From Crime to Coercion: Policing Dissent in Abeokuta, Nigeria, 1900–1940

The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History

ISSN: 0308-6534 (Print) 1743-9329 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/fich20

Samuel Fury Childs Daly

To cite this article: Samuel Fury Childs Daly (2019) From Crime to Coercion: Policing Dissent in Abeokuta, Nigeria, 1900–1940, The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 47:3, 474-489, DOI: 10.1080/03086534.2019.1576833 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/03086534.2019.1576833

Published online: 15 Feb 2019.

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Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=fich20 THE JOURNAL OF IMPERIAL AND COMMONWEALTH HISTORY 2019, VOL. 47, NO. 3, 474–489 https://doi.org/10.1080/03086534.2019.1576833

From Crime to Coercion: Policing Dissent in Abeokuta, Nigeria, 1900–1940 Samuel Fury Childs Daly Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, USA

ABSTRACT KEYWORDS Indirect rule ﬁgured prominently in Nigeria’s colonial Nigeria; Abeokuta; crime; administration, but historians understand more about the police; indirect rule abstract tenets of this administrative strategy than they do about its everyday implementation. This article investigates the early history of the Native Authority Police Force in the town of Abeokuta in order to trace a larger move towards coercive forms of administration in the early twentieth century. In this period the police in Abeokuta developed from a primarily civil force tasked with managing crime in the rapidly growing town, into a political implement of the colonial government. It became critical in preserving the authority of both the local traditional ruler and the colonial administration behind him. In Abeokuta, this transition was largely precipitated by the 1918 Adubi War and the period of increased surveillance that followed it. This created new responsibilities and powers for the police, expanding their role in Abeokuta’s administration and raising their stock in the colonial administrative hierarchy.

In post-colonial Nigeria, the involvement of the police in political matters came to be taken for granted. In 1964, during the Nigerian First Republic, President Nnamdi Azikiwe warned that Local Government Police Forces were being used to ‘stiﬂe opposition,’ serve the interests of politicians, and determine the outcome of elections – accusations that he had regularly levelled at the colonial police prior to independence.1 The use of the police for political purposes became a mainstay of successive military governments, and it remains a problem in contemporary Nigeria. This article will analyse early opposition to colonial rule in early twentieth-century Abeokuta, with the intention of locating the point where the police transformed from a primarily civil force to a political instrument of coercion and surveillance. This analysis places this politicisation of police practice earlier than the nationalist period, the Second World War, and the other episodes that historians have suggested as its point of origin.2 From the vantage point of Abeokuta, the involvement of the police in crowd

CONTACT Samuel Fury Childs Daly [email protected] African and African American Studies, Duke University, 1316 Campus Drive, Box 90252, Durham, North Carolina 27708 USA © 2019 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group THE JOURNAL OF IMPERIAL AND COMMONWEALTH HISTORY 475

control, counter-insurgency, the monitoring of opposition figures, and other forms of politicised policing have deeper roots than has usually been allowed. Indirect Rule has been the subject of sustained historical interest, often for how it marshalled ‘tradition’ as an administrative implement.3 This article approaches the familiar debates about neo-traditionalism and rural administration in the British Empire in Africa from within the archive of one of the Native Authorities that carried out the day-to-day administration of southwestern Nigeria – that of the Egba United Government and its successors in the town of Abeokuta, some fifty miles north of Lagos. Civil unrest over taxation, and in particular the Adubi War (called such by its participants, and more com- monly known as the Egba Uprising by the colonial government) of June and July 1918, played a crucial role in the development of the British colonial government’s approach to crime, law enforcement, and the police in Abeokuta. This is a forgotten war, both in Nigerian historiography and in the public memory of colonialism – one overshadowed by other movements that took place in the area, including the Ijemo tax riots of 1914 and the rebellions of cloth dyers in 1930s Abeokuta.4 Nonetheless, the war brought about meaningful changes in how Abeokuta was administered and policed, and its lessons informed events in the Southern Nigeria Protectorate in this early and formative period of colonial rule. The Adubi War precipitated a re-evaluation of the priorities of law enforcement in urban Yorubaland. Policing under the autonomous Egba United Gov- ernment was primarily a matter of enforcing the laws and investigating property crimes, but under the more direct form of British colonial administration that followed the war, policing took on the added responsibility of ‘dealing with all complaints against the Alake’5 – administrative shorthand for protecting the Egba Native Administration from a sporadically-hostile public. The wave of discontent that swelled around 1914 and broke in the tax riots of 1918 fundamen- tally changed how the police functioned, and how their work was viewed. African Native Authority Police officers were aware of their increasing importance in colonial administration. Some officers would parlay their knowledge of Abeokuta’s complicated politics into political advantage, often, as one later complainant put it, ‘in the name of the British Empire, Justice, and Fair-play.’6 The model of an unarmed, civilian constabulary that Britain implemented in the Lagos Colony and elsewhere suggests that the central duty of the colonial police was to combat crime, rather than to suppress dissent. One historian of the Nigerian police claims, equally unequivocally, that crime was only a relatively minor preoccupation of the colonial police, and the ‘the centre-piece of police activity in colonial Nigeria was the containment of indigenous resistance.’7 This is true in certain times and places in Nigerian colonial history, but the experience of Abeokuta shows that the orientation and priorities of the police developed in response to local politics and events. Anderson and Kill- ingray argued that throughout colonial Africa, the police gradually replaced the 476 S. F. C. DALY

military as the main agents of internal security – a process that took place largely in the context of nationalist agitation.8 However, coercive policing existed long before the nationalist movements of the mid-twentieth century. It often responded not to the threat of high-level agitation, but to local, parochial discontent with colonial taxation policies. In the early 1920s, Native Authority Police Forces in Abeokuta became responsible for ‘general police control’ above their traditional duties in preventing and detecting crime9—long before the Second World War and the nationalist period, when the colonial government became more expressly concerned with subversion and political agitation. The fact that Abeokuta’s police were gaining broader, costlier, and more centralised man- dates in the 1920s is not what the ideology of indirect rule might lead one to expect. But Lord Lugard’s famous administrative strategy was not an iron-clad approach. Rather, it was ‘a management scheme made up of a patchwork of shifting class alliances and failed eﬀorts to contain costs,’10 which sometimes worked, paradoxically, by centralising the actual process of administration. The inconsistent and constantly changing ideology of convenience that came to be known as ‘indirect rule’ actually explains relatively little about how a place like Abeokuta was administered in the day-to-day.

The Egba United Government Abeokuta does not fit neatly into the broader historiography of southwestern Nigeria. From the town’s beginnings in the late 1820s, its residents and neighbours have written about it as an anomaly – a place that is newer than most of its neighbours, and of a different genealogy.11 It was founded in 1830 by Egba refugees under the leadership of Balogun Sodeke, an upstart who was expelled from Ibadan by the Oyo military council.12 Ibadan had also been created through the upheaval of warfare in the nineteenth century following the collapse of the Oyo Empire, and its relationship with Abeokuta remained antagonistic into the twentieth century. Swelled by refugees and strangers, by 1860 Abeokuta was large and centralised enough to wage war on Ibadan, which would continue until Abeokuta’s defeat in 1864.13 In subsequent years, refugees arrived in Abeokuta from Ijesha, Ife, and other towns affected by the gradual collapse of the Oyo Empire, creating a diverse amalgamation of settle- ments arranged around an Egba-controlled palace, whose head was the Alake. Abeokuta quickly grew from an isolated farm to the capital of the Egba con- federation, becoming wealthier and more pluralistic as it did so. Abeokuta’s civic identity developed around the idea of the town as a place of refuge. The town repelled a series of attacks from Dahomey, and developed a class of prosperous, politically involved African traders, the most famous of whom was the Iyalode (head of the market women) and critic of British rule, Madame Efunroye Tinubu. Many of Abeokuta’s intellectuals were attached to or trained by the Church Missionary Society (CMS), which opened its mission for Yorubaland THE JOURNAL OF IMPERIAL AND COMMONWEALTH HISTORY 477 there in 1849. The CMS became deeply involved in local affairs, driven by a desire to convert Abeokuta’s sectional rulers.14 The CMS withdrew from the town’s politics after 1867, when a ‘wave of Egba hostility’15 to the missionary presence convinced many of the foreign missionaries to leave. After their departure, the CMS’ predominantly African leadership settled into a relationship of peaceful coexistence with the palace. The presence of the mission and Abeoku- ta’s growing importance as a trading centre brought a community of Saro freedmen to Abeokuta from Lagos and Sierra Leone. Saro and Lagosian traders were also present in Abeokuta’s political scene, and the creation of the Egba United Board of Management in 1861 was the successful outcome of their attempts to incorporate elements of British governance, including civic councils and a legal system derived from the common law, into the town’s administration.16 Abeokuta was unique in that it was allowed to remain formally independent under its own government, named the Egba United Government (EUG) in 1898. Abeokuta remained self-governing until amalgamation in 1914, when it became part of the Southern Province of Nigeria.17 This was a nominal independence, but the institutions that developed in Abeokuta in the early twentieth century were unique in that they developed in relation to colonial authority, but not directly by its hand. This is especially clear with regard to the police. British and imperial models were important templates for the early force, but the police in Abeokuta were created not to protect the colonial government, but to serve the Alake, the educated African elite, and the jumble of traders, refugees, Atlantic freedmen, and missionaries who made their homes there. The Egba Police Constabulary’s mandate was to protect the commercial and personal interests of these constituencies, especially the town’s professional class – the ‘urbanised and semi-Europeanised natives whose economy and way of life are moulded by frequent contact with European officials and merchants,’ as one colonial report described them.18 In the late nineteenth century Abeokuta developed a reputation for lawless- ness, generated by its connection with warfare, its transient refugee population, and its status as a freewheeling trade entrepôt. Abeokuta was plagued by crime, and especially by property crimes. The local historian Ajayi Ajisafe reported that ‘violent robberies [were] in vogue,’ in the nineteenth century, and that

