[This is an excerpt from an article in The Round Table: The Commonwealth Journal of International Affairs and Policy Studies.]
Professor Toyin Falola has a formidable reputation. The late D.A. Low (former Smuts Professor of Commonwealth History at Cambridge University), writing to the reviewer in 1999, called him the ‘ablest African historian I have come across’. Fellow Nigerian Professor Pat Williams dubbed him the ‘doyen of Nigerian history’ in introducing his iconic work Violence in Nigeria back in 1998. His works on African spirituality and decolonisation have given a significant voice to an African perspective of African history.
So no one is better qualified to produce his latest work, Understanding Colonial Nigeria – British Rule and its Impact. He does not disappoint. This second volume of a trilogy on Nigeria history – pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial – has span, depth and focus in addressing such a huge subject. It is a work of formidable scholarship and will provide an invaluable reference to anyone studying Nigerian history, with its extensive bibliography and notes. It is also beautifully illustrated with well-chosen drawings by Mike Efionayi and Kazeem Ekeolu. I wish I had had it to hand when I was Australian High Commissioner to Nigeria.
There are two useful introductory methodological chapters on ‘Colonial Archives and Alternative Voices’ and ‘Narrating Colonial Nigeria’, which both students and professional historians will benefit from for their own work. The story proper begins with ‘Conquest and Colonisation’, highlighting quite rightly the role of trade and missions. He also notes that ‘Britain’s penetration and conquest of Nigeria was fierce, bloody and met with diverse forms of resistance by the indigenous population across the country’ (p. 135).
In this regard, Nigeria’s experience was no different from that of the Empire generally, as so clearly described by Caroline Elkins in Legacy of Violence – A History of the British Empire (The Bodley Head, London, 2022). In my view, Falola could draw out more clearly the fact that much of the fighting for the British was done by fellow Africans, such as those who formed the troops of Colonial Governor Frederick Lugard’s West African Frontier. Nevertheless he does describe how the British were adept at exploiting ethnic and social divisions, noting that ‘local populations provided British forces with food, soldiers, information, and moral support’. (at p. 129). There is a rich field for further study here, not least because it helps explain some of the divisions that persist in modern Nigeria.
Commonwealth Bookshelf June 2025
Opinion: Samoa 2024 proves CHOGM’s continuing relevance
Letter from Apia
Falola covers extensively but with new insights the well-trodden ground of the British policy of ‘indirect rule’ (credited to Lord Lugard, whose wife Flora Shaw named Nigeria) through chapters on established leadership structures, native administration, the legal system, colonial economy, and the impact of western education. He also has excellent chapters on the emergence of party politics and personalities, regionalism and ethnic politics, and constitution making – all focused and succinct.
At the same time he breaks new ground with excellent chapters on ‘Creativity and Aesthetics’ and on the role of ‘Women’ – which features the redoubtable nationalist leader Mrs Ransome Kuti, whose notable children took up their mother’s legacy in their different ways in independent Nigeria. Such subjects – so central to what Nigeria and Africa is – are too often neglected by historians.
His last chapter, ‘Colonial Legacies’, is probably the most important. Here he pulls together a ‘Summary of Significant Changes’ (p. 574) covering sociocultural, economic and political legacies and enduring institutional developments – in the civil service, judiciary and educational systems – that impact on Nigeria to this day. Thus he sets the scene for his next volume on post-colonial Nigeria, which will be eagerly anticipated.
Matthew Neuhaus is the Hon Professor, ANU College of Law, President of the Australian Royal Commonwealth Society, a former Australian High Commissioner to Nigeria and a member of the Round Table’s international advisory board.
Understanding colonial Nigeria: British rule and its impact by Toyin Falola, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2025.
