Mahinland

The Hamburg businessman Gottlieb Leonhard Gaiser [de] had a trading post in the British colony of Lagos and wanted to extend its interests in palm oil to the east along the coast and into the interior.

[5] German traders supported this request as they wanted to ensure their goods could reach the upper Niger region free of the duties applied by the British in the areas they controlled.

On 20 January 1885 Nachtigal steamed from Victoria (today Limbe, Cameroon) to Gogoro in the western Niger with the gunboat SMS Möwe and the Gaiser,[4][3] accompanied by the explorer and journalist Hugo Zöller.

[13]: 259 Chancellor Otto von Bismarck regarded territories such as Mahinland and Santa Lucia Bay [de], which he did not even bother to take under formal protection, as useful bargaining chips in his negotiations with the British; he did not see colonies as valuable in themselves.

Germany undertook not to establish any protectorates between Lagos in the west and Rio del Rey in the east, while Britain had already guaranteed the free navigation of the Niger at the Berlin Conference.