some [robbers] were so bold and wild that from 7 pm to 5 am they were riding horses and carrying lamps with them to any place to commit robbery. On entering a house the unfortunate inmates must cover their faces to prevent them from identifying their unexpected guests, who, of course, were armed with dangerous weapons against any assailant. Every day dawned with the astounding news of many robberies committed during the night and of several persons murdered or wounded by the robbers. It was a time of terror in Abeokuta. A large part of the town was therefore deserted by its occu- piers. Some removed entirely to the villages.19 The town and the roads leading to it were known for being dangerous, despite (or perhaps because of) the large commercial and missionary presence there.20 478 S. F. C. DALY

The Lagos government was content to leave responsibility for the punishment of criminals in Abeokuta to the Alake and his council, with the exception that British subjects or employees of the British government were not to be punished by the Alake, and that ‘the Alake and the authorities of the Egba Nation’ were to ‘aid and assist in apprehending’ anyone who committed offences against British subjects or their property.21 Since the EUG’s usefulness to the British was in its ability to secure the region with minimal expenditure, the Alake knew that secur- ing the town and its hinterland would be essential to maintaining his town’s independence – however nominal it was. To this end the EUG hired members of Abeokuta’s hunters’ society (the Ode) to guard the town, and gave them the authority to arrest or kill robbers. The historian Kemi Rotimi speculates that this temporary measure ‘must have impressed on the Egba government the importance of having a regular police force that would be distinct from the hunters’ guild.’22 Whether it was this, or the recommendation of Lagos Colony Governor William MacGregor, that precipitated the foundation of the force, the initial impetus for the creation of the police force was the need to control urban property crime.23 Alake Gbadebo I and his successor Ademola II were open to the idea of developing police forces modelled on British and Lagosian examples. As early as 1901, prominent people in Abeokuta including the Railway Commissioner felt that the government should ‘undertake to enforce its judgments with all their authority’ through expanding the courts and creating a police force.24 In 1904, at the recommendation of the EUG’s powerful secretary Adegboyega Edun, Gbadebo founded a local force of thirty unarmed constables, who wore European khaki uniforms and were commanded by Egba police chiefs. The EUG police were sufficiently professionalised and visible that William MacGregor could confi- dently state that the police project had ‘so far been successful, and the force now numbers about thirty men, trained by instructors from Lagos. … Perhaps enough has been said to show that the Alake [Gbadebo I] of Abeokuta is a reformer.’25 The dominant concern of the police in Abeokuta under the Egba United Gov- ernment was the protection of property – not the repression of political dissent, the policing of Egbaland’s frontiers, nor the maintenance of what became known as ‘public order.’ This reflected the priorities of the ‘moral and natural laws’ that underpinned the Egba legal system. Ajifsafe described these laws as, largely, prohibitions against theft, murder, and sorcery.26 Half of the twenty-six laws that Ajisafe enumerated concerned theft and burglary, twelve related to various gender and ritual taboos, and only one prohibited treason and sedition against the Alake. A similar pattern can be observed in the orders in council pro- duced by the Egba United Government before 1914. Prohibitions against burglary, illicit trade, the production of charms to protect burglars, and other property-related matters far outnumber those that might be considered political. The balance between enforcing laws and managing public disturbances – a THE JOURNAL OF IMPERIAL AND COMMONWEALTH HISTORY 479

