ manpower had not been called to service in the war. They told James that they were as loyal as any people in the empire and, if they could not give much financial aid, they could give men. They felt that they had not been called to service because of color prejudice and argued that the color bar should not be considered at a critical time such as this. They further drew attention to the large number of Africans from the French dependencies who were fighting in France and felt disgraced for not being allowed to give their service and for being treated like women.⁵¹ The group also raised the issue of the apparent imminence of Italy’s entry into the war and the possibility of Spain’s; the proximity of Fernando Po, a Spanish colony, to Calabar had to be considered. This in their view made it even more urgent to form a territorial battalion in Calabar, along the lines of the Lagos battalion, to be trained in the event of an emergency.⁵² H. P. James’s assurance that the group should dismiss from their minds any question of color prejudice or any doubt about their loyalty was betrayed by his claim:

So far, the war on land had been confined to Europe where climatic conditions were not suitable for the employment of West Africans. The physique of the people was not as high as it should be owing to nutritive deficiencies. If they were employed and could not stand up to the hardships and climate they would become a serious liability. In my opinion there was plenty of time for Nigerians to have a chance to prove their loyalty and manhood.⁵³

However, change was difficult to enact until the exigencies of the war forced the British to enlist Nigerian troops.

The British administration in Nigeria had begun to prepare in earnest to assist the motherland before the war began.⁵⁴ Nazi Germany did not have the same fortune. Its colonies had been lost at the end of the Great War and German nationals across the British Empire, including those in Africa, did not show any “inclination to give Hitler any long-distance help in his war,” according to the British Official Press.⁵⁵ German nationals in places such as Tanganyika, Northern Rhodesia, and Kenya submitted to internment without incident. By the time the war began, men, women, and perhaps children were at the service of the empire. British colonial subjects were essential in the endeavor to provide material support for the war. The changing nature of colonial policy and specific regulations introduced to garner African support for the war are reflected in the fervent desire of ordinary people as well as African chiefs and the local elite to support recruitment into the army and the production of other resources needed to support the empire.

The first few months of the war were followed by systematic attempts to organize colonial subjects, production, and needed resources in support of the war effort through laws, regulations, and prohibitions. Colonial policies were revised to meet the wartime demands in Britain by increasing the production of traditional agricultural goods and expanding into other areas such as mining. New regulations and controls ensured that more quantities were produced and channeled properly where they were needed most. Colonial officials were empowered to reorganize public institutions to facilitate the extraction of needed goods and services. In 1940, Norman Herington, a colonial agricultural officer in Nigeria, noted that officials of the Department of Agriculture were becoming “fully occupied by their efforts to increase food production and commodities such as palm oil, kernels, wild rubber and other products.”⁵⁶ The war ushered in a new phase of British imperialism. Demands for increased production of food for the country and the army, and for exports for Europe, required an enormous restructuring of the local labor force.

The optimism and confidence expressed by colonial officials that the dominions and colonies would join the empire in the war against Germany were not in vain. Imperial strategies of drawing Nigeria and other parts of the empire into the war worked. A degree of cooperation developed between Nigeria and Britain. A Nigerian chief offered to send his three strongest sons to Germany to kill Adolf Hitler. Sir Bernard Bourdillon, governor and commander in chief of the Nigerian forces, reported during a visit to England that the chief stated: “I have many sons. I can easily spare three of them to put an end to the man causing so much trouble. They will stalk and kill him like any jungle beast.”⁵⁷ Likewise, when the chiefs of Idomi, a small town in the Obura Division in southeastern Nigeria, wrote to the British district officer on January 2, 1944, they pledged their readiness “to help in the war business, by giving full attention to kernel production.”⁵⁸ “Since we have no rubber in our area,” they wrote, “we have agreed to pay our full attention to kernel production … to help in winning the war.”⁵⁹ Similar letters offering help and support had been written by Nigerians of different classes when the war began.⁶⁰

Organization and Control of Wartime Trade and Production

The beginning of the war in Europe prompted the colonial government to begin a massive reorganization of Nigerian society. The government began centralizing several aspects of the economy, including the production and marketing of agricultural goods, which had previously been undertaken by the local population. The establishment of closer economic ties between Great Britain and its West African colonies during the war led to increased control of colonial subjects in all aspects – political, economic, and social.⁶¹ The new steps taken by the colonial government would have fundamental repercussions for the Nigerian population. Over the three years after 1939, the colonial governments introduced new laws to regulate production, distribution, and trade in Nigeria, increasingly centralizing the economy as a systematic and consistent policy of extraction.

Britain’s wartime policy in Nigeria and its other West African colonial territories was informed by two imperatives. First, Britain stood as the dominant colonial power and proxy representative of the Allies, especially after the fall of France in 1940. Second, as an influential political and economic power, Britain sought to assert its influence and to limit the possible influence that France and particularly the United States might obtain at the end of the war.

Overall, however, Britain’s wartime policy was entwined with its broader goals as a leading imperial power. The war stimulated major changes in the organization of the production and utilization of goods produced by colonial subjects. As O. U. Esse has noted, the innovative aspect of the Second World War “brought about extensive exploitation of resources among the belligerent nations and their allies and supporters.”⁶² As the Allies lost important sources of raw materials and other trade goods in Asia, the extensive extraction of raw materials from West African territories became a major objective. This was particularly so in Nigeria, where its vast territories provided a variety of crucially needed raw materials – namely, agricultural products and minerals.⁶³ The period of the Second World War thus witnessed a major change in British colonial policy and economic development strategy in Nigeria, which in turn stimulated the introduction of new processes and new products. Yet government priorities did not change drastically. Rather, under the war conditions, there was an expansion of government control and regulation of the local economy.

To provide better coordination, the government established the Nigeria Supply Board. The board consisted of the director of supplies, a secretary, and controllers or assistant secretaries in charge of the various sections, including imports, indents, exports, food control, price control, transport control, finance, stores and accounts, and general (shipping, mineral oil, etc.).⁶⁴ The Nigeria Supply Board brought together and directed the duties of those departments, created for special wartime functions. The board also included other existing departments closely concerned with economic aspects of the war effort.⁶⁵

The power of various controlling authorities derived from the Emergency Power (Defence) Acts of 1939 and 1940 and the Nigeria General Defence Regulations of 1941. Those regulations gave the colonial authorities enormous power to control the local economy and society. They put this power to full use as the war progressed to harness the resources needed to execute the war. European enterprises, especially trading companies, played an essential role in promoting the production goals of the government. These enterprises were also expected to offer instruction to and encourage government agricultural and administrative officers, to inspect and grade produce at centers established for the marketing of crops, to purchase produce at government-controlled prices, and to organize the collection and transportation of produce to ports for shipment overseas.⁶⁶ The drive for export production focused on vegetable oil, including palm oil, palm kernels, groundnuts, and beniseed. A carefully considered price increase was designed to provide incentives for farmers in addition to transport subsidies for producers in very distant areas as part of an overall strategy.⁶⁷

