World War I and the Rise of African Nationalism: Nigerian Veterans as Catalysts of Change

James K. Matthews

doi:10.1017/S0022278X00056949

World War I and the Rise of African Nationalism: Nigerian Veterans as Catalysts of Change

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 November 2008

James K. Matthews

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James K. Matthews: Affiliation:
Historian, Department of the Air Force, Headquarters Strategic Air Command, Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska

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The enlistment and conscription of combatants and non-combatants in Nigeria during World War I represented an unprecedented mobilisation of the country's labour force. In September 1914, the Nigeria Regiment supplied shock troops for the Cameroons Expeditionary Force, and in December 1917 the Nigeria Overseas Contingent entered the campaign in Tanganyika. By September 1919, when Nigeria's military recruitment drive ended, 17,000 combatants, 2,000 enlisted carriers, and some 35,000 non-enlisted carriers had participated in the Southern Caméroons and German East Africa campaigns. In addition, the British recruited thousands of Nigerians for military service along Nigeria's northern and eastern borders, and for related duties inside the country.

Type: Africana
Information: The Journal of Modern African Studies , Volume 20 , Issue 3 , September 1982 , pp. 493 - 502

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022278X00056949 [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1982

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^{page 493 note 1} The author was greatly assisted during his stay in Nigeria by Obaro Ikime and Robert Smith of the History Department of the University of Ibadan, and wishes to dedicate his article to the memory of John Barrett, whose study of ‘The Rank and File of the Colonial Army in Nigeria, 1914–18’ was published in this Journal, Vol. 15, No. 1, March 1976, pp. 105–15.Google Scholar

^{page 493 note 2} For somewhat conflicting statistics on Nigerian and other British West African World War I combatants and non-combatants, see Public Records Office, Kew Gardens, Colonial Office, ‘Reorganization of the WAFF and KAR’, 5 May 1919, CO 445/48/27111; A. H. W. Haywood to Secretary of State for the Colonies, London, ‘Manpower – Native Races of West Africa’, 3 July 1923, CO 537/954; and Minute by MajorBeattie, , 27 09 1917Google Scholar, CO 445/44/48141. One difficulty, unresolved by the Colonial or War Office, was how to distinguish between ‘enlisted’ and ‘recruited’ carriers, between ‘porters’ and ‘carriers’, and between ‘labourers’ and ‘carriers’ SirClifford, Hugh to Colonial Office, 11 03 1921Google Scholar, CO 445/56/16908.

For a discussion of the rôle played by West Africans during World War I, see Matthews, James K., ‘Nigerian Military Experiences in the First World War: recruitment, service, and postwar change’, Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Santa Barbara, 03 1981Google Scholar; also Killingray, David and Matthews, James K., ‘Beasts of Burden: British West African Carriers in the First World War’, in Canadian Journal of African Studies (Ottawa), XIII, 1–2, Winter, 1979, pp. 6–23.Google Scholar

^{page 493 note 3} Similar conclusions have been reached by other scholars of Third-World nations. See Page, Melvin Eugene, ‘Malawians in the Great War and After, 1914–1925’, Ph.D. dissertation, Michigan State University, 1977Google Scholar, and Ellenwood, DeWitt C., ‘The Indian Soldier, the Indian Army, and Change, 1914–1918’, in Ellenwood, and Pradhan, S. D. (eds.), India and World War I (Columbia, 1978).Google Scholar

^{page 494 note 1} White, Stanhope, Dan Bana (London, 1966), p. 186.Google Scholar

^{page 494 note 2} Moran, G. W., ‘Report on Training Centres’, 3 09 1917Google Scholar, Nigeria National Archives, Ibadan, 20/5 NC 158/17.

^{page 494 note 3} Ukpabi, Samson, ‘Military Recruitment and Social Mobility in Nineