Saheed Aderinto's edited book Children and Childhood in Colonial Nigeria Histories is unique because it has extended the frontier of knowledge beyond the traditional concerns with juvenile delinquency and childhood education. Whomever reads this book will likely come to three major conclusions: first is that the delay in the emergence of the history of children as a subfield of history in Nigeria is not due to absence of data but the inability of historians to ‘mine the archives’. Second, mission education laid the foundation of modern conception of childhood while colonialism attempted to harmonize the experience of childhood. And the third is that historical understanding is indispensable in crisis management, particularly the problems of nation building in Nigeria. This well researched and carefully edited book has an introduction and eight chapters. The first chapter provides the foundation for the remainder of the book; Aderinto argues that while newspapers had been very useful in the documentation of anti-colonial agitation in Nigeria, they can also be used as valuable sources of children's history since they projected the image of children with global or transnational outlooks.
In Chapter Two, Simeon Heaps examines the condition of juvenile delinquents at the Salvation Army's Boy's Industrial Home between 1925 and 1940. The treatment of the delinquents as empty vessels to be molded, machines to be repaired, and flowers to be nurtured in the right environment produced such a positive result that the government was forced to modify the training curriculum to reduce the appeal of punishment and the benefits of crime.
Uyilawa Usualele examines the origin and extinction of the Ulago children masquerade in Benin between 1930 and 1980 in Chapter Three. He reveals that colonial migration, cultural borrowing, and adaptation played a major part in the emergence of the masquerade. The discussion shows how internal development in the country, particularly the civil war, the oil boom, free education, and the advent of the television contributed to the extinction of the art. In their contribution, Saheed Aderinto and Paul Osifodunrin reject the claim of the colonial government that the kidnapping trend of the 1950s in Lagos was a new development in the country. Citing examples that stretched back to the precolonial era, they contend that the phenomenon was no more than a phase in the history of violence against children. The focus of the fifth chapter, contributed by Adam Paddock, is the Boy Scouts Movement. Paddock shows how the colonial government used the organization to project the image of the ideal child as part of its civilizing mission.
The issue of child labor is still a major problem in Africa because of poverty and underdevelopment. The tin mines in Jos of the 1950s provided a good place to study the problem. In Chapter Six, Tokunbo Ayoola shows why the colonial administration, in spite of the pressure from the international labor organizations, could not prosecute the offenders. As a result of concern over the potential impact of prosecution on the Nigerian and British economies, he argues, ‘both Lagos and London sidestepped the issues by taking refuge in unnecessary technicalities and legalese’ (164).
How did the children born during the colonial period tell their own story? What do they tell us about childhood and the colonial state in general? These are some of the issues examined by Saheed Aderinto in Chapter Seven. Aderinto argues that autobiographies dealing with childhood memory can still be trusted since ‘conscious or unconscious fabrications of childhood memory have less political consequences than those of adulthood’ (171).
Abosede George provides an insight into the problem of street hawking in Lagos in the final chapter of the book, ‘Within Salvation: Girl Hawkers and the Colonial State in Development Era Lagos'. The way ideas and male leaders shaped policies, and how the cultural milieu compelled a distinction between the boy and girl hawkers, are brilliantly discussed.
There is no doubt that the book under review is an innovative work on children and childhood in colonial Nigeria. Nevertheless, it has a few shortcomings. For instance, in Chapter Five, Paddock argues that the Boys Scouts became a tool of nationalist and pan- Africanist agitations. It would require more than the establishment of Nigerian Rovers Crews in India and Burma to substantiate that claim. Secondly, Saheed Aderinto contributed about one third of the content of the book (the introduction and Chapters One and Six and part of Chapter Four). This could create the impression that the editor has taken advantage of his position to find an outlet for his publications. Nevertheless, the book should excite the interest of historians, sociologists, and human rights lawyers.