Imposition of Emergency Powers

As soon as war became imminent, colonial officials enacted laws circumscribing trade relations and the exportation of agricultural products that were essential to the war effort and internal and external food supply and distribution. Administrative departments and officials in Nigeria witnessed a steady expansion of power over the local population beginning with the 1939 Emergency Powers (Defence) Act. The act, passed by the UK Parliament prior to the outbreak of World War II, gave the king authority to exercise certain powers in defence of the empire.⁶⁸ He secured the power to make regulations “necessary or expedient for securing the public safety, the defence of the realm, the maintenance of public order and the efficient prosecution of any war in which His Majesty may be engaged, and for maintaining supplies and services essential to the life of the community.”⁶⁹ The act also gave wide-ranging powers to colonial authorities and empowered them to make regulations, orders, and bylaws necessary to achieve the goals of the act, including emergency powers to prosecute the war effectively. By this act, colonial governors were given supplementary powers over their territories to impose regulation and restrictions to meet the goal of prosecuting the war. The Emergency Powers (Defence) Acts of 1939 and 1940, which extended the original 1939 act, conferred on the colonial governor the power to implement the provisions of the acts. These acts, which came into effect on September 24, 1941, were adapted and modified in their application to Nigeria as the 1941 Nigeria General Defence Regulation.

The intensification of hostilities in 1940 led to the enactment of another piece of legislation that extended the emergency powers stipulated in the Defence Act of 1939. The 1940 Emergency Powers (Defence) Act put at the king’s disposal “the whole resources of the community” that may be “rendered immediately available when required for purposes connected with the defence of the Realm.”⁷⁰ In particular, the 1940 Emergency Act empowered His Majesty to make defense regulations, including provisions that placed persons, their services, and their property at the disposal of the king. Such powers were necessary or expedient for the efficient prosecution of any war in which His Majesty may be engaged.⁷¹ These acts covered a wide range of activities that channeled the human and material resources of the colony toward the war effort.

By 1941, the Emergency Powers (Defence) Act included censorship, control, and suppression of publications, writings, plans, photographs, communications, and means of communication in order to regulate and control a varied media outlet. The law allowed for the monitoring of the movements and activities of people who could be conceived as “enemy aliens.” Effective monitoring of ports and movements of vessels and aircrafts was included to secure the realm. The acts gave the authorities wide powers to control transport, food, and propaganda as well as compensation for expenses incurred through the exercising of the emergency power. Moreover, the acts limited individual liberty by giving the authorities power to arrest people for war offenses without a warrant. Indeed, coercion, instead of persuasion, coupled with a deliberate low-cost strategy, was employed to achieve this objective.

Reorganizing the local economy to address war needs was often not easy and, in Nigeria’s experience, resulted in local agitation, largely due to the ambivalent nature of British war policy. While Britain viewed its directives to increase production of much-needed food items and raw materials, such as palm oil, as essential to winning the war, the Nigerian population was more ambivalent. Inflation was perhaps the most difficult problem faced by the government and the population, as the rise in the price of essential goods received close attention from the government and the local press. Frugality was expected of the Nigerian population, much like other societies at war. As Terrence H. Witkowski has argued in the case of America, “frugality received official sanction during World War II when the U.S. government, to mobilize the home front, launched poster campaigns that preached being thrifty with goods and services, recycling metals and other materials, growing and storing of food at home, obeying price and ration controls, and buying war bonds.”⁷²

As already stated, the colonial government had enacted new regulations and laws, especially the so-called Nigeria General Defence Regulations of 1941, to effectively control peasants’ production and to direct their energies toward the war effort.⁷³ By 1941, the colonial government was forced to impose price controls to deal with the looming food crisis.⁷⁴ Under the Nigeria General Defence Regulations, several policies were enacted to control various food items and other goods, including the Control of Bicycle Spare Parts and Accessories (Eastern Provinces) Order and the Control of Pedal Bicycle Accessories and Spare Parts (Eastern Transport Zone) Order of 1943.⁷⁵ Among other provisions, the Control of Bicycle Spare Parts and Accessories Order required all dealers in new spare bicycle parts to obtain the written permission of the Controller of Pedal Bicycle Accessories and Spare Parts for the Eastern Transport Zone in Aba or any other officer authorized to act on his behalf.⁷⁶ Under the Garri Non-removal Revocation (Owerri Province) Order of 1944, persons could not remove garri (a local foodstuff made from cassava) by rail from Owerri Province to any station north of Enugu without a permit signed by a competent authority.⁷⁷ From 1943, a permit from the district officer was required to transport garri to northern Nigerian towns for commercial purposes. The regulation required that only the traders who had operated in 1942 would be proportionally allotted quotas from 1943. This was a striking departure from previous economic planning. As war became inevitable, the government’s leadership in the realm of “preparedness” involved direct control of local economic structures to produce food and other materials. Such direct intervention in the local economy was a departure from prewar laissez-faire doctrine that characterised colonial economic planning before the war. As Helen Chapin Metz explains:

Once the wartime colonial government assumed complete control of the local economy, it would issue trade licenses only to established firms, a practice that formalized the competitive advantage of foreign companies … wartime marketing boards pegged the prices of agricultural commodities below the world market rate, workers faced wage ceilings, traders encountered price controls, and Nigerian consumers experienced shortages of import goods.⁷⁸

Furthermore, coercive measures were extensively used to force rural peoples to produce crops and satisfy metropolitan demands for other forest products and minerals. Thus, the Nigeria Defence [Oil Palm Production] Regulation No. 55 of 1943 directed farmers to harvest, process, and market palm produce or face incarceration. The regulation also empowered the deputy controller of oil palm production to order the harvesting, processing, and marketing of palm produce. Furthermore, Defence Regulation No. 89 of 1945 compelled native authorities to ensure the implementation of Regulation No. 55. Failure to comply with these rules resulted in prosecutions, fines, and imprisonment.⁷⁹ For instance, in Owerri Province, where the regulation resulted in prosecutions, palm production officer P. L. Allpress explained that “palm production has greatly fallen off, and from the unharvested areas I have found in the Aba Division one must conclude that this is to some extent due to the dilatoriness of the people.” In his view, “no amount of talk has any effect on the people unless one’s threats are backed by action now and then.”⁸⁰ In other parts of the Eastern Region such as the Obudu District, hundreds of people were prosecuted, fined, or imprisoned for failing to harvest oil palm, crack kernels, or tap wide rubber.⁸¹