tension inherent in all police forces – began to shift from the former to the latter in the second decade of the twentieth century. Criminal law and policing would come to be seen first as a tool of politics, and second as an instrument of civil society. The chipping away of the Egba Police’s independence began in 1910, when the first European officer was retained. This was a surprising development to the local rank-and-file, especially given that the Alake and the Lagos government were generally satisfied with the state of the force and its African officers. The primary reason for the change was the extension of the Lagos Railway to Abeo- kuta. European merchants and non-Egba farmers within the catchment area of the railway did not want the Egba Police to have jurisdiction over their property or the railway, and so requested that the Alake to hire European officers from Lagos, which he did.27 The practice of hiring officers from Lagos or the Northern Province – as individuals, rather than as agents of the British government – became a common practice.28 This took place without the direct oversight of the colonial government, and Ademola II defended the practice when it was questioned.29 The fact that European officers were retained and paid by the EUG gives an unusual picture of colonial rule, and it supports Colin Newbury’s assertion that ‘incoming European agencies were not automatically in superior patron status,’30 in the communities where they operated. This period was short lived, and Abeokuta’s formal independence would come to an end with amalgamation in 1914. The growing political role of the police was partially a function of Abeokuta’s incorporation into the Southern Province of Nigeria – the embrace of colonial rule became tighter. But the larger reasons for the transformation had to do with stresses on the existing police infrastructure caused by increasing civil unrest, beginning in 1914.31 In that year, the Lagos government ended its support of duties charged by the EUG on goods brought from Lagos, which hitherto was the government’s main source of revenue. The EUG began direct taxation and increased forced labour requirements to fill the gap in revenue, which precipitated a revolt by the Ijemo on August 8, 1914.32 Being unable to stop the uprising using its own civil police force, the EUG asked the Lagos government for assistance, which was provided in the form of a contingent of armed Hausa troops, who fired indiscriminately on a crowd. This simultaneously diminished the legitimacy of the EUG in the eyes of many Egba people, and provided the British with the pretext to formally take control of the EUG, for as Lugard said, Abeo- kuta could ‘no longer be deemed capable of standing alone as an independent state.’33 After Abeokuta formally became part of Nigeria in 1914, little changed in how it was administered other than the names of government institutions – the Alake remained in power, and Adegboyega Edun retained his position as the government’s powerful first secretary. Discontent with the newly christened Egba Native Authority increased gradually after 1914, culminating in the uprising of 1918. 480 S. F. C. DALY

The 1918 Uprising and its Legacy In late 1917, the government in Lagos decided to split Egbaland into six new districts, and simultaneously to impose a new system of direct taxation organised by the newly created Egba Native Authority, replacing the system of customs and duties on goods brought to and from other towns. Abeokuta’s tax levy was doubled to ten thousand pounds per year, which was eventually negotiated down to six thousand. This was still a significant increase, and people in the districts surrounding Abeokuta protested the higher rate. The increase was especially objectionable since the reorganisation of the district meant that the tax would be collected by strangers, and revenue would only return to the districts by way of Lagos. Dozens of letters and petitions from Abeokuta’s constituent communities were sent to the resident and the Alake, which went unanswered.34 The resident, W.C. Syer, gave a series of speeches defending the imposition of the tax, but this only served to confuse the general public on the specifics of the new taxes. It also offended the regional chiefs whom Syer, in the first of a string of indiscretions that would result in him leaving the colonial service, called ‘unciv- ilised’ and ‘ungrateful.’35 Syer justified taxation as a guarantee of continued self government, in spite of the fact that it was clearly a curtailment of Abeokuta’s autonomy. ‘Would you like any native foreigner to take your position?’ he asked. ‘Would you like to submit to his order? Would you like the Nigerian police to take the position of your own beloved Olopas [officers]? I myself pray and hope that there will be no cause for direct government.’36 These speeches helped to catalyse organised opposition to taxation throughout Egbaland, and the Alake’s position became increasingly tenuous. As Insa Nolte writes, he had become ‘a representative of the British to his townspeople as much as a representative of his town to the British.’37 Margery Perham theorised that the war’s outbreak was driven not only by the parochial matter of taxation, but by ‘the half- understood news’ of the First World War in Europe, which some took as an opportunity to capitalise on the divided attention of the British.38 One of the organisers of the uprising was Adubi, the headman of the village of Elere, who began to hold meetings there and in neighbouring villages.39 Early on, he claimed that the meetings were ‘not for the purpose of inciting anyone to commit breach of peace or work against the new scheme of Taxation, but for the purpose of devising ways and means to raise the tax.’40 While this may have been the original purpose of the meetings, they quickly became more about opposing the tax and the increase in forced labour that accompanied it. In a letter to the Chief of Owu, Adubi protested that

we have to build seven houses as follows, one for the prisoners, one for the whiteman, one for himself, one for the Police, one for the clerks, one for the Government and the remaining one for the district judge … we regret to say that we have been treated as slaves in the bush.41 THE JOURNAL OF IMPERIAL AND COMMONWEALTH HISTORY 481

