Introduction

Commonalities and variations exist in the experiences of continental Africans with racism. The same is true of their responses to the problem. All African societies were affected by one or more of the three major external trades in slaves: trans-Saharan, trans-Atlantic, and the Arab slave trade in East Africa. With the exception of Ethiopia, all African societies experienced colonialism and its racist ideology and practice. Similarly, all African states have since independence been experiencing neo-colonialism and some of their citizens at home or in the diaspora might have at one point of the other encountered racism. Southern Africa, particularly South African blacks were victims of Apartheid; this was not replicated in many African countries. How have Africans in general, and Nigerians in particular, responded to racism thrown up by these historical experiences? I will answer this question by embedding the Nigerian example in the continental profile of dealing with slavery, colonialism, and Apartheid.  

Slavery

Slavery is a very old institution among human societies but only those based on external exportation of slaves had racist stamps. These included the Egyptian capture of slaves from southern lands called land of the blacks (Bilades Sudan) (Beachey, 1976:2); slaves sold in the trans-Saharan trade, the trans-Atlantic slave trade and the Arab slave trade in East Africa. While the Egyptian plunder belonged to the system of procuring slaves by inter-state war, the others were based on trading systems in which slaves were articles of trade.

During the trans-Saharan trade slaves constituted only one of the several trade articles. The other goods included gold, silver, salt, ostrich feathers, and leather. The evolution of the trade was slow, few slaves were involved during the Carthaginian and Roman times; expansion followed the rise of Arab power because of increased demand for slaves as soldiers, laborers and servants in North Africa and the Middle East (Hopkins, 1973: 82-83). The numbers of slaves involved the trans-Saharan system is disputed:

• 2 m each century in the late Middle Ages (Raymond Mauny, 1961 cited in Hopkins, 1973: 83);
• 12-15m passed via Cairo in the Sixteenth century (Tadeusz Lewicki, 1976 cited in Hopkins, 1973: 83);
• 10,000 per annum in the 19th century (Boahen, 1964 cited in Hopkins, 1973: 83);
• 9m (Ayitteh, 2004: 105).

Slaves built the Egyptian pyramids. In the Arab world, they were used as domestic servants and as soldiers in the state armies.

The trans-Atlantic slave trade (1450-1866) and the Arab slave trade in East African in the 19th century are reputed as the most dehumanizing trades in African history. They were both based on racial constructs. In respect of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, its racist origins is associated with Bartolomé de las Casas (1484 –1566); a land and slave owning historian and a Catholic Bishop who was appointed by the Spanish government as "Protector of the Indians." (Anthony, 2015). He had “originally advocated the use of African slaves instead of indigenous Americans because Spaniards considered them to be hardier than natives;” as the indigenous Indians were dying of malaria and smallpox, while Africans survived such diseases (Anthony, 2015). According to Dani, “In making this argument, Las Casas may have inadvertently provided the Spanish government endorsement of the new idea of slavery based on race, rather than the medieval concept of slavery as the result of war and conquest.” (Anthony, 2015). Although de la Casas later changed his mind and became an anti-slavery campaigner (Anthony, 2015), the damage had been done. Several European powers were involved in the Atlantic slave trade across Africa. The most affected societies in what later became Nigeria were those in south: the Bight of Biafra (Nigeria’s southeast), Bight of Benin (Nigeria’s southsouth) and Yorubaland (Nigeria’s southwest). Europeans slavers used their slaves on their agricultural plantations in the West Indies and in what became the United States of America. Like the case of the trans-Saharan trade, the figures of Africans slaves involved in the Atlantic system are also disputed. P. D. Curtin gave a figure of about 10m; Inikori’s estimate is 15.4m (Inikori, 1982: 20). Accounting for slave that died in the long journey from the hinterlands to the coasts or while waiting to be boarded, or on board (including those thrown overboard when the British anti-slavery effort was in force), Don Ohadike estimated the figure to be about 30 million. 

The Arab slave trade in East Africa was equally large in scale and devastating. It is however not popular in scholarly discourses as is the Atlantic slave trade. However, according to Ayitteh (2004: 105),

Over 20 million blacks were shipped from East Africa to Arabia. Enslaving and slave trading in East Africa were peculiarly savage in traffic and notable for its barbarity. Villages were razed, the unfit villagers massacred. The enslaved were yoked together, several hundred in a caravan, on their long journey to the coast…Some historians believe that the slave trade was more catastrophic in East Africa than in West Africa…. 