Reactions and responses to the war and the demands made upon the local population took many forms across Nigeria. Generally, the Nigerian population was visibly distressed by these regulations that fixed prices either by prescribing maximum percentages of profit on cost or by fixing specific selling prices. On May 25, 1943, one Madam Victoria of Ndom Ebom, who lived fifty-seven miles from Aba, the administrative seat of District Officer J. V. Dewhurst, wrote a letter to Dewhurst requesting a permit to engage in the garri trade. The buying and selling of garri had been restricted to those with a permit issued by the district officer as part of the war measures. Madam Victoria requested “a little chance to do my bit towards the winning of the present war.”⁸² She entreated:

I have noticed that the cost of garri (the staple food in Nigeria) is high in big towns all over Nigeria today. There might be money adequate for the purchase of garri but there may not be sufficient garri to be had for the feeding of His Majesty’s troops in the area. I have then ask[ed] if I can be given some contract to help on buying garri for the Military Department of this area. The garri would be carried in bags by any convenient means His Majesty’s government might find at their disposal. Such would at least alleviate some of the previous difficulties experienced in the purchase of this important food stuff. I would be thankful if your worship could let the authorities concerned know of this application.⁸³

Madame Victoria’s letter reveals one aspect of the critical roles that women played in household and local economies. In her study of Abeokuta and other provinces in western Nigeria, Judith Byfield similarly found that most economic decisions taken during the war impacted women’s lives as producers and traders.⁸⁴

Still support for the British found expression in a wide variety of offers of spontaneous services and donations in cash and kind from several sections of the Nigerian community.⁸⁵ The enthusiasm was also motivated by the quick profit made from the foodstuff trade. Many new traders entered what had become a lucrative business of buying and transporting foodstuffs to northern Nigerian cities and towns. By 1944, the price of garri had increased from about one shilling and six pennies to about nine shillings in urban markets. In a report to the district officer in May 1944, the Nigerian police wrote that garri producers “are making an exorbitant profit when one considers that they found it worthwhile to make garri up to 1940 and sell at 1/6d -2/- a bag.”⁸⁶ The lucrative trade for foodstuffs that developed in Spanish Fernando Po, where many Igbo and Ibibio migrant laborers were working on plantations, contributed to higher prices in places like Uyo and other parts of Calabar Province.⁸⁷

Plans for food control and price restrictions had been imposed previously as war loomed. Some food items, except milk and flour, were already rationed in Lagos, Nigeria’s largest city. Although the availability of many other food items was not seriously threatened by the war, the government did make plans to ensure that the rationing of these items would follow periods of severe shortfall.⁸⁸ Importing firms in Lagos were requested to ensure that consumers purchased all their supplies from a particular source in order to regulate the distribution of essential commodities. This helped the government compile a list of customers, which was then circulated among the importing firms.⁸⁹ Wartime regulations and restrictions was not just a means of ameliorating the deteriorating food conditions, but it also served to reinforce colonial control in the face of threats to order. Thus, the power of local administrators to determine who had access to trading permits enabled them to impose control, to effectively regulate available resources, and to limit the freedom of the local population.

By 1939, a general shift in policy began in the form of new regulations to curb the food problems caused by the war. Reports of shortages and rationing came from all regions in the country. Consumer items such as alcoholic beverages were severely affected. The deputy food controller for Kano Province for example, noted that the continued delay in the arrival of liquor stocks for the Expeditionary Force Institute, coupled with the opening of new and the expansion of existing military messes throughout the country, led to a “heavy drain on the limited stock of liquor available and rendered equitable distribution extremely difficult.”⁹⁰ Salt importation fell from a prewar consumption of approximately 50,000 tons to 12,000 tons in the first half of 1941 thus creating a major problem in the availability of the product in the market.⁹¹

The rising rate of inflation and increases in the price of foodstuffs and other local and imported goods led to more regulation of local consumer habits, trade goods, and prices. A central food committee was busy devising schemes for developing Nigerian industries and for supplementing supplies of imported foodstuffs, such as rice and edible fats, which were almost certain to be restricted.⁹² On April 22, 1941, S. A. S. Leslie, the colonial food controller, issued a circular that outlined the general scheme for food control in Nigeria. With the assistance of deputy food controllers at the local areas, Leslie was empowered by the government to direct the distribution of available supplies.

The Nigerian population quickly exploited the opportunities offered by the increased demand for local production. As the demand for local food products increased, Nigerian farmers sought to produce more to fill the vacuum created by import restrictions. A considerable number of men and women began to engage in the trade across different regions. The eastern and northern corridors were especially lucrative in the distribution of locally produced food items. Export of garri to northern Nigeria saw a phenomenal increase from 1,414 tons valued at £4,989 before the war to 6,804 tons valued at £57,661 in the first half of 1942.⁹³ By 1943, the transportation of food items from the Aba railway station to the north increased exponentially from the previous year. Foodstuffs, particularly cassava products and palm oil, were increasingly moved to northern Nigerian markets by traders, most of whom supplied these goods to retailers there. Shipping of other food items such as cocoyam, coconut, and maize made similar increases in the same period.⁹⁴

Alarmed by the quantity of food items moving out of the region, district officials began to implement restrictions in order to stave off crises in their districts. Colonial officials extended these controls to rural areas in 1942 when they became concerned about the perceived exploitation of the war conditions and the scarcity of local food items in markets. J. V. Dewhurst, the district officer for Aba, was so concerned that he suggested prohibiting the movement of yams from the district. Writing to the colonial resident, he noted: “The increase in the export of yams is very great indeed and, in view of the fact that Aba normally imports yams, disquieting. So too is the increase in the export of maize and I am not certain that the export of this also ought not to be prohibited.”⁹⁵ A. F. B. Bridges, resident of Owerri Province, invoked the Nigeria General Defence Regulation of 1941 (Food Control) in September 1944. Under the Garri Non-removal Revocation (Owerri Province) Order 1944, he prohibited the transportation of garri by rail from Owerri Province to any station north of Enugu except with a permit signed by a competent authority or by a person authorized by the competent authority. Individuals were allowed a personal allowance not “exceeding eight pounds (8 lbs) of garri per person.”⁹⁶

Colonial regulations had deleterious effects. A significant volume of regional trade was in place before the war broke out in 1939, but these restrictions affected many local traders, some of whom had been involved in the business before the outbreak of the war. By 1942, more than 900 traders who were transporting garri to the north from Aba were affected by wartime trading restrictions.⁹⁷ Under the auspices of the Association of Garri Traders, Aba, a group of traders wrote several petitions to protest the restrictions imposed on their trade.⁹⁸ One such petition from F. U. Oha, a trader in the city of Aba, addressed to District Officer Dewhurst illustrates the effect of trade restrictions:

I feel it is but necessary for me to point out, Sir, that so far as the Garri Trade is concerned, I am a pioneer in that trade; and I have been earning for a considerable number of years my livelihood from it. I do not undertake this trade as a result arising out of the war nor with the intent of profiteering. I am following this trade because I have given a whole of my time to it and it has become my only means of earning a livelihood. In the circumstances, I sincerely trust the necessary permit will be issued to me accordingly so that I may continue with my trade unmolested and undisturbed.⁹⁹