Adubi travelled to a number of villages surrounding Elere, and bought dane guns and gunpowder from merchants on the roads leading out of Abeokuta.42 The Resident of Abeokuta used a number of African civilians, including two unnamed Egba Native Authority Police officers, as spies. Although Syer thought it ‘quite unnecessary for me to say that I am not in the habit of using natives to “Spy,”’43 it was not long before he was routinely doing just that. The British con- strued the conflict as a civil war, and the resident thought that the greatest threat in Abeokuta was the atmosphere of ‘universal sedition,’ 44 that prevailed in town, rather than the political upheaval taking place in the countryside, or even the threats to private property that the war occasioned. As sedition became the preoccupation of the resident, the palace administration, and the government in Lagos, the police were increasingly expected to combat political opposition rather than crime. Police officers gathered valuable information on the uprising while undercover. Efforts by the British to gather intelligence increased throughout 1918, and in a speech to the employees of the Native Authority (including its police force), Syer encouraged

every honest Egba to make up his mind to get to the bottom of all this intrigue and give evidence which will help to crush it for ever. There are many of you here who can give such evidence but are too cowardly to come forward.45 The police were expected both to weed out information as double agents, and to inform on the activities of their families, friends, and one another. This was a task that they had not encountered as civic law enforcement agents, but it became one they would perform often after the war. The events of 1918 showed that significant changes were necessary to crim- inalise certain types of dissent. New roles and methods for the police emerged from the changes that took place in how crime was defined. The most obvious of these changes was an increase in the presence of the police in urban daily life. The funding, recruitment, and use of police forces – including both the Nigerian Police Forces and the Native Authority Police Forces – increased dramatically after 1918. The enlargement of Abeokuta’s law enforcement infrastructure included an expanded court system, a rebuilt prison, and regular increases in the number of constables on the force. Police expenditure throughout Southern Nigeria more than doubled between 1917 and 1923, while the West African Frontier Force only saw a small increase.46 The police replaced the military as the main guarantors of internal security in Nigeria, and they saw a commensurate increase in their funding and prestige. In the years immediately after the Adubi War, the Lagos government, the Egba Native Authority, and the resident in Abeokuta all worried about what the Native Authority Police would do in the event of further civil disorder. The Alake’s palace was especially concerned that the officers of the NAPF would fail to disperse hostile crowds peacefully, or even end up joining them. The government in Lagos was concerned as well; memoranda were sent to 482 S. F. C. DALY

police officers in Abeokuta describing how to disperse a crowd by armed force, which administrators in Abeokuta responded to by noting that the NAPF was still an unarmed constabulary.47 Special Constables for Abeokuta were recruited under the Police Ordinance of 1920 to ‘be employed in the peaceful areas to relieve the regular police withdrawn for the purpose of dealing with disorder,’48 which was thought to be imminent throughout Egbaland. Special lists of trusted constables, and corresponding lists of suspected troublemakers to be kept under discreet surveillance, were drawn up by the resident and the Alake.49 The police were being asked to take on responsibilities that they had not had prior to the Adubi War, and which bore little resemblance to the ‘citizen’s aid’ model of policing which prevailed – both in colony and metropole – prior to this period. To the British, the NAPFs’ greatest virtue was that they were inexpensive.50 One administrator lamented that even though the NAPFs were corrupt, despotic, and of questionable loyalty, ‘if the Native Administration Police forces did not exist Government would have to police the big Yoruba towns at great cost of both European and African personnel.’51 This, rather than the quality of the policing itself, was the over-riding concern. This was not a fundamental change from the priorities that existed before 1918, but the disturbances in 1918 made it clear that it was cheaper to develop civic institutions capable of preventing uprisings than it was to deal with them as they came using the military. After 1918, the link between policing and the production of state revenue became more apparent. The 1918 war showed colonial officials that direct taxation was not a reliable or efficient way to generate income, and while abandoning it outright would concede defeat, they recognised the need to develop more reliable sources of revenue. In Abeokuta, police coercion was one dimension of a growing involvement of the local government in the daily lives of the town’s residents, and part of a new model of revenue production. As Nina Mba and Cheryl Johnson- Odim wrote, the Egba Native Authority ‘pushed its role much further than the EUG in the areas of enforcing labour recruitment and sanitation regulations.’52 These, with their attendant fines for non-compliance and free labour for government infrastructure projects, represented a significant source of income for the state. Courts thereby became sources of revenue, and criminal justice became a profitable enterprise for the colonial state. Criminal statistics reveal a shift in official priorities – both for the data that they include, and for the fact that they were gathered at all.53 Statutory definitions of crime were slow to change, but the prohibitions that were enforced in Abeokuta after 1918 changed quickly and dramatically. Shop owners and traders complained that the Native Authority Police suddenly no longer spent enough time investigating thefts, including the looting that took place during the Adubi War.54 After 1918, the Lagos government also began to pay closer attention to crime statistics, and encouraged the Native Authority Police to aid in collecting them. Although comprehensive crime statistics for NAPFs were not collected by the colonial government until 1938, Lagos required the THE JOURNAL OF IMPERIAL AND COMMONWEALTH HISTORY 483