Responses to Slavery

Slave rebellions occurred in Africa and in the New World. In Africa, such rebellions were unsuccessful; they were suppressed by their masters. For example, King Agaja Trudo of Dahomey Kingdom suppressed slave rebellions in his domain. Similarly, in Old Calabar, the Ekpe Society also suppressed slave rebellions organized under the platform of the Order of Bloodmen in the 19th century (Nair, 1972; Northrup, 1978). Racism was not the basis of their resistance, but the exploitation, oppression, and dehumanizing treatment they received.  

While slave rebellions in Nigeria and Dahomey Kingdom failed, those in the West Indies were successful in the 18th & 19th centuries. Thus were declared the independent republics of Jamaica, Haiti, Lesser Antilles, Mexico, Veracruz, and Hispaniola etc. The slaves in the New World were responding to the general ill treatment slaves received everywhere in the world and also to the additional peculiar situations of racism. 

Colonial Encounter: The Nigerian Example[1]

Except Ethiopia, all African countries experienced European colonization. European colonialism in Africa was partly birthed by Racism. The European claim was that blacks were an inferior race. This had roots in 19th century intellectualism when the Scientific Revolution influenced European attitudes towards others. Scientist, Darwin, in his two books, Origin of Species (1859) and The Descent of Man (1871) asserted that modern human species was the product of “natural selection” in which the process of lives struggles, was such that “incipient species, become ultimately converted into good and distinct species…” (Cited in Harlow and Carter, 2003: 154). It was, however, Count Joseph Arthur Gobineau (1816-1882) in his Essay on the inequality of the human races that inputted a claim of racial inequality in natural selection. According to him,

“…the various branches of human family are distinguished by permanent and irradicable differences, both mentally and physically. They are unequal in intellectual capacity, in personal beauty, and in physical strength….I arrived at the conclusion that the whole of our human species is divisible into three great groups, which I call primary varieties…. The dark races are the lowest on the scale. The shape of the pelvis has a character of animalism, which is imprinted on the individuals of that race ere their birth, and seems to portend their destiny. The circle of intellectual development of that group is more contracted than that of either of the two others.” (Cited in Harlow and Carter, 2003: 145)

• Derogatory descriptions or labeling of Africans as niggers, primitive, barbaric, sinners, etc.
• Belief that Africans were incapable of generating development. C. G. Seligman in his 1930 publication Races of Africa, for instance, developed the Hamitic hypothesis, which attributed important developments in Africa to Hamites.
• Discrimination:

• Whites were placed above Africans in administrative hierarchies and in the civil service, with African posts limited to that of clerk; African economies were exploited by European companies.
• Settlements and hospitals segregated along racial lines, with Europeans settlements provided with good amenities: water, electricity; while African settlements lacked these (Olusanya, 1980: 531).

Africans responded to colonialism in various ways but can be summed up under nationalism. The Nigerian example is outlined below.   

• Primary Resistance: they fiercely resisted the conquest.

The Berlin Treaty had provided that evidence of effective occupation was needed to guarantee the claim of any colonizing power to “owning” an African territory. Thereafter, European powers started armed conquest of African states.

In Nigeria, therefore, from the annexation of Lagos to the gunboat diplomacy of John Beecroft in the Niger Delta; from the brutal conquest and occupation of large empires and kingdoms such as Benin, Nupe, and the Sokoto Caliphate to the subjugation of the village states of the Igbo and of the Middle Belt; the story of the colonization of Nigeria is one of violence. The various peoples resisted European colonization because they cherished their independence.  Primary resistance collapsed to the superior fire power of the British, as Nigerian recruits under the leadership of white commanders conquered the country by force of arms.

However, armed resistance to colonialism continued in tax revolts. Across Nigeria, many tax revolts were recorded. A few examples include the following.

1. The Adubi War was an anti-tax war waged by the Egba of Southwestern Nigeria. It occurred between June and July 10, 1918. The colonial government on 7 June arrested Egba chiefs and also made an order that people should pay taxes and obey the government. Rebels numbering about 30,000 attacked railway lines at Agbesi and at Wasinmi where a British agent was killed. Encounters between the rebels and government troops also occurred at other places such as Lalako, Mokoloki, Otite, and Tappona. The government troops brought down the rebellion with maximum force; the leaders were either arrested or killed and by July 10, it had been suppressed. The consequences of the rebellion included the death of 600 people; forceful imposition of direct taxes in 1925; and honoring the colonial troops involved in suppressing with the Africa General Service Medal.

