Book – The Dual Mandate in the British Tropical Africa by Frederick Lugard
Introduction
This is the most consequential
"spiritual" book with
intergenerational implications for Africans on the continent and in diaspora.[1]
It is a book that provokes and evokes simultaneously before awakened eyes zoom
in on the pages. The severest pain concentrates when the reader moves beyond
curiosity to confront the texts as they leap off with vigour validating
collective oppression normalised in contemporary neocolonial
states. It is spiritual as it concerns human beings with inherent
life principles called spirit anchoring their lives as they relate with the
Spirit. More so, this partial treatment is situated in authentic spirituality expressed
through intelligibility, truth, goodness, beauty and love. The question is thus
– does the book breath authentic spirituality?
Summary
This task is motivated by an
enduring zeal to deepen an understanding of Nigeria from its root as
a notion and place. It is also an admission that “teacher don teach me
nonsense”. Viewing Nigeria through its root while noting points of convergence
and divergence respectively is helpful. So let us peel the layers with respect.
The author is the creator and originator of Nigeria. The 600+ pages one-sided
book is filled with historical falsehood, partial truths, overburdened with
methodological inconsistency and bloated with contradictions even for its time.
The first challenge comes from
the title setting a tiny Britain against the central continental mother of
human civilisation. In this contrast an admission of weakness by Africans is
undeniable. Second and before the Introduction, shows the publication date in
1922. Red flags start flying asking why Nnamdi Azikiwe, Obafemi Awolowo and the
coterie of so-called nationalists ignored its substance for their times and
generations yet unborn.
It is a manifesto of British
imperialism in Africa whose objective is the comprehensive negation,
distortion, denial and elimination of everything African/black/dark-skinned
except the physical continent and its resources. Although this is a
contradiction, as a grand propaganda it set the stage for an enduring, dynamic
and evil monologic-dialogue in leaders’ dismissal of Africans’ dignity and their
rights of self-preservation/self-determination. Lugard wrote that, “Africa has
been justly termed “the Dark Continent,” for the secrets of its peoples, its
lakes, and mountains and rivers, have remained undisclosed not merely to modern
civilisation, but through all the ages of which history has any record.”[2]
On the face of history alone, how
did the British elite design policy without it? Can anyone believe that
invasion/infiltration of foreign lands/peoples were planned without
intelligence and historical data? Lugard offered untruth, manufactured as
invented ahistoricity of Africa; that annexation of African lands and
dispossession of the Africans were designed and implemented devoid of history.
Anyone read of Mungo Park, Hugh Clapperton, Richard Lander, Tubman Goldie?
These were no romantic explorers rather veteran intelligence agents in the
service of Empire gathering, analysing, formatting and dispatching
sensitive records to London.
African lands were stolen after Africans' genocides because they were deemed non-people from the start.
Destruction of peoples starts with their dehumanisation and depersonalisation.
So for Lugard, the only good in Africans are their necks under British boots
for the Empire’s profit via invasion, deception, exploitation, plunder,
dispossession and violent impositions. Imperialism was colonialism then and
neocolonialism today from the village to the national capital. It is
glowing in Africa today. Ancestors across southern Nigeria
particularly western Igbos resisted gallantly for decades. Read Ekumeku by
Don Ohadike for comprehensive treatment.
He further waxed lyrical on “the
‘discovery’ and acquisition of large non-colonisable areas in tropical
Africa…as essential to the very existence of the races of the temperate
climes.”[3]
This is no justification for stealing, annexation and appropriation of foreign
lands. There is no beauty located in negating core universal human values.
There is common human dignity and human condition respectively. These eternal
truths are irreducible and cannot be differentiated by time, circumstance and
location. In this text Lugard, flashed his racist card even before the sign "NO
IRISH, NO BLACKS AND NO DOGS" appeared in England few decades later.
