The architect of Nigeria was born in the Isle of Man in 1846. Taubman Goldie led a life of debauch and irresponsibility and was largely an embarrassment to his family name. He was more or less banished to the Niger area of West Africa in 1877 to hold his uncle’s financial interest in a failing company called Holland Jacques and Co. He brought the word amalgamation into our lives when he combined all British commercial interests in the Niger into the United African Company in 1879.
The Gladstone led Imperial Government rejected Goldie’s application for a charter to represent British interests in 1881. He renamed the UAC as the National African Company an increased its share capital to one million pounds before the charter was finally granted in 1886. The company was again renamed the Royal Niger Company.At the Berlin conference of 1885 Britain was able to claim most of the Niger territories because of the bogus claims of Goldie and his presentation of 400 treaties.
To achieve his goals this ruthless and conniving character had hired a mean gunman called Frederick Dealtry Lugard in 1894 to intimidate and coerce local tribes into surrendering their rights for so called advantages. Lugard was the Sandhurst trained, back sliding son of Christian missionaries born in India. He developed a reputation of for ruthlessness with his maxim gun.Taubman oldie’s moves and claims were opposed by an Omoluabi called Bishop Ajayi Crowther who was doing a lot of mission work in the Niger Delta and setting up schools for the locals. Goldie resorted to blackmail by bribing people to smear the Bishops name! Donating money to the CMS in Lagos, Goldie got some white folks to accuse Ajayi of using the HMS Venn a missionary ship to sell alcohol to Muslims! By the time Bishop Ajayi Crowther would clear his name Taubman Goldie had moved on.
Caught in the web of British intrigues on one side and Fulani threats of domination on the other, we stood no chance! Lagos had been colonized since the 6th of Aug 1861, subordinated first to Sierra Leone, and then the Gold Coast, Lagos was finally declared a separate colony on the 13th Jan 1886. From Lagos the British penetrated the Omoluabi lands and seized the chance presented by the internal wars and the resurgence of human sacrifices to enforce treaties by which we became British subjects for sixpence. The only notable resistance in our lands was in Ijebu land but the British made an example of them at the Imagbon war of 1891. Until a museum is opened to display the treaties by which our lands were signed away for sixpence the depths of colonial deception will never be appreciated. The weakened Omoluabi bond presented no resistance as the British Imperial vanguard was well experienced in dispossessing nations of their birth rights. The major difference between the initial handling of the components that were later forced together to become one nation for colonial advantage was that our Omoluabi lands fell under direct British rule while the indirect rule system was employed by Goldie in the Northern portions of what was to become Nigeria.
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The basic shape of Nigeria would have been different today if the contentions of Otto Von Bismarck, Germany’s leader had been successful. He was Goldie’s biggest nightmare who almost seized a third of what was to become Nigeria but he fell in 1890 and German aggression ceased as the Nigeria-Cameroon border was settled. French advances into Niger territories were also halted by Goldie in the treaty of 1893.Fulani led Muslim riots were quelled by Goldies private army in 1897 but the pressures increased as the territories held by the Royal Niger Company were surrounded by protectorates of France and Germany.The hand writing was on the wall and the days of swash bucklers were numbered so Goldie sold the massive territories under the Royal Niger Company to the British Government on the 1st of January 1900 for a sum of £865,000:00! The die was cast and history was set into Motion when the acquired territory was added to the small Niger Coast Protectorate under imperial control to create the two protectorates of Northern and Southern Nigeria. It was simply a convenient business arrangement!