Egba Native Authority to gather statistics on crime and policing starting in 1919, including information on the activities of known troublemakers and political agitators.55 The line between gathering statistics and gathering intelligence was not very clear. Certain forms of crime, like burglary, appeared to fall, while others, like unlawful assembly, rose. There is no reason to believe that Abeokuta’s residents started stealing less in 1918, but it is clear that the police started paying more attention to political activity and less attention to theft. The move towards using the Native Authority Police to investigate unsanitary living conditions illustrates this turn to greater police involvement in political matters and daily life. Sanitation ordinances accounted for the majority of the investigations and convictions in Abeokuta in the early 1920s; leaving a jug of water uncovered or having an unswept yard could attract a significant fine. These ordinances were presented as politically neutral public health measures to limit the spread of disease,56 but the Native Authority used public health measures to police a wide range of activities in Abeokuta. Sanitation ordinances were selectively enforced, and they could be used to punish or intimidate anyone suspected of agitating against British policies or generally making trouble. It is not coincidental that many of the families and individuals who participated actively in the 1918 uprising appear repeatedly in the lists of people fined or imprisoned for having ‘dirty compounds’ in the years that followed.57 As the police became more involved in maintaining public order, their prestige, funding, and proximity to political power increased accordingly. Policemen in Abeokuta became enmeshed in political intrigue. Native Authority Police Forces were involved in palace politics by the nature of their work, and often had to navigate a complicated terrain of royal allegiances and colonial commit- ments. Connections between the police and the palace could be thicker than politics, as some police officers came from royal families themselves. This was a connection that colonial authorities cultivated, believing that those already close to local power would be the most loyal and competent policemen. The Acting Secretary for the Southern Provinces wrote in 1936 that Native Authorities would be more effective at suppressing political opposition if they were commanded by African officers trained in ‘the employment of proper methods,’ and if the stock of the police could be raised in the eyes of the Native Authorities. With respect to Abeokuta, he hoped that ‘as the prestige of the force increases, men of standing and education will fill the higher posts. I had hoped that the Alake’s son might possibly follow in the steps of the Emir of Katsina in this respect. Had the prestige of the force been greater he might have.’58 Even as they expanded the responsibilities of Native Authority Police Forces, colonial officials remained ambivalent about their loyalties, and doubtful about their ability to police ‘large and increasingly sophisticated populations,’59 which might harbour political opposition. These fears often manifested as concerns about armament. The Lagos government was acutely aware of the need for armed policemen who could put down acts of disobedience like the 1918 484 S. F. C. DALY

uprising, but they were loathe to put arms in the hands of civilian police. One official asked in 1929, echoing earlier sentiments, ‘whether in a moment of religious or secular excitement they (the leading Native Rulers) themselves would be able to control the excitable material of which African Forces are made up.’60 Even those who were in favour of creating ‘a large body of armed men, directly under the control of native chiefs,’ felt that ‘the potential dangers of this cannot be overlooked in the event of any fanatical outbreak and it would be wrong not to mention this risk, even if the risk is slight or not likely to eventuate.’61 The compromise that was eventually reached is symptomatic of the larger inconsis- tencies of colonial administration; Native Authority Police officers remained unarmed in their day-to-day work, but they were trained to use firearms in the event that they might need to put down a rebellion. In response to the growing mistrust of African constables and officers, the colonial office encouraged a gradual Europeanisation of the Native Authority Police command and administration.62 The establishment of training pro- grammes and a school for Native Authority Police officers in Abeokuta run by European officers illustrates how an increase in European oversight mapped onto the turn towards repressive policing. The school’s curriculum included literacy courses (which were previously thought to be irrelevant to policemen who mostly patrolled the streets), surveillance, and, as of 1937, counter-espionage.63 Europeanisation was often predicated on the need for ‘efficiency’–Police Commissioner William King claimed in 1937 that ‘in a Police Force more than in any other department or body, efficiency and reliability depend on frequent and regular supervision of the lower units by European officers.’64 This represents a marked departure from the autonomy that colonial officials encouraged in Abeokuta twenty years before. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, the number of European officers with intelligence training seconded to Native Authority Police Forces increased, and this trend would not be reversed until the Africanisation initiatives of the late 1940s.65 This transition from a civic to a more political mandate can also be seen in seals, uniforms, and other markers of authority. The old EUG police had incor- porated into its regalia certain symbols associated with the Ode hunters’ society that had been active in Abeokuta in the nineteenth century. The personified oro drums of the Ode, Obete and Asipele, for example, were used in place of a police band, and they appeared on the official police seal. The drums were replaced with an image of the Alake’s palace after 1918. Likewise, police uniforms were important statements of political allegiance and orientation, and the changes that they underwent in the 1920s illustrate the larger administrative move towards expanding and standardising the mandate of Native Authority police. The standard undress uniform for an EUG policeman had consisted of khaki breeches, a gold-embroidered field service cap, and a blue serge jacket that policemen sewed beads into – making a visual connection to the beads and amulets with which the hunters who had once protected the town embellished THE JOURNAL OF IMPERIAL AND COMMONWEALTH HISTORY 485

