DIPLOMARBEIT Titel der Diplomarbeit The Colonial Public Sphere in Nigeria, 1920-1943 Verfasserin Mag. (FH) Katharina Oke angestrebter akademischer Grad Magistra der Philosophie (Mag.phil.) Wien, 2013 Studienkennzahl lt. Studienblatt: A 390 Studienrichtung lt. Studienblatt: Diplomstudium Afrikanistik Betreuerin: Dr. Heike Ingeborg Schmidt, M.A. ii Acknowledgements I want to express my gratitude to Christina, Ernst, and Gerda, who generously supported my studies. I want to thank Prof Heike Schmidt for continuous encouragement and support. Thank you Andrea, Christin, Elisa, Franziska, Johanna, Julia, Karina, Silvia, and Thea for your patience and backing. Vida – thank you for last-minute support! Thank you Mathilda and Olusegun. iii iv Contents Introduction ....................................................................................................................................... 1 Public Communication, Public Criticism, and the Public Sphere ........................................... 2 Sources and Methods..................................................................................................................... 5 Outline ............................................................................................................................................. 7 1 “The Old Order Changeth”? – Criticism and the Colonial State .......................... 9 1.1 Governing Public Communication ................................................................................ 9 1.2 The Newspapermen’s Duty .......................................................................................... 26 1.3 Summary .......................................................................................................................... 40 2 “At it Again!” – Structure and Mechanisms of the Public Sphere ...................... 43 2.1 Contesting Publics and Contested Representativeness ............................................. 46 2.2 Publicist Orientations .................................................................................................... 54 2.3 Publics and the Public Sphere of Representative Institutions ................................. 68 2.4 Summary .......................................................................................................................... 76 3 “Bidding Forth in its Nascent Growth” – Conceptions of Public Opinion ....... 78 3.1 On Public Opinion ......................................................................................................... 80 3.2 The Miseducation of Public Opinion .......................................................................... 89 3.3 Summary ........................................................................................................................ 102 Conclusion..................................................................................................................................... 103 Bibliography .................................................................................................................................. 110 Primary Sources .......................................................................................................................... 110 Secondary Sources...................................................................................................................... 112 Appendix .......................................................................................................................................... vii Summary ........................................................................................................................................ vii Zusammenfassung ........................................................................................................................ ix Curriculum Vitae ........................................................................................................................... xi v vi Introduction “THE old regime is dead and a new order of things is in the process of fashioning”1 [emphasis in original] – was the opening line of The Lagos Weekly Record from 10 January 1920. This refers to the relief felt by the people that the condition of a “military dictatorship”, when the law was no longer a means of protection but an instrument of oppression, was now over.2 Governor Frederick Lugard had left Nigeria in 1918, and the newly appointed Governor, Sir Hugh Clifford, arrived in Nigeria in August 1919.3 The occasion for the diagnosis that “The Old Order Changeth” – the title of the above mentioned article – was the first speech Clifford held in the Nigerian Council on December 29, 1919. For The Lagos Weekly Record it seemed like a new era was dawning. The study at hand commences in this atmosphere of departure. It investigates the colonial public sphere in Nigeria, 1920-1943, through a close reading of colonial archival records and the Lagosian press. It turns to imaginations of the arena of public communication and to utterances which potentially aimed to alter or contest colonial governance. Thereby, the goal of this study is three-fold. It is to examine the role of public criticism in the colonial state, the structure and mechanisms of the public sphere, and African conceptions of public opinion. Examining colonial and local debates about the form, substance, and purpose of the public sphere, the objective is to map power structures and contestations of colonial power and to draw conclusions about colonial hegemony, the media, and the public sphere. For The Lagos Weekly Record, Hugh Clifford heralded a new era with regard to public criticism. Clifford, who prided himself in being sensitive to public opinion4, embodied a “new approach” of colonial government that seemingly implied for the people cooperation with, close touch to and assisting the government.5 A contributor to The Lagos Weekly Record writing under the pseudonym Adetayo, referred to Clifford’s speech in his contribution “A National Weakness”, observing he was struck by the importance Clifford attaches to “public criticism in the moulding of official policy”6. He continues: “There is no desire to escape from political storm centres, to revel in the sweet atmosphere of autocratic and beaureauratic [sic] rule, but a readiness to face intelligent criticism of Governmental policies 1 The Old Order Changeth. In: The Lagos Weekly Record, 10. January 1920, p. 5. 2 Ibid. 3 Anthony Kirk-Greene, Lugard, Frederick John Dealtry (1858-1945). In: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford 2004. Hugh Clifford had been appointed as Governor of Nigeria in April that year. New Governor Of Nigeria. Appointment of Sir Hugh Clifford. In: The Times, 30. April 1919, p. 13. 4 Gabriel Olusanya, Constitutional Developments in Nigeria 1861-1960. In: Obaro Ikime (ed.): Groundwork of Nigerian History. 5th ed. Ibadan/Nairobi/Lusaka 2001, pp.518–544; p. 523. 5 The Old Order Changeth, 10. January 1920. 6 Adetayo, A National Weakness. In: The Lagos Weekly Record, 03. January 1920, p. 5. 1 and if needs be, to profit by them.”7 This approach is celebrated as “great change” in the closing sentence of “The Old Order Changeth”, creating a sense of urgency, delineating the necessity for all to “fit themselves”8 for the new order of things. Besides changing approaches to public criticism from the top, newspapermen, contributors, and politicians debated the form public criticism should take among each other. Adetayo deplores the habit of “corner grumbling” in groups of two and three prevailing in literary, political, and social organisations in Lagos, and calls for men to raise their voices “at the proper quarter and at the proper time”9. Both, colonial administrators and the governed discussed the colonial public sphere, the terrain of the political struggle.10 The study seeks to provide a better understanding of the importance of public media, in particular newspapers, for Nigerian nationalism. It looks into the ways Africans employed newspapers in their contestation of colonial power and investigates the broader context of print culture under colonial hegemony. Therefore, it contributes to the history of text production, rather than investigating nationalism through utterances published in newspapers.11 Public Communication, Public Criticism, and the Public Sphere Recent protests in the so called Arab world, such as the “Arab Spring” in 2011, or protests in Iran that followed the disputed re-election of President Mahmud Ahmadinejad in 2009, have drawn attention to the public sphere. According to Jürgen Habermas, the public sphere is a communication sphere open to “strangers”. It is located between the private realm and the sphere of public power.12 In it, individuals engage in public communication.13 Public criticism is voiced in the public sphere, and this criticism may eventually succeed in transforming authority. Protests in Iran, Egypt or the Philippines suggest that increasing accessibility of communication technologies – such as the internet or mobile phones – stimulates the 7 Adetayo, A National Weakness, 03. January 1920. 8 The Old Order Changeth, 10. January 1920, p.5. 9 Adetayo, A National Weakness, 03. January 1920. 10 Cf. David Scott, Refashioning Futures. Criticism After Postcoloniality. Princeton 1999, p. 31. 11 Cf. Benedict Anderson, Die Erfindung der Nation. Zur Karriere eines folgenreichen Konzepts. Exp. ed. Berlin 1998; Karin Barber (ed.), Africa’s Hidden Histories. Everyday Literacy and Making the Self. Bloomington 2006; Karin Barber, The Anthropology of