 

2. The Aba Women’s War (1929)

 

The war occurred in November to December 1929 in Southeastern Nigeria. Looting and destruction of European factories, court buildings, and property as well as killings characterized the war, as 55 women lost their lives. The riot or war was caused by the imposition of direct taxation for which a census was ordered in 1928. The women feared that they might be included and thus the riots.

 

3. Second anti-tax riots in Egbaland (1947-48):

 

In nine months between 1947 and 1948, Mrs. Mrs. Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti led women in a very long anti-tax protest in Abeokuta (Egba land) Nigeria’s Southwest. According to Byfield (2003: 250-277), the revolt “combined modern and traditional methods of protest. Women congregated in the compound of the traditional king and Sole Native Authority, Alake Ademóla, to sing abusive songs, and they sent petitions and letters to the press.” Mobilization was based on a “multi-class and rural-urban coalition”.

 

• Labor Union Strikes

Another model of Nigerians responding to colonialism and its racist tendencies was through labor union strikes. Nigerian colonial labor history is replete with strike actions. Some of the recorded strikes occurred include:

1. Strike in survey department by artisans and laborers (1885)
2. Dockworkers strike (1897)
3. Strikes by clerks in the railway department (1902, 1904)
4. The 1945 general strike was over Cost of Living Allowance (COLA)

The 1945 General Strike is popular in Nigerian history. It was called over unresolved dispute on Cost of Living Allowances (COLA). This came against the inflation caused by the difficulties occasioned by the WWII, as the costs of rents and food went up astronomically.

Racism was also another factor. For instance, while expatriates, whose families were not living with them in Nigeria were paid local allowance, their Nigerian counterparts who worked compulsory overtime were not paid for such work.

 

The workers made formal demands through letters, resolutions and strike threats between April and June 1945 to no avail. This was because the government claimed that a pay raise would raise the inflation rate. The General strike commenced at midnight of June 21, 1945 and lasted for 44 days in Lagos and 52 days in the provinces, as striking workers did not trust the telegrams they received calling off the strike. It is estimated that 42,951 workers joined the strike of which 41,165 were in the public sector. The strike paralyzed ports, railway operations, posts and telegraphs. The strike was about to collapse and the labor leaders agreed to call it off based on the “the no victimization clause” in the negotiations. The workers rejected an offer of 20% pay raise and instead opted that the matter be referred to a Commission. The Tudor Commission which was established to look into the matter awarded the workers a COLA 50% above the former level effective 1-Augustr, 1945 (Jacobs, 1998:97-98; 104-105) 

• Cultural nationalism  

An early manifestation of resisting racism was the rejection of Westernization promoted by the Christian missionaries. This rejection took the form of cultural nationalism. The apostles were Edward Wilmont Blyden, Bishop James Johnson, Mojola Agbegbi, John P. Jackson, William Bright Davies, Tejumade Osholake Johnson, among others. They adopted local modes of dressing; some of them dropped their English names and took local ones or included names in their series of names. Thus, Rev. S. H. Samuel became Adegboyega Edun, while George William Johnson became Osholake Tejumade Johnson (Olusanya, 1980: 547).

• Demanded for reforms and independence

 

The Nigerian educated elite joined their counterparts in West African British colonies and formed the National Congress of British West Africa (NCBWA, 1920 at Accra). They sent a delegation to London with the following demands:

• Establishment of Legico for each British West African territory (inclusion politics)
• The people should be left with the issue of appointment and deposition of their chiefs (autonomy politics)
• Separate of powers (modernization politics)
• Abolition of racial discrimination in the civil service (racial politics). Towards independence this was achieved under a program of Africanization of the Civil service with Nigerian educated elite replacing departing Brits.
• Establishment of an Appeal Court for West Africa (judicial reform). Later, the West African Court of Appeal (WACA) was established.
• Establishment of a University for West Africa (opportunity for social mobility): Legon, Ibadan Universities were established in 1948 and became the bastions of the production of African intellectuals that contributed to nationalism.