The food trade created opportunities for rural producers to generate more income while expanding prewar distributive trade within Nigeria. So many Nigerian traders saw colonial trade restrictions as disrupting their livelihood as “citizens” of the British Empire. When J. E. Akajiofo and fifteen other garri traders from Mbawsi, eastern Nigeria, who had been involved in the trade for a considerable period, wrote to the district officer in Aba on August 12, 1943, they described themselves as “British protected persons” seeking the “paternal clemency” of the district officer in matters affecting their “economic welfare.”¹⁰⁰ They saw themselves as “eminent traders” who had been doing their best to “contribute monies and effort toward the Win-the-War Fund” as well as encouraging Nigerians to increase production badly needed commodities such as kernel. In relation to restrictions imposed on the garri trade, they wrote that their positions as produce buyers “are adversely affected.” They pleaded:

We respectfully crave your indulgence with our hearts in our hands in praying that a reasonable quota of garri railment to the North be allocated us, taking into consideration our adverse position due to bad trade … as a people under British protection and trusteeship, [we] have been experiencing severe hardship and are financially run-down as evident of bad trade. Our humble testimonies therefore demand your administrative assistance to help ameliorate the deteriorated situation by granting our humble request, thus helping us to have the means of meeting our needs and instruments towards the Empire’s war effort.¹⁰¹

The restrictive trade regulations across different regions in Nigeria had been in place since 1942 but were often amended as circumstances changed in the country or in local provinces. In June 1945, the acting district officer for the Ikom Division began the restriction of yam and cocoyam exports from the division. The export of yams and cocoyam from the district was only allowed if one obtained a permit from the district officer.¹⁰² The export of yams from Ogoja Province required a permit from the district Officer in Afikpo.¹⁰³ In Onitsha Province, the order restricted the movement of garri and yams from the Udi Division, “except under [a] permit signed by [a] ‘Competent Authority.’”¹⁰⁴ Yet again, Dermot O’Connor, the colonial resident of the Awgu Division, issued an order restricting the movement of yams outside the division in May 1945.¹⁰⁵

The root of the food crisis during the war lay in earlier policies. Toward the end of the 1930s, the food shortage in Nigeria was receiving attention in colonial circles. The Nigerian press criticized the colonial authority for its failure to curb inflation and for its pursuit of an unbalanced agricultural policy.¹⁰⁶ The colonial authority was already thinking of agricultural diversification to increase local food production and the income of rural farmers on the eve of the Second World War. This emphasis had much to do with the worldwide depression, which deepened in the 1930s. A 1938 report by the Department of Agriculture clearly stated that the production of export crops, important as this was to the wealth of the country and to the revenue of the government, “must not be subordinated to the production of foodstuff for local consumption, for those who are underfed cannot do the maximum amount of work.”¹⁰⁷

The drive to expand food and export production during the war marked a new phase in the process of agricultural planning and the transformation of the rural economy. The war created a crisis for the British at home, which the colonial authority sought to resolve by tapping into the human and material resources of the colonies. An examination of colonial agricultural policies during the war reveals the ambivalent nature of colonial policy and demonstrates how these policies generated crisis and threatened agricultural sustainability and peasant incomes. This economic crisis was directly related to the war measures adopted by the colonial governments as well as a decline in export prices.

However, while officials continued to emphasise export products many farmers were reluctant to invest in export products such as palm oil because of low prices.¹⁰⁸ Production from the Onitsha, Awka, and Agwu Divisions and the Nnewi District fell from 14,359 tons in 1939 to 10,100 tons in 1942.¹⁰⁹ Low prices forced many people to “abandon the harvest of oil palms.”¹¹⁰ An agent of the United African Company at Ogrugru in Onitsha Province reported in 1939 that “little produce was coming in.”¹¹¹ After a meeting with middlemen and producers in 1939, the resident for Onitsha Province noted that there was “no doubt whatever that the people are holding up production – and if we are going to consider extended palm produce production the question of a guaranteed price must be answered.”¹¹²

Regulations, Control, and Restrictions

In addition to the battles fought on the front lines, the Allies faced an economic war. The Japanese in particular were fully conscious of the possibilities of economic warfare and essential supplies were likely to be “objectives for special attack.”¹¹³ The protection of essential supplies as well as access to them and the routes by which they moved became a matter of utmost importance and considerable urgency. The British colonial government implemented important economic measures during the war through the control of imports into Nigeria. The importation of goods into Nigeria was controlled through a system of import licenses. Whole arrays of goods ranging from cars, lorries, and motorcycle batteries to paper and stationery of all kinds came under import control.¹¹⁴ Substitutes were found for many of these imported items, while the volume of such necessities was reduced to save shipping space and to economize the British labor system. The authorities monitored trade through the request of monthly returns of the major commodities from traders, which detailed sales and issues during the month, stock on the last day of the month, stock afloat on the last day of the month, and estimated sales and issues during the succeeding month.¹¹⁵

Authorities outside of Nigeria controlled the allocation of goods and materials deemed critical to the war effort. Through the Nigeria Supply Board, British authorities controlled the essential sectors of the Nigerian economy, including production and other activities that supported life in the communities.¹¹⁶ The government seized control of the import of essential materials that were outside the scope of commercial companies. The government also played an increasing role in the distribution of imported goods. Individual importers were required to notify the government of the arrival of goods in the customs premises within twenty-four hours, giving full particulars of quantities and sizes of goods.¹¹⁷ Such imports would not be released to the customs authorities without an authorization from a competent authority. The importer was required to transfer the articles to his premises, where they would be inspected before a release order permitting the importer to dispose of them could be conferred.¹¹⁸

Cotton products, which had become a major item of trade in the colonies by the beginning of the war, faced major restrictions. Cheap cotton from England was used in a variety of ways to make clothes and uniforms. African retailers usually bought their goods from major European trading firms and other foreign firms, mainly Lebanese-owned.¹¹⁹ Duties on cotton piece goods increased by 50 percent and maintained the existing surcharge of 25 percent.¹²⁰ According to G. B. Ollivant, a representative of a major European trading company in West Africa, “Imports are only a fraction of the normal and depend entirely on shipping space.”¹²¹ Indeed the government acknowledged that “shortage of shipping tonnage remains probably the greatest single economic difficulty facing the Colonial Empire.”¹²²