their clothing.66 After the war the Native Authority decided that this outﬁt did not suﬃciently communicate authority, and uniforms were altered to resemble those of northern policemen.67 It is tempting to see the EUG’s use of such symbols as an iteration of the now familiar pattern of invented or imagined tradition, and it is important here not to ‘[blur] the distinction between legitimation and legitimacy,’ as J. F. Ade Ajayi once argued.68 However, it is meaningful that the Egba United Government gave a local gloss to the symbols of the police, and emphasised the institution’s connections with the Ode, while the Egba Native Authority that succeeded it made no attempt to do so. This illustrates a larger dynamic; the more repressive the mandate of a police force, the less it needs to invest in the appearance of popular legitimacy.

Conclusion Direct British involvement in Egba politics increased following the Adubi War, and the Native Authority police developed a political orientation to match. The transitions described here were not direct results of a single cause in the form of the Adubi War. Rather, they were enabled and encouraged by the reassessment of methods and priorities that the war brought about for the Alake, the Egba Native Administration, and the colonial government. The suppression of the Adubi War and the reforms it precipitated came to be seen as successes. By the 1930s, official memory of the episode wrote off its causes as ‘ignorant resent- ment against a recently established administrative system,’ and concluded that the subsequent ‘twenty years of fostering native institutions by means of “indirect rule” has induced a spirit of understanding and co-operation.’69 The particular form of ‘understanding and co-operation’ that resulted in Abeokuta was characterised by surveillance of political opponents, paranoia about the allegiances of the Native Authority’s subalterns, and an increasingly political role for an ostensibly civil police force. It was not a foregone conclusion that Native Authority Police Forces would become the repressive and corrupt institutions that they did. Towards the end of British rule, many colonial administrators decided that, on balance, the despotic qualities of indirect rule outweighed the progressive ones, and post-colonial historiography has generally come to the same conclusion. An understanding of how this happened requires looking back to indirect rule’s early days. Abeokuta’s history in the first decades of the twentieth century demonstrates that the politicisation of Native Authority Police Forces – including the surveillance and intimidation that they became known for – emerged in response to the spectre of revolt.

Notes

1. Okonkwo, Police and the Public, 11. 2. Killingray, “The Maintenance of Law,” 426. 486 S. F. C. DALY

3. Mamdani, Citizen and Subject; Spear, “Neo-Traditionalism and the Limits of Invention.” 4. Byfield, The Bluest Hands. 5. ‘Intelligence Report on Abeokuta,’ 1938, ECR 1/1, Egba Native Authority Archives, Abeokuta (hereafter ENAA). 6. Olopas E.N.A [anonymous] to A.P. Pullen, 28 Oct. 1944, CSO 26/2 17870 Vol. II, Nigerian National Archives, Ibadan (hereafter NNAI). 7. Ahire, The Emergence and Role of the Police, 128. 8. Anderson and Killingray, Policing the Empire,9. 9. Acting Secretary, Southern Provinces to Chief Secretary to the Government, Lagos, 13 June 1936, CSO 354/s.2 20384, NNAI. 10. Lawrance et al., Intermediaries, Interpreters, and Clerks,9. 11. Biobaku, The First 150 Years of the Egba,9. 12. Falola and Oguntomisin, Yoruba Warlords, 231. 13. Smith, Kingdoms of the Yoruba, 132. 14. Tucker, Abbeokuta; or, Sunrise Within the Tropics, 269. 15. Peel, Religious Encounter and the Making of the Yoruba, 270. 16. Pallinder-Law, “Aborted Modernization in West Africa?,” 65–82; Ikimẹ, “Colonial Conquest,” 258–9. 17. Atanda, The New Oyo Empire, 45. 18. ‘British West Africa,’ [1937], AbeProf 8, Memo. No. 241, NNAI. 19. Ajisafe, History of Abeokuta, 158–9. 20. Biobaku, The Egba and their Neighbours, 62. They had mixed success in doing so. 21. ‘Agreement for the lease of land on the Igbehin This [sic] from the Egba authorities for the purpose of building a residence, hospital,’ 21 Feb. 1899, AbeProf 8/7, NNAI. 22. Rotimi, The Police in a Federal State,5. 23. C. Punch to the Adjutant, Lagos Constabulary, 2 April 1901, AbeProf 9/2, NNAI. The investigation of thefts remained the main preoccupation of the EUG police for the force’s entire existence, with the second most common offense being public drunkenness. 24. C. Punch to the Resident, Abeokuta, 25 April 1901, AbeProf 9/2, NNAI. 25. MacGregor, “Lagos, Abeokuta and the Alake,” 177–8. 26. Ajisafe, The Laws and Customs of the Yoruba People, 29. 27. Tamuno, The Police in Modern Nigeria, 91. 28. ‘Memorandum: European Police Officers – Secondment to Native Authorities,’ 25 Feb. 1932 CSO 354/s.2 20384, NNAI. 29. Alake Ademola II to the Resident, Abeokuta, 5 May 1920, Ake 1/12, ENAA. 30. Newbury, “Patrons, Clients, and Empire,” 231. 31. Tamuno, The Police in Modern Nigeria, 91. 32. Johnson-Odim and Mba, For Women and the Nation,9. 33. Osuntokun, “Disaffection and Revolts,” 176. 34. H.T.B Dew to W.C. Syer, 31 May 1918, CO 583/72, National Archives of the United Kingdom (hereafter NAUK). 35. ‘Statement at Elere Village,’ 8 March 1918, AbeProf 8, NNAI. 36. ‘Mr J. B. Majekodunmi’s speech,’ 23 March 1918, CO 583/72, NAUK. 37. Nolte, “Chieftaincy and the State,” 372. 38. Perham, Native Administration, 72. 39. Generally, see Ausman, “The Disturbances in Abeokuta”; Gailey, Lugard and the Abeo- kuta Uprising. 40. ‘Statement of Adewolu Lupona of Owu,’ 26 Feb. 1918, CO 583/72, NAUK. THE JOURNAL OF IMPERIAL AND COMMONWEALTH HISTORY 487