 

The Governors of the four colonies opposed the delegation claiming the organization did not represent the vast majority of the people. However, Sir Hugh Clifford of Nigeria who championed the opposition to the demands suggested that the elective principle be included the upcoming (1922) constitution for Nigeria. It was done and this changed the political practice in Nigeria as political parties emerged, beginning with the NNDP in 1923. By 1951, three main political parties had emerged and would dominant regional politics in colonial and early post-colonial Nigeria. With progress made towards independence, in March 1953, Chief Anthony Enahoro (AG) moved a motion in the House of Representatives to the effect that Nigeria should become self-governing in 1956. Sir Ahmadu Bello of the NPC amended the motion by adding “as soon as practicable” to replace the definite year 1956 (Olusanya, 1980: 535). Independence was gained in 1960.

Neo-colonialism and the Fight against Apartheid

After independence, the challenge for many African countries including Nigeria was that of neo-colonialism. How could they demonstrate that they were now sovereign nations? In Nigeria, one way of doing this early was the demonstration by the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) against the Anglo-Nigerian Defence Pact (of 1958-61). This was a success, the Pact was cancelled in 1963 and Nigeria assumed the status of a Republic.

 

Thereafter, much of the Nigerian effort shifted to fighting Apartheid in South Africa.

South Africa got its independence in 1910 but the British handed over the country to the Boers who developed the apartheid structure following the victory of the National Party in 1948. By the 1950s apartheid structures began to be put in place amidst black resistance that culminated in the Sharpeville massacre of 1960. International condemnation of apartheid yielded only resolutions from the UN. Independent African nations had to support the struggle of the blacks against apartheid. In the long struggle of South Africans for racial equality, Nigeria played a key role. As argued by Abegunrin,

 

Nigeria’s overall policy toward South Africa was derived strictly from its firm and total commitment to achieve accelerated decolonization and to uphold the dignity of the black race. This moral commitment manifests itself in Nigeria’s persistent support for the oppressed black people in Southern Africa in general and South Africa in particular. Since its independence in 1960, Nigerian government and its people have demonstrated their concern over the violation of human rights and denigration of the black’s dignity by the minority white regimes in Southern Africa. The first practical demonstration of this was the sympathy generated by the Sharpeville massacre of March 1960. This eventually led to the vigorous pressures mounted by the Nigerian public on Balewa’s government to condemn, unequivocally the inhuman, racist, and despicable action of the apartheid South African regime. As a result, Nigeria was in the forefront in the clamor for intensification of embargoes, boycotts, and economic sanctions against apartheid South Africa.

 

Among the specific ways Nigeria supported the anti-Apartheid struggle are the following:

• In 1960 Nigeria established the National Committee Against Apartheid (NACAP) to educate Nigerians in schools (primary to Universities), in the markets and media, through billboards and poster messages about the ills perpetrated by Apartheid in South Africa.
• In 1961, Nigeria’s Prime Minister, Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa sent a letter to the ANC dated 4/4/191 expressing Nigeria’s support and solidarity against apartheid.
• Nigeria lobbied and got South Africa expelled from the Commonwealth in 1961
• Nigeria provided annual aid of $5m to the ANC and Pan African Congress (PAC) in the 1970s
• Nigeria established the South Africa Relief Fund (SARF) to cushion the effect of Apartheid, to support blacks purse an education, and to provide general welfare.
• The Obasanjo military regime also committed to enlarging the fund, as himself, his ministers made personal contributions of $3000 (Obasanjo) and $1500 (each minister); civil servants 2% of their annual salaries; students skipped lunch to contribute to the funds which totaled $10.5m in June 1977. Between 1960 and 1995 Nigeria had spent over $61 b in the anti-apartheid campaign.
• From 1976, Nigerian governments brought South Africans to Nigeria to receive education. The first batch of 86 came in 1976.
• More came in the years to come as hundreds of South Africans benefitted.
• Nigeria along with other African countries lobbied for the creation of a UN Special Committee Against Apartheid and Nigeria chaired it for 30 years
• Nigeria contributed $39,040 (1973-78) to the UN Educational and Training Program For Southern Africa
• Nigeria refused to sell oil to South Africa and lost $41b in revenues (Koutonin; Chigumadzi, 2019).