There was a greater dependence on textile imports from Great Britain and items from India, especially shirting produced by Classes and Greys.¹²³ All stocks of dyed, printed, and woven goods, such as drills, prints, imitation native cloths, and domestics, as well as whites and grays, such as shirtings, bafts, and mosquito nettings, came from Britain. Due to the fact that nearly 100 percent of all cotton yarns, sewing threads, fishing twine, and yacht cord had been imported from Great Britain, it appeared “almost impossible to obtain these types of goods from any other country.”¹²⁴ The Calabar Chamber of Commerce noted, however, that while whites, grays, and drills were imported increasingly from India, future imports from India were not likely to be diminished from previous years as India’s production capacity was not large enough to “cope [with] the enquiries they are receiving.”¹²⁵ The Calabar Chamber of Commerce remarked that “in a province like Calabar where there is an appreciable fishing industry, it is considered essential that these net cords and yacht cords should be imported in as large a quantity as possible.”¹²⁶

Stocks were in short supply during the war, warranting a considerable increase in the price of cotton prints. On September 22, 1941, Secretary of State for the Colonies Walter Guinness noted that the question of supplies of piece cotton goods to colonial dependencies required urgent consideration.¹²⁷ To maintain essential supplies of cotton and textile goods in the colonial empire, the government considered several factors: the difficulty of producing supplies in the United Kingdom, the position of Japan in the conflict, uncertainty regarding supplies from India, and whether cotton goods could be obtained from the United States.¹²⁸ By 1946, European trading companies selectively sold available stock. Shirtings were in such short supply that some trading companies limited sales exclusively to old customers. They also sold to customers in payment for produce at the rate of one piece per ton of palm kernel or palm oil. Infact, there was a correlation between availability of imported trade goods and purchasing of produce. According to the manager of the French Compagnie Française de l’Afrique Occidentale (CFAO) at Calabar, this strategy would protect “our very low stocks in order to cover essential requirements as above stated until our next arrival” and “prevent the commodity, which is in very short supply, from finding its way into the Black market where it is resold at 25/- to 30/- per piece.”¹²⁹ Such practices were not, however, supported by the government despite its attempt to encourage higher production. According to P. Pichon of the CFAO, it appeared that native producers were much more interested in goods “which they require for their own personal use than in cash payments against their produce.”¹³⁰ Pichon continued: “We have found that amongst sundry other lines, white shirting, Grey Baft, prints, etc. were a powerful incentive for them and consequently we have let our produce dealers have a piece of each by ton of PK or palm oil.”¹³¹ The company purchased 300 tons of palm kernels and 100 tons of palm oil per month on average, and thus required a minimum of 400 pieces monthly on a normal basis only for produce trade.¹³² With a stock of 286 pieces in October 1946, for example, the company could rationalize its business practice. In the view of the company, “it would have been sheer lack of foresight to sell it out indiscriminately and thus upset our whole produce organization already hampered by insufficient stocks.”¹³³

The regular supply of cotton goods in West Africa was linked to the provision of the goods essential to the war effort. The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) quoted the undersecretary of state for the colonies as saying in the House of Commons that people in England would have to go without new shirts so printed cotton goods could be made available for the natives of West Africa. He also pronounced that workers were being withdrawn from war industries to reopen Lancashire cotton mills in order to produce cotton piece goods. This policy was meant to encourage production and curb inflation:

In the ordinary way when prices for export produce are good the native producers spend their spare cash on imported consumer goods. It is the desire for cash to buy bicycles, hurricane lamps, pan, scent, cloth, morrow, umbrellas and so forth which inspires the peasantry to grow crops or to gather kernels in excesses of their own immediate needs. Imported goods are now very scarce and just when we are most anxious for the producer to get down to it the main incentive for him to do so is removed.¹³⁴

In Britain, there was the desire to give the producer “something to spend his money on.”¹³⁵ Cotton pieces were a popular line and, from the supply point of view, the most economical consumer goods that could be produced to meet the demands of the local population in the colony. Nonetheless, large quantities of these goods were not often available to meet demands. The average import of cotton piece goods for the years 1936–1938 was 231 square yards, of which 17.5 million (13.4 percent) came from now hostile countries or those occupied by the enemy. Nigeria’s quota for 1942 was 95 million square yards, of which 35.5 million came from India.¹³⁶ The lack of imported goods increased inflation. As an official noted:

Money is pouring into Nigeria – as wages – the services are already spending 6 million pounds a year and with so much more – and the chief outlet for these funds at the moment is local foodstuffs, bride price, horses and the like. Unless an alternative outlet is made available the vicious spiral is bound to gain strength, and prices and wages [will] chase each other with increased speed.¹³⁷

The currency situation was not ideal either. Normally currency returned to the Currency Board in the “slack season” (March–August) and again in the fall (September–October). Official reports indicate, however, that no money had returned to the Currency Board since May 1941, and more than £3 million had been issued since. The proposed payment of a separation allowance to the Nigerian troops by the army beginning in November would bring another £500,000 a year into Nigeria. Indeed, arrears from the Native Administration cost of living award, commonly known as “cola,” which was introduced in July 1941 but paid retrospectively from October 1, 1941, and increased Royal Air Force expenditures on landing grounds aggravated the situation.¹³⁸ The cost of living allowance that was paid to all government employees on salaries not exceeding £220 per annum increased government expenditures substantially and provided a substantial injection of cash into the economy.¹³⁹

Control of Foodstuffs and Crises of Everyday Living

Excessive profiteering remained a concern for colonial officials throughout the war. Officials monitored the retail prices of foodstuffs and intervened when there was significant price variation in the same area. The African Chamber of Commerce, Calabar, complained to the authorities in October 1942 about the prohibitive cost of goods in the town. The Chamber of Commerce had petitioned the chief secretary of the colonial government about what it regarded as profiteering in Calabar compared to Lagos.¹⁴⁰ Although the Chamber of Commerce may have exaggerated its claims, it seems that it was often difficult to implement uniform prices throughout the country. Effectively policing the local market would have been a daunting task as prices and invoices would have to be checked and freight and transport costs calculated before arriving at a final retail price.

