Prior to 1914, no entity existed as Nigeria. As a matter of fact, no country was called Nigeria. What existed were two separate protectorates, the northern and southern protectorates. The protectorates were before the amalgamation, governed by Sir Frederick Lord Lugard....CONTINUE READING
Frederick Lugard was a British Administrator. He was trained as an army officer, and served in India, Egypt, and East Africa. Fredrick Lugard visited West Africa for the first time in 1895. Employed by the Royal Niger Company, he led an expedition to forestall a French efforts to establish a position on the lower Niger River.
Still under the employment of the Royal Niger Company, Lugard carried out military campaign to conquer Northern Nigeria.
It was the success of his military campaign in The North that made him to be appointed aa the first British High Commissioner to Northern Nigeria in January 1, 1900, after the control of the Royal Niger Company has been brought to an end, and the British administration established there. Already, before then, a separate and distinct protectorate had been established in Southern Nigeria.
When Frederick Lugard returned to Nigeria in 1912, after a brief stint as an administrator to Hong Kong, his mission was to merge the Northern and Southern protectorates to become Nigeria, a single entity And, on January 1,1914, Lugard announced the amalgamation of the two protectorates.
Thus, a new nation to be called Nigeria was born. That historic event is the reason that today, there exist the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Flora Shaw
It is important to throw light on the personality of this woman. Flora Shaw was the wife of Frederick Lugard. They were married in 1902. She was a journalist by profession and worked for the Times Magazine in London. She was the one that coined the name ‘Nigeria’ for the colony, for Royal Niger Company in 1897.
Before then, Nigeria was used to be known by different names such as, “Royal Niger Territory”, ” Niger Sudan”, “Niger Empire”, and so on..<<CONTINUE READING>>