 

The Question of Empathy

 

While acknowledging the enormous contributions of the Nigeria towards the anti-Apartheid struggle, Chigumadzi argues that Nigerians do not show empathy towards other Africans in intellectual discourses on racism. According to him, Nigerians such as Soyinka dismissed the Negritude movement as an unnecessary. In his words

Nigerians who dismiss our understandings of race often use their lack of experience of racial discrimination as the reason for their positions. This is unconvincing. What I find missing in my interactions with many Nigerians who dismiss our experiences of race is this: a profound lack of empathy that takes the form of unwillingness to understand and share the pain of another, as well as a willful refusal to self-examine the tacit, but powerful presence of the racialized politics that already operates in their own society. ” (Chigumadzi, 2019)

Chigmadzi may be correct within the frame of literary discourses; Nigerian historians are not a part of this tendency. Toyin Falola, for example, is critical of racism. I quote him extensively:

Moreover, as a color, black has been associated with negativity—“black market,” “black mind,”…Satan is black, and the angels are white. Racialized societies reward the light-skinned with better jobs and pay and characterize the dark-skinned as inferior. In defining and maintaining white privilege, black skin has been abused and insulted.

The body is a zone of politics, whether an individual is conscious of or accepts it or not. For example, I am conscious of and always wearing African attire to work, teach and lecture in Western institutions. My dress and ideas align within the politics of culture and reject the cultural arrogance of others (Falola, 2013: 288-290).

 

The point is that Nigerians may have different opinions on Racism, but that there are those who think it matters.

 

References

 

Abegunrin, Olayiwola . “Nigeria and the Struggle for the Liberation of South Africa.” Africa in Global Politics in the Twenty-First Century pp 5-27

Anthony, Dani. “July 2015: Bartolomé de las Casas and 500 Years of Racial Injustice”. Origins, Current Events in Historical Perspective. https://origins.osu.edu/milestones/july-2015-bartolom-de-las-casas-and-500-years-racial-injustice (accessed 15/02/2021)

Ayitteh, George B. N. Africa Unchained. The Blue Print for Africa’s Future. New York: Palgrave, Macmillan, 2004.

Beachey, R. W. The Slave Trade of Eastern Africa. London: Rex Collins, 1976

Byfield, Judith A. “Taxation, Women, and the Colonial State: Egba Women's Tax Revolt.” Meridians: feminism, race, transnationalism Volume 3, Number 2, 2003 (Indiana University Press); 250-277

Esichei, Elizabeth. A History of Nigeria. London: Longman, 1983 (see chapters 15-17).

Falola, Toyin. The African Diaspora: Slavery, Modernity and Globalization. New York: University of Rochester Press, 2013.

Falola, Toyin and Heaton, Mathew. A History of Nigeria. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008 (see chapters 4-6).

Hopkins, A. G. An Economic History of West Africa. London: Longman, 1973

Ikime, Obaro (ed.). Groundwork of Nigerian History. Ibadan: Heinemann Education Books, 1980 (See chapters, 21-24; 26-27)

Inikori, J. E. Forced Migration: The Impact of the Export Slave Trade on African Societies. London: Hutchinson University Library for Africa. 1982.

Nair,K. K., Politics and society in Southeastern Nigeria, 1841-1906. London, 1972

 

Northrup, D., Trade Without Rulers. Oxford, 1978.

Olusanya, G. O. “Constitutional Developments in Nigeria, 1861-1960”, in Obaro Ikime (ed.) Groundwork of Nigerian History. Ibadan: Heinemann Educational Books, 1980 5

Jacobs, C,C. “The Early Trade Union Movement in Nigeria to the General Strike of 1945.” In Monday Y. Mangvwat (ed.), History of Labour in Nigeria. Jos: University of Jos Press, 1998:97-98. 

Koutonin, Mawuna R. “Nigeria’s Role in Ending Apartheid in South Africa and the Issue of Appreciation”. https://katakata.org/nigerias-role-in-ending-apartheid-in-south-africa-and-the-issue-of-appreciation/ (accessed 24/2/2021);

Chigumadzi, Panashe. “Why I’m no longer talking to Nigerians about race.”

https://africasacountry.com/2019/04/why-im-no-longer-talking-to-nigerians-about-race (24/2/2021)

 

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[1] Leading textbooks in Nigerian History some of which are included in the references section of this essay are useful reads on this discussion on Nigeria.