Significant debate emerged among colonial officials about the best way to enforce restrictions and ameliorate their overall impact on the population. Consideration was given to the special needs of Europeans vis-à-vis their African counterparts. A colonial official in Kano, Dorothy Lindsay, suggested that all imports of food from England “should be prohibited and our requirements met locally or by South African products.” However, even South African goods were to be “imported with discretion.”¹⁴¹ Lindsay also raised the crucial role of women during the war: “I think the extra work entailed by the use of permits could easily be overcome if women were called upon to run a local food control department under the supervision of a Government Official.” Her assessment was that women in the country “could do a lot more work and while some may hesitate to embark on individual efforts I am sure that given an objective, the success of which depends on their efforts, whole-hearted co-operation will be forthcoming.”¹⁴²

The comptroller of customs also regulated exports from Nigeria in order to control where such goods could be sold. Exceptions were made for the export of foodstuffs to the other West African colonies, which was dealt with by the food controller. Other West African governments were required to inform the Nigeria Supply Board of the quantities of foodstuff required, which then would be obtained by the food controller through public tender and shipped on government accounts.¹⁴³ Food control was an integral part of the Nigeria Supply Board’s organization. Purchases were made from African producers at prices decided upon by the supply authorities in consultation with residents for each producing area. It was usual to prohibit exports from each area through normal commercial channels until the quota for government requirements had been met.¹⁴⁴ The food control policy sought to achieve a number of objectives, including drawing up the import quotas for foodstuffs still obtained from the United Kingdom or other countries and to ration available food appropriately. Rationing of individual consumption was carried out only in the case of Europeans and those Africans who had adopted European standards of life such as the urban educated class. In addition to individual rationing, the consumption of imported foodstuffs was restricted by controlling supplies to retailers. The policy also regulated the flow of native foodstuffs through the food controller to the main consumption centers. Most importantly, the policy ensured that requirements for the army, the Royal Air Force, and the American forces were met for locally produced foodstuffs.¹⁴⁵

By October 1942, the acting chief marketing officer of the Department of Agriculture, A. H. Young, suggested that wholesale and retail prices be “determined in all areas according to the same formula.”¹⁴⁶ In fact, Lagos had already adopted a system that Young regarded as an acceptable model. In Lagos, the retail price of an article was calculated by obtaining the price of the article at the producing center and adding all handling and transport charges to the local market plus “twenty per cent for profit.”¹⁴⁷ The wholesale price was then obtained by adding 10 percent to the landed cost at Lagos. The formula did not apply to perishable goods, such as vegetables, where retailers required 25 percent of the profit to “cover any losses.”¹⁴⁸ It became a general practice for food controllers to fix the selling process for foodstuffs brought into their areas from other parts of Nigeria.¹⁴⁹

Owing to the shortage of tinplate, only necessary foodstuffs were to be imported after May 1942. The staple commodities purchased under this scheme were corn, rice, and maize. The government encouraged the use of locally grown flour in order to eke out the limited supply of tinned white flour. As the importance of vegetable gardens became more pronounced every day, the food controller began circulating names of firms in South Africa that could supply suitable seeds.¹⁵⁰

The production of wheat in Nigeria fell far short of the demand created by war conditions. On May 1, 1941, food controller S. A. S. Leslie wrote: “Agricultural Officers have been in the wheat market for some weeks and it has become clear that traders and middlemen have been cornering the wheat available in anticipation of soaring prices.”¹⁵¹ By May 1941, the government decided that all available wheat supplies would be purchased by the director of the Department of Agriculture. The Department of Agriculture allocated the stock to local mills, military authorities, and civilian consumers. To stimulate production, the director of agriculture paid the producers a price that averaged 1¾ d. per pound. According to the order, which came into effect on May 3, 1941, only sales to agricultural officers would be permitted. All dealers holding stocks in excess of 10 cwt. were required to declare them each month to the deputy food controller.¹⁵² Offenders would be required to relinquish their stocks if they were found to be holding stocks in excess of the stipulated quantity.¹⁵³ The goal of this policy was to immobilize all stocks in the hands of dealers and make the director of agriculture the sole buyer in bulk.¹⁵⁴ The order applied to merchants, dealers, and traders and excluded producers, retailers, or private persons buying for their own use. However, the ability to effectively implement food control was often challenging. It was not always possible for dealers to accept the situation and abandon their hopes of big profits and sales to agricultural officers.

Control of Motor Transport and Allied Products

On September 4, 1939, R. M. Macdonald of the Church of Scotland Mission at Ikot Inyang, southeastern Nigeria, wrote to the district officer at Itu requesting a permit to use a Chevrolet Kit Car for the purpose of carrying on his work as district missionary. Macdonald’s mission work extended a considerable distance from Itu to Odudu Ikpe in the Ikot Ekpene Division. He was also in charge of the Ikorofiong District extending into the Uyo Division at the time of his request. Macdonald noted in his request that control of the churches and schools in the two districts “would be very severely handicapped, without the use of a car.”¹⁵⁵ Also, a superintendent of the Qua Iboe Mission wrote that “it is important in many ways that I have some liberty in the use of my motor, and while cutting down running to [the] lowest possible, I beg to apply for liberty to use it when circumstances require it. At the same time, I should be obliged if you would allow me to have the necessary permit to purchase a sufficient quantity of petrol.”¹⁵⁶ The restrictions on the use of motor vehicles affected people from all walks of life. On September 6, 1939, Opara Nnadi wrote to the district officer in Itu, requesting a permit to use his lorry and a supply of about ten cases of petrol per month to cover approximately 1,150 miles. Nnadi, who appears to have been a commercial transporter, noted: “I use this lorry chiefly for the purpose of transportation of palm kernels and goods to and from outstations as business demands it and for the convenience and inducement to our distant customers.”¹⁵⁷

Indeed, the transport sector was at the intersection of many aspects of wartime planning and crucial in the war effort. The regulation confined the use of existing vehicles in Nigeria to “essential purposes only,” including the evacuation of export produce and materials, the transport from areas of production of food supplies for the services, the maintenance of supplies for the native populations in the large centers, and the transport of imported supplies and petrol.¹⁵⁸ The general provisions governing the use of motor transport, whether private or commercial, were that except in cases of real emergency, of which the transport control officer was the final judge, road transport could not be used for the whole or part of any journey for which alternative transport – i.e., by rail or water – was available, and that where road transport was used, it must proceed by the shortest route to the nearest rail or rive transport.¹⁵⁹

The controller of motor transport and the oil controller, assisted by four deputies representing the four transport zones into which Nigeria had been divided, were responsible for the control of the movement of all civilian vehicles and the consumption of petrol and other petroleum fuels.¹⁶⁰ They also controlled the sale and distribution of motor vehicles, motor vehicle tires and tubes, and the retreading and recapping of tires. The controllers also exercised control of the distribution of bicycles throughout Nigeria.¹⁶¹ In his study about Nigeria during the Second World War, O. U. Esse notes that the evacuation of “produce to the railways and seaports, carrying of coal for the use of seagoing vessels, transporting troops and military logistics, carrying foodstuffs from the production centers to the markets in the urban centers, and the transport of imported goods, including petrol and spare parts from the ports to the hinterland, relied on effective management of the transport sector.”¹⁶² In his view, the main objective of such control was to “ensure quick evacuation of produce to the railways and seaports, and to curb the activities of indigenous transport operators engaged in passenger traffic. It was this need that drew government attention to the industry more than in the previous years.”¹⁶³

Control also extended to the use of all civil motor transport. Privately owned cars and lorries were subjected to the same regulation. The quality of petrol allowed for use by private cars in a month was “strictly controlled and basic rations [were] issued in accordance with the essential needs of the owners.”¹⁶⁴ The regulation governing the use of motor vehicles was implemented through a permit system and by limiting the quantity of petrol consumers could purchase. The regulation had an immediate impact on the society from the individual level to nongovernmental agencies working in the country. Permits to operate a vehicle restricted the holder to a certain area or route and for specific purposes. Compliance to the regulation was enforced by transport control police posted at strategic points on the highways and checkpoints at markets and other collection areas. Both the police and vehicle inspection clerks kept a census of all vehicles passing their posts, which were scrutinized by transport control officers and compared with issued permits.¹⁶⁵ These regulations that sought to control the use of civil vehicles contributed to the larger war effort.