Lugard admitted Britain’s part in
the eviscerating ‘civilisation mission’ of European powers using the double
arsenal of advanced weapons for pre-emptive genocides and fake Christianity to
decimate indigenous cosmologies and civilisations. His racist rule uncritically
fixed religious and cultural imperialism to undermine indigenous peoples with
foreign ideas, ethics and values. Hence false Christianity and cheap Islam
thrived in conformity by collaborating and blessing the colonial state. Is it
different in contemporary neocolonial states? Do religions of the book robustly
contest and protest state oppression and genocides?
He harped that, “it was the task
of civilisation to put an end to slavery, to establish courts of law, to
inculcate in the natives a sense of individual responsibility, of liberty, and
of justice, and to teach their rulers how to apply these principles…For, in my
belief, under no other rule – be it of his own uncontrolled potentates,
or of aliens – does the African enjoy such a measure of freedom and of
impartial justice, or a more sympathetic treatment, and for that reason I am a
profound believer in the British empire and its mission in Africa.”[4]
This is the ground truth of Lugard's/British policy, that Africans were not,
are not and will not be human. Collective ontological dissolution and
existential annihilation!
Dehumanisation and
depersonalisation fund European dispossession, super-exploitation and
genocides. At the time the Irish have been under British bondage for 100s of
years. One more thing to add here is an encouragement to survey the
civilisation-stripping ladder; invasion/infiltration – subjugation –
demoralisation – destruction. For those with undiluted commitment to vaunted
British nobility, advancement and excellence; those who bet their lives that
Europeans came to save Africans; peruse a sample of British
genocides in Nigeria. 1885 Onitsha, 1897 Benin, 1903 genocide of Sultan
Attahiru and over 1000 people, 1929 genocide of women in Aba and 1949 Enugu
genocide etc. Read more in Toyin Falola’s Colonialism
and Violence in Nigeria.
The summary is rounded by highlighting deliberate British disconnection of the link between the Africans
and their ancient indigenous order which fake religionists pursue zealously
today. This unresolved egregious stab at Africa’s ontological and existential
hearts is the single most potent driver of collective loss of identity.
Lugard again stressed, “the
impact of European civilisation on tropical races has indeed a tendency to
undermine that respect for authority which is the basis of social order. The
authority of the head, whether of the tribe, the village, or the family, is
decreased, and parental discipline is weakened – tendencies which, as Lord
Macdonnel observed, are probably inseparable from that emancipation of thought
which results from our educational system and needs the control of scholastic
discipline. These tendencies are no doubt largely due to the fact that each
generation is advancing intellectually beyond its predecessor, so that “the
younger men view with increasing impatience the habits, traditions, and ideas
of their elders.” From this standpoint we may even regard this restlessness as
a measure of progress.” [5]
Lugard’s geostrategic focus is
the perpetual instability of the continent through the destructions of family
and community. For the British, Africa (Nigeria) is only good for profit, the
peoples don’t matter. Anti-family and anti-community policies are "excellent"
British moves. Are there parallels today in Nigeria? This deception situated in
intellectual, academic, rational and bureaucratic benefits without grounded
families and coherent community is evil. Why does acquisition of western education,
material assets and new religious investment correlate with comprehensive
decline of peoples in Nigeria? This is a recipe for disunity, tension,
uncertainty and collapse; a controlled demolition of peoples.
Finally, this book is critical
for understanding contemporary African (Nigeria’s) situation. It laid out an
evil roadmap. Of itself, it lacks merit and potency, nevertheless its
strategies and processes are active in today’s mass degeneration of peoples under
(Nigeria's) indigenous leadership since flag independence. Although an
inauthentic text, unmentioned authentic people-oriented solutions are implied
throughout. This time evil should be confronted to recover and consolidate
good. Therefore the ontological and existential challenges facing peoples of
Africa/Nigeria is simple – does Africans’ dignity matter? If it does, how will
it be radically recovered?
The first step is by facing
history with knowledge, wisdom, truth and justice. Underpinning hope burns very
bright in the respectful embrace of history. Therefore history shouldn't be
seen as a burden but rather as a huge treasure trove funding authentic
spirituality for the regeneration and ascendancy of Africans.
Life is beautiful!
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