Toyin Falola has worked extensively on both the impact of colonial rule and the role of violence in structuring social relations in Nigeria, and Colonialism and Violence in Nigeria clearly stands at the intersection of two significant areas of his research. Drawing on archival research as well as secondary sources, the book links and discusses a wide range of events from all over Nigeria, and only focuses on some in more detail. In this way, Falola provides useful links and material for a range of arguments, as well as giving prominence to case studies deserving of greater interest. The thrust of the book is not, however, concerned with specific locations or institutions but with the effects of colonial violence on Nigeria as a whole.
The author presents his case in seven chapters and a substantial conclusion. The first two chapters focus on the violence associated with the colonial conquest and with local forms of resistance to it, covering full-blown battles against recalcitrant kingdoms and emirates as well as wars of attrition, all of which were eventually won by the British because they both controlled superior technology and provided better training to their mostly African troops. In the face of such superiority, resistance based on decentralized forms of organization could be comparatively successful: while both the Yoruba kingdom of Ijebu and the Sokoto Caliphate were defeated in relatively short and decisive battles, organized anti-British guerrilla warfare among the western Igbo lasted for well over a decade. Meanwhile, although colonial violence was largely of an ad hoc nature, it reflected and confirmed notions of racial superiority that would influence both the behaviour of individual officers and the policies of colonial rule.
The third chapter examines the violence that accompanied the consolidation of British rule and especially the conflicts that occurred during the First World War. While several Nigerian groups hoped that the war would expand their options or liberate them, this period also saw some extreme cases of colonial violence, such as the ‘Ijemo massacre’ in Abeokuta (pp. 56–61). This conflict is particularly interesting because the British use of excessive force against an African polity that functioned along modern Western lines, which they then reorganized according to the principles of Indirect Rule, was based on what they perceived as African ‘tradition’.
Chapters four and five explore the violence surrounding the introduction of direct taxation, which led to resistance, especially in the southern and central parts of Nigeria. Chapter five is wholly dedicated to the anti-tax war of 1929. This was the first instance of an inter-ethnic rebellion in Nigeria, where Igbo, Opobo, and Ibibio women from south-eastern Nigeria fought together against an exploitative colonial state (pp. 108–30). What emerges clearly in these chapters is that anti-colonial violence was, in this period, much more prevalent in areas where colonial institutions (including Native Authorities, courts, and taxation) were local innovations. However, while the introduction of colonial institutions increased the similarities in local government throughout Nigeria, colonial officials were also increasingly prepared to accommodate local grievances and even to explain their activities – especially taxation – to Nigerians.
Chapters six and seven focus on the radical nationalism of the short-lived Zikist movement and the labour protests that Nigeria experienced during the 1940s, in the run-up to independence. Although the state again attempted to accommodate some demands, confrontations between the colonial state and radicalized Nigerians became more intense, and the late 1940s saw a moment in which a national anti-colonial platform became possible. However, as Falola acknowledges, the collapse of this platform in the early 1950s was due not to direct colonial violence but to dynamics internal to the Nigerian political elite, even though these also reflected the structural violence of the colonial project. In the conclusion, the author draws out some links between the colonial period and the present, suggesting that both the state and the police still mainly act in the interest of elite power, while at the same time suggesting that resistance against the state was often (mis?)directed against its more lowly African collaborators rather than at those in power. The main argument of this section – that the liberation of the state from its violent origins has not yet been realized – will ring true to many of those interested in Nigeria.
As Falola's assertion that colonial violence provided a template for Nigeria's postcolonial rulers is not part of his detailed structural analysis, it should be understood not as a strictly academic argument but also as a political statement: at a time when the study of Africa seems to be dominated by cultural and economic presentism, Falola asserts that contemporary problems must also be understood as the result of colonial history. As such, the book makes a valuable and thoughtful contribution to our understanding of the violence and exploitation associated with it. As most of the chapters will be useful for undergraduate and postgraduate teaching, Falola's explorations are not only a very welcome addition to the literature on Nigeria, but also germane to scholars and activists grappling with contemporary relations of power in Nigeria. Here, as everywhere, history matters.