Importers of motor vehicles were required to render stock and import returns to the controller of motor transport. Control of sales was effected by a permit system, which “authorize[d] the successful applicant to purchase a vehicle of the type required from a particular dealer.” Applicants seeking to purchase motor vehicles submitted their request to the transport control officer of the area in which they resided, stating the purpose for which the vehicle was required. The controller issued permits to purchase in accordance with the stocks available and the needs of the applicant or the transport requirements of the particular area. The sale of secondhand vehicles was similarly regulated.¹⁶⁶ The sale of tires and inner tubes was controlled along the same lines as sales of motor vehicles. Buyers were required to surrender an equivalent number of used tires and tubes before new tires or tubes could be issued. Such surrendered tires were examined to select those deemed fit enough to be retreaded. The United Kingdom received the remainder as scrap rubber.¹⁶⁷ Control of the sale of vehicles, tires, and tubes was also extended to bicycles.

Closely linked to the vehicle permit was oil control. Access to petrol was strictly controlled through an import, export, distribution, and sale mechanism. Civil consumption of petrol and petroleum fuels was controlled by a coupon-and-permit system administered by the transport control officers. Owners of private vehicles received coupons entitling them to a basic ration of petrol that permitted a limited number of journeys between residence and place of business each month.¹⁶⁸ The sale of petrol to the public could only be permitted by the presentation of petrol coupons or a permit authorizing a vehicle owner to be in possession of a limited quantity of petrol.

The control of motor vehicles and petrol generated several petitions and supplications. These restrictions had been implemented as early as September 1938. B. J. Dike of Itu wrote to the district officer of Itu on September 5, 1939, seeking permission to continue to use his three lorries for commercial transport. Dike was involved in transporting palm kernels and palm oil between Umuahia and Itu for the United African Company and John Holt.¹⁶⁹ Both were European trading companies involved in the evacuation of essential war products. It is not clear how quickly these appeals were resolved. But some petitions reveal what was perhaps a widespread frustration for petitioners. Invoking race, the proprietor of The Holy and Blessed Circle Home expressed these frustrations in two petitions reproduced here in full. The first was written on March 7, 1941. This petition is a recognition that “race” defined relations of power between the colonizer and the colonized.

The Holy and Blessed Circle Home

Ikot Aba, Itu, Nigeria, West Africa

7 March 1941

The District Officer,

Itu, Calabar Province.

Sir,

Petrol Ration

You requested me to interview you in person on Friday the 14th instant at Nsaso Rest House at 10 a.m.

I was there at the appointed time and met you, you offered me no seat; you spoke to me in a way I did not expect of you, and I even have never and could never speak in the manner you did to me to my houseboy. The way and manner you spoke to me is still fresh in my memory and how, while trying to explain to you the inconveniences I often suffer from what you say is “a regular transport,” you got up from your chair unceremoniously and with all force, saying, “Mr. Smartt you talk too much.” Did you then insult me? You walked out of the Rest House leaving me alone in it and went straight to your car, was that not an insult also? While walking out I asked you whether you were going to increase the gallons of petrol you have already permitted; you answered forcefully, “no, not a drop.” [W]hat next could I do[?] I was obliged to quit the place you left me standing, looking aghast as you were walking away majestically.

While I was passing, I bade you good morning but you did not answer me a word. Sum all this up and “my continued references to a colour bar” which, you wrote, “are not understood” will now be clear to you as broad day light. But for the Government you represent, believe me, I would have taught you a lesson – you would have missed your way to your car … by torrential forceful words that suited your action and the words then, you would have sworn that never in your life will you mete [sic] ill-treatment to a black man again. But for my King you represent I brooked all the insult but be very careful and learn how to deal as a gentleman to all and the sundry, irrespective of race. Please reduce your words into writing that you say I will not grant you permit to purchase petrol at all.

I have the honour to be,

Sir,

Your obedient servant.

[Signature]¹⁷⁰

But the petitioner wrote an even more critical follow-up to his earlier petition on June 16, 1941.

The Holy and Blessed Circle Home

Ikot Aba, Itu, Nigeria, West Africa

16 June 1941

The District Officer,

District Officer,

Itu.

Sir,

You do not care whether my business close[s] down or not[,] being an African concern. You refuse to listen to reason and spoke harshly to me when you invited me to interview you at Nsaso in your Rest House and being not able to get the black-man to simply tremble and answer yes sa massa, you became infuriated and got up from [your] chair unceremoniously, walked out of the Rest House stepping majestically to your car and leaving the Nigger in the Rest House, whom you invited to see you. What can he do? But I leave you to your conscience. I wonder if you did not remember you are in the civil service and that I was a Private Gentleman. It is not the colour that counts mind you. Will you now understand that we Africans are now too good for half-baked measure? We want the best. It is our right.

I would have closed down the Home here but my good work must continue – must go on. For a short time though, since the caption of my work, my Home has contributed as [a] remarkably humanitarian Mission to the warfare against devastating forces of disease and to the alleviating of human suffering consequently, I have gone to Lagos and returned. I have affected [the] arrangement of one who [can] take up the management of my Home and I will shift to an open place, where I can deal with gentlem[e]n (Europeans) who see in their exalted positions a means of serving fellow creatures who appear not [to] be as well placed, gentlemen who believe that the best service of man to his fellow man is in being useful, gentlem[e]n who practice the doctrine of the brotherhood of man, not among his own people but among alien in race, language, culture etc.

Your attitude to me about my application for a permit to buy enough petrol to run my car[,] not [for] pleasure but for business[,] has moved me to take this step most reluctantly. For the future is still unknown and as Mr. Chapman is on his throne here, I have to flee to another place for [a] square deal. I know where I can appeal for a redress, but my time has not yet come. So I have chosen this alternative.

I will write you again [before] I depart. Soon we shall meet again, soon you will realize you’ve made a mistake.

Yours respectfully,

(Signature) Smartt

These sorts of petitions were rare in terms of the emotional outburst. Many petitioners framed their petitions as supplications. The confrontational attitude expressed in this petition may have informed the district officer’s decision to ignore it. But Smartt’s petitions reveal the constraints imposed by wartime policies and the degree to which few challenged colonial regulations through personal interactions with colonial personnel.

