[8] Through a progressive sequence of regimes, the British imposed Crown Colony government on much of the area of West Africa which came to be known as Nigeria, a form of rule which was both autocratic and bureaucratic.

Though the Europeans possessed many considerable settlements both upon the coast of Africa and in the East Indies, they have not yet established in either of those regions such numerous and thriving colonies as those in the islands and continent of the America."

[citation needed] Earlier elements related to this were its founding of the Sierra Leone Colony in 1787 as a refuge for freed slaves, the independent missionary movement intended to bring Christianity to the Edo Kingdom, and programs of exploration sponsored by learned societies and scientific groups, such as the London-based African Association.

In 1794, the African Association in Great Britain commissioned Mungo Park, an intrepid Scottish physician and naturalist, to search for the headwaters of the Niger and follow the river downstream.

His mission failed, but Park and his party covered more than 1,500 kilometres (930 mi), passing through the western portions of the Sokoto Caliphate, before drowning when their boats overturned in rapids near Bussa.

On a subsequent expedition to the Sokoto Caliphate, Scottish explorer Hugh Clapperton learned about the mouth of the Niger River, and where it reached the sea, but after suffering malaria, depression and dysentery, he died before confirming it.

Laird's efforts were stimulated by the detailed reports of a pioneer German explorer, Heinrich Barth, who travelled through much of Borno and the Sokoto Caliphate, where he recorded information about the region's geography, economy and inhabitants.

In the face of threats to the divided Yoruba states from Dahomey and the Sokoto Caliphate, as represented by the emirate of Ilorin, the British Governor—assisted by the CMS—succeeded in imposing peace settlements on the interior.

[33] After the Berlin Conference of 1884, Britain announced the formation of the Oil Rivers Protectorate, which included the Niger Delta and extended eastward to Calabar, where the British Consulate General was relocated from Fernando Po.

Officials of the Sokoto Caliphate considered these treaties quite differently; from their perspective, the British were granted only extraterritorial rights that did not prevent similar arrangements with the Germans and the French and certainly did not surrender sovereignty.

The Emirs and chiefs who are appointed will rule over the people as of old-time and take such taxes as are approved by the High Commissioner, but they will obey the laws of the Governor and will act in accordance with the advice of the Resident.

Trained as an army officer, he had served in India, Egypt and East Africa, where he expelled Arab slave traders from Nyasaland and established British presence in Uganda.

During his six-year tenure as High Commissioner, Sir Frederick Lugard (as he became in 1901) was occupied with transforming the commercial sphere of influence inherited from the Royal Niger Company into a viable territorial unit under effective British political control.

In the Northern Region, the colonial government took careful account of Islam and avoided any appearance of a challenge to traditional values that might incite resistance to British rule.

As the emirs settled more and more into their role as reliable agents of indirect rule, colonial authorities were content to maintain the status quo, particularly in religious matters.

In practice, British administrative procedures under indirect rule entailed constant interaction between colonial authorities and local rulers—the system was modified to fit the needs of each region.

British business interests wanted to use this to create a monopoly over the industry, but Prime Minister H. H. Asquith's Liberal government and subsequent war coalition favored allowing international free trade.

He was contemptuous of the educated and Westernised African elite found more in the South, and he recommended transferring the capital from Lagos, the cosmopolitan city where the influence of these people was most pronounced, to Kaduna in the north.

He was aware that the Muslim north would present problems, but he had hopes for progress along the lines which he laid down in the south, where he anticipated "general emancipation" leading to a more representative form of government.

The experiment began in 1890 and was repealed in 1939,[71] Uneasy with the amount of latitude allowed traditional rulers under indirect rule, Clifford opposed further extension of the judicial authority held by the northern emirs.

[67] The Colonial Office, where Lugard was still held in high regard, accepted that changes might be due in the south, but it forbade fundamental alteration of procedures in the north.

[78] After establishing political control of the country, the British implemented a system of taxation in order to force the indigenous Africans to shift from subsistence farming to wage labour.

Alienated by the anonymity of the urban environment and drawn together by ties to their ethnic homelands—as well as by the need for mutual aid—the new city dwellers formed local clubs that later expanded into federations covering whole regions.

Although Azikiwe later came to be recognised as the leading spokesman for national unity, when he first returned from university training in the United States, his outlook was pan-African rather than nationalist, and emphasised the common African struggle against European colonialism.

The Action Group was largely the creation of Chief Obafemi Awolowo, General Secretary of Egbe Omo Oduduwa and leader of the Nigerian Produce Traders' Association.

The Action Group was thus the heir of a generation of flourishing cultural consciousness among the Yoruba and also had valuable connections with commercial interests that were representative of the comparative economic advancement of the Western Region.

Although his own ambitions were limited to the Northern Region, Bello backed the NPC's successful efforts to mobilize the north's large voting strength so as to win control of the national government.

The small contingent of northerners who had been educated abroad—a group that included Abubakar Tafawa Balewa and Aminu Kano—was allied with British-backed efforts to introduce gradual change to the emirates.

By extending the elective principle and by providing for a central government with a Council of Ministers, the Macpherson Constitution gave renewed impetus to party activity and to political participation at the national level.

The Action Group, which staged a lively campaign, favoured stronger government and the establishment of three new states while advocating the creation of a West Africa Federation that would unite Nigeria with Ghana and Sierra Leone.