Historical+and+Political-+Anna+S.

[|Portuguese explorers] were the first Europeans to reach Nigeria, giving Lagos its present name after the Portuguese town of [|Lagos], in [|Algarve]. Portuguese [|surnames] remain very common in Nigeria. Following the [|Napoleonic Wars], the British expanded trade with the Nigerian interior. In 1885 British claims to a West African sphere of influence received international recognition and in the following year the [|Royal Niger Company] was chartered under the leadership of Sir [|George Taubman Goldie]. In 1900 the company's territory came under the control of the British government, which moved to consolidate its hold over the area of modern Nigeria. On January 1, 1901 **Nigeria** became a British [|protectorate], part of the [|British Empire], the foremost world power at the time. In 1914, the area was formally united as the //Colony and Protectorate of Nigeria//. Administratively, Nigeria remained divided into the northern and southern provinces and Lagos colony. Western education and the development of a modern economy proceeded more rapidly in the south than in the north, with consequences felt in Nigeria's political life ever since. Following World War II, in response to the growth of Nigerian [|nationalism] and demands for independence, successive constitutions legislated by the British Government moved Nigeria toward [|self-government] on a representative and increasingly federal basis. By the middle of the 20th century, the great wave for independence was sweeping across Africa.

=Top of the Hill= [|Previous] - [|Up] - [|Next] Enugu State is one of the 36 states in the Nigerian federation and was created in 1991 from the eastern two-thirds of Anambra State. Less formally, it is also known as the Wawa state, because the people in this area respond with ‘wa’ (used as an emphasising ‘no’) rather than ‘mba’ used in other parts of Igboland.

Located in the southeast of the country, Enugu spreads its borders to the states of Kogi and Benue to the north, Ebonyi to the east, Abia and Imo to the south and Anambra to the west, covering an area of around 8,730 km2.

Its landscape changes from tropical dense rain forest in the south to small round-topped hills covered by open grasslands with occasional clusters of woodland in the middle to sometimes almost sandy savannah in the north. The state includes most of the Udi-Nsukka plateau, a pair of plateaus that form a nearly continuous elevated area. The Nsukka plateau extends about 130 km from Nsukka in the north, to Enugu in the south and continues southward for about 160 km to Okigwe. It rises more than 300 metres and its highest part is found 20 km northwest of Enugu. The steep slopes form spectacular views of the hills and lowlands, broken up by numerous streams and rivulets feeding the Niger and Benue rivers.

With a population of about 3 million, Enugu State is home to the Igbo speaking peoples, widely noted for their industry, entrepreneurship, resourcefulness, travelling and most importantly hospitality (it is custom to greet people very warmly first, asking about their family and health, before starting any business). The Igbos have had long contact with western influences and English is spoken widely. Christianity is the major religion, mostly due to the history of contact with the west in the pre-colonial period. Farming and trading constitute the key occupations in the state’s economy: yam, cassava and palm-oil products are the main crops, but corn, rice, pumpkin, melon, beans, okra, avocado, pineapple and even cashew nuts are cultivated as well.

Enugu town, the state capital, lies at the foot of the Udi hills and is surrounded by attractive stretched hills and lies at an altitude of 240 metres above sea level. Conformably, its name consists out of the 2 words ‘Enu’ (top) and ‘Ugwu’ (hill) resulting to ‘top of the hill’.

Enugu was founded in 1909, when Mr. Kikson, a British Mining Engineer, stumbled on large coal reserves in the Udi ridge while looking for silver. Lord Lugard, the then Colonial Governor, took keen interest in the unexpected discovery, and by 1914 the first shipment of coal was made. Port Harcourt still thanks its existence to these mining shipments. Attracted by the increasing mining activities, Iva Valley, Coal Camp and Asata were established by foreign enterpreneurs and the indigenous labourers.

Enugu acquired township status in 1917 and was called Enugwu-Ngwo, but because of the rapid expansion towards areas owned by other indigenous communities, the city was renamed in 1928 to Enugu.