The formation of the West African Produce Control Board was one of the most important and significant changes during the Second World War. It marked the end of the old system of buying produce, in which buying firms acted independent of state control. With the new regulation, buying firms in Nigeria would, at least during the war, act merely as agents of the British government. All dealings in produce came under strict government control with the establishment of the board. The board also served as a means of stabilizing prices to producers’ advantage. Cocoa, which was not in great demand during the war, was already subject to this control. The plan was to be extended to palm kernels and other products like palm oil, groundnuts, and ginger.¹⁷¹ Like cocoa, the marketing of palm kernels came under the control of the West African Produce Control Board and prices were fixed by law. Under the new control scheme, exporters acted simply as agents of Her Majesty’s Government for the purchase of palm kernels. The control of export produce provided the government the necessary power to control local production and marketing in Nigeria.¹⁷²

The war consequently created the conditions for other kinds of illicit trade. It is obvious that in some parts of Nigeria emerged a thriving trade in illicit francs. These would be obtained in a Vichy territory at around 300 francs to the pound and taken into the French Cameroons and French Equatorial Africa (AEF), where they had a value of 177 francs to the pound. The potential profits were therefore considerable, particularly since the notes may even have been issued free to smugglers by Vichy authorities in order to swamp the AEF. A surprise raid on lorries returning to Kano from frontier markets produced some 276,000 francs. The carriers of the currency obviously knew they were committing a crime – notes were found buried in a tin of Fulani butter, others were located in a “bandage” round the leg of a gentleman who said he suffered from an ulcer, and yet others were abandoned in the lorries. Each arrested smuggler was convicted and imprisoned for three months. The French detected smugglers entering the Cameroons from the Maiduguri area in the northeastern part of Nigeria. They also caught a man who arrived at Duala by ship from Calabar with 10,000 francs in new notes. The trade was widespread and probably due as much to profit-seeking as to the machinations of the Vichy government. It was envisaged that the introduction of a new “Francs Libre” note issued in the AEF would help to stop the traffic, which the Free French naturally regarded with considerable alarm.¹⁷³

Smuggling of goods increased across most colonial frontiers nonetheless. The British consul frequently reported on the condition of life in the Spanish territory under Fernando Po, and, in 1943, declared an acute shortage of food, labor, and gasoline on the island. As a result, Spanish authorities on the island increasingly relied on smuggled goods from Calabar to meet their food needs. In fact, the president of the Board of Food Control in Fernando Po blamed Nigeria, the British government, and the Allies for the critical state of affairs in Spanish Guinea.¹⁷⁴ On November 11, 1943, Consul General Harris reported that eighty-six cases of brandy were sent to Nigeria by canoe in one day alone. Other commodities, such as palm oil, were smuggled into Fernando Po from Nigeria by canoe.¹⁷⁵ At the same time, Harris remarked that “legitimate petty traders come across with goods for the Island on which they have to pay export and import duties and for which they receive fixed prices far below that paid to canoe-men.”¹⁷⁶

The Board of Food Control dedicated so much of its time to illicit forms of trade that its normal work suffered in consequence. If commercial relations with Nigeria were to be conducted properly, officials argued, “it is essential that the canoe traffic be suppressed and in order to do this is it necessary to get a whole-time launch patrol service functioning along the coast.”¹⁷⁷ The following paragraph, which appeared in the Ebano newspaper, illustrates the attitude of the authorities toward the illicit canoe traffic:

At the beginning of July there was a decrease in the number of canoes which crossed from the shores of Calabar to our port. At present things are going back to normal again and already there have been as many as 19 canoes arriving in one day. They do not bring laborers but they do bring a variety of goods especially palm oil. Lately they have tried bringing some bicycles. The profits should not be inappreciable and now they have even brought two motor cycles. Motor cycles and canoes: as through one might say skyscrapers and Nipa huts.¹⁷⁸

Evidently, the struggle to manage the scarce resources available during the war taxed both the administration and the Nigerian population. The control imposed on the local society remained a nagging problem for which people sought remedies through circumventing official polices.

At the heart of the wartime policy in the colony of Nigeria lay a basic objective that can be observed through the lens of economics. Nigeria was first and foremost a provider of important economic resources. Unlike the prewar policy that allowed local people latitude to produce goods in order to meet their basic needs, the wartime policy witnessed the direct intervention of the colonial state in local food production and the supply mechanism. Indeed, the war generated its own contradictions and crises, to which the imperial and colonial governments responded by imposing more control over distributive trade and the rural food supply in the colony. The need to meet the government’s requirements for food and raw materials both significantly increased the commercialization of local produce and altered the nature of peasant–state relations.

The relative scarcity of basic needs during the war exposes the extent to which the local economy had become dependent on the importation of external goods, which could be produced cheaply and locally. Additionally, an examination of the political economy of the war shows that Nigeria, like its colonial counterparts in Africa, contributed much more than personnel and logistical support to imperial war efforts. Furthermore, colonial control and restrictions did not always work. Smuggling, hoarding, and fraud were rampant and made government control less effective.¹⁷⁹ Although incentives were lacking, farmers expanded production due to the more lucrative internal market system that existed in the country.

The British wartime policy and Nigerian participation are an indication of a new relationship between the empire and its colonial subjects based on the expansion of existing ones. The empire did not really care for the welfare of the Nigerian populations per se – especially not their right to engage in free economic activities and decision-making. The extensive regulation of life in the colonies often blurred the distinction between formal military forces and noncombatant civilians. Nigeria’s civilian population, like that of other African colonies, also suffered the material shortages of the war. Nigerians frequently came under increased repression as the demand for war supplies tasked them often beyond their abilities. The war irrevocably changed the ability of different strata of society to control their lives from the early part of 1939. The rural and urban areas were asked to bear the hardship that was necessary to defeat Hitler. Their experiences and sacrifices have been inadvertently documented in colonial records.

Because of the war, the colonial authority in Nigeria increased its control over the local population, including the implementation of labor policies that amounted to forced labor. Farmers, whose livelihood depended on the sale of palm produce, were discouraged by the intervention of the government and by low prices. Many were visibly discontented with the agricultural crisis and food insecurity. The emphasis on the production of cash crops disrupted how the rural population balanced production for the market and for subsistence. These conditions upset local safety nets.

Enforced restrictions on imports and exports became necessary due to grave shipping losses and the necessity for expediting the carriage of goods and commodities for the war, requisitioning of goods for the services, controlling prices, rationing, and profiteering. These factors all played their part in bringing to a head labor problems that were dormant at the beginning of the war and created fresh problems that would not otherwise have arisen.

Despite the enthusiasm that Africans expressed in their support for the Allies, many were unprepared for the consequences of the war. Nigeria gradually felt the impact of the war on its constituents’ lives. To achieve the objectives of colonial control, Britain combined these regulations with aggressive media propaganda.