41. Adubi to Chief Adenekan of Owu, 19 March 1918, CO 583/72, NAUK. 42. Livingstone to W.C. Syer, 28 June 1918, AbeProf 8, NNAI. 43. Livingstone to W.C. Syer, [July 1918], AbeProf 8, NNAI. 44. W.C. Syer to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, 3 June 1918, CO 583/72, NAUK. 45. ‘Meeting Held in the Government Court Hall, Abeokuta,’ 8 July 1918, AbeProf 8, NNAI. 46. Blue Book, 1917, C3; and Blue Book, 1923, 47. 47. P. Gardener to J. Hand, 13 April 1920, AbeProf 4/4 c9/1920, NNAI. 48. J. Hand to P. Gardener, 27 March 1920, AbeProf 4/4 c9/1920, NNAI. 49. Ibid. 50. Young, The African Colonial State, 171. 51. ‘C.C.N.P.’s comments Extracted from 31861/s.13/9-15,’ [1923], CSO 354/s.2 20384, NNAI. 52. Johnson-Odim and Mba, For Women and the Nation,9. 53. Ahire, Imperial Policing, 130. 54. Adegboyega Edun to the resident, Abeokuta, 9 March 1919, CO 583/72, NAUK. 55. Blue Book, 1938, Y1. 56. ‘Plague Duty,’ 2 Aug. 1922, Ake 2/1, ENAA. 57. Egba Administration Bulletin, 15 July 1925, ENAA; ‘Notes extracted from Criminal Cause Book, Oba Court,’ [1918], CO 583/72, NAUK. 58. Acting Secretary, Southern Provinces to Chief Secretary to the Government, Lagos, 13 June 1936, CSO 354/s.2 20384, NNAI. 59. Ibid. 60. A. Aston to R.M. Baddeley, 19 April 1929, CO 583/165/11, NAUK. 61. R.M. Baddeley to G. Nesit, 10 April 1929, CO 583/165/11, NAUK. 62. ‘Establishment, European Police Officers,’ Nov. 1937, CSO 26/09808, NNAI. 63. Secretary, Southern Provinces to the Resident, Abeokuta, 5 Dec. 1939, AbeProf 1:1559, NNAI. 64. William King, Commissioner of the Nigeria Police to the Chief Secretary to the Gov- ernment, Lagos, 16 Sep. 1937, CSO 26 09808, NNAI. 65. ‘Nigeria Police Officer Establishment and Duty Posts,’ 11 April 1944, CSO 26 09808, NNAI. ‘Europeanisation’ is a misleading term, as it often consisted of importing officers from elsewhere in the colonised world, including Sierra Leone, Malaya, and Mauritius. Police Commissioners in the 1930s and 1940s often preferred to fill their ranks with appointments from outside of Nigeria, which was widely resented by African officers. 66. ‘Southern Nigeria Forces Dress (obsolete),’ 1914, CSO 19 N/52/1914, NNAI. 67. P. Cass to Secretary of State for the Colonies, 12 Oct. 1918, CSO 19 N/52/1914, NNAI. 68. Ajayi, “Legitimacy Invented or Imagined?,” 527. 69. ‘Ministry of Information Publicity Division, British West Africa (general),’ 1937, AbeProf 8, NNAI.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conﬂict of interest was reported by the author.

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