The British became more aware of the strategic interests of this area, and other foreign businesses began to move into Enugu. In 1939, Enugu became the capital of the Eastern Provinces of Nigeria, during which period most of the colonial style buildings were constructed. The colonial charm is still witnessed in the old government buildings and mansions in the Government Reserved Area (GRA), a civil servant’s housing district exclusively reserved for administrative staff. It became the administrative city of the eastern region when the country was divided in three areas in 1951.

Enugu became more diversified in the 1960’s with the creation of the industrial estate of Emene. Located near the airport, steel pipes, asbestos, cement products, and oxygen and acetylene gases were manufactured. Presently, it also includes a large Mercedes Anamco truck assembly plant. Most scholars have argued that Igbo society was "stateless" and that the Igbo region did not evolve centralized political institutions before the colonial period. According to this theory, the relatively egalitarian Igbo lived in small, selfcontained groups of villages organized according to a lineage system that did not allow social stratification. An individual's fitness to govern was determined by his wisdom and his wisdom by his age and experience. Subsistence farming was the dominant economic activity, and yams were the staple crop. Land, obtained through inheritance, was the measure of wealth. Handicrafts and commerce were well developed, and a relatively dense population characterized the region.



Despite the absence of chiefs, some Igbo relied on an order of priests, chosen from outsiders on the northern fringe of Igboland, to ensure impartiality in settling disputes between communities. Igbo gods, like those of the Yoruba, were numerous, but their relationship to one another and to human beings was essentially egalitarian, thereby reflecting Igbo society as a whole. A number of oracles and local cults attracted devotees, while the central deity, the earth mother and fertility figure, Ala, was venerated at shrines throughout Igboland.

The weakness of this theory of statelessness rests on the paucity of historical evidence of precolonial Igbo society. There are huge lacunae between the archaeological finds of Igbo Ukwu, which reveal a rich material culture in the heart of the Igbo region in the eighth century A.D., and the oral traditions of the twentieth century. In particular, the importance of the Nri Kingdom, which appears to have flourished before the seventeenth century, often is overlooked. The Nri Kingdom was relatively small in geographical extent, but it is remembered as the cradle of Igbo culture. Finally, Benin exercised considerable influence on the western Igbo, who adopted many of the political structures familiar to the Yoruba-Benin region.

Within the village, people were grouped according to families, with the eldest man in the family having the most power. On matters affecting the whole village, an assembly of adult men debated courses of action, and men could influence these assemblies by purchasing "titles" from the tribal elders. This system encouraged hard work and the spread of wealth. People who transgressed against the laws and customs of the village had to confront the egwugwu, an assembly of tribesmen masked as spirits, who would settle disputes and hand out punishment. Individual villages also attained various degrees of political status. In the novel, other tribes respect and fear Umuofia. They believe that Umuofia's magic is powerful and that the village's war-medicine, or agadinwayi, is particularly potent. Neighboring clans always try to settle disputes peacefully with Umuofia to avoid having to war with them.

English Bureaucrats and Colonization After the arrival of the British, when conflicts came up between villages the white government would intervene instead of allowing villagers to settle them themselves. In the novel, a white District Commissioner brings with him court messengers whose duty it is to bring in people who break the white man's law. The messengers, called "Ashy-Buttocks" for the ash-colored shorts they wear, are hated for their high-handed attitudes. These messengers and interpreters were often African Christian converts who looked down on tribesmen who still followed traditional customs. If violence involved any white missionaries or bureaucrats, British soldiers would often slaughter whole villages instead of seeking and punishing guilty individuals. The British passed an ordinance in 1912 that legalized this practice, and during an uprising in 1915, British troops killed more than forty natives in retaliation for one dead and one wounded British soldier. One of the most important results of Europe's colonization of Africa was the division of Africa into at least fifty nation-states. Rather than being a part of a society determined by common language and livelihood, Africans lived according to political boundaries. The divisions often split ethnic groups, leading to tension and sometimes violence. The cohesiveness of the traditional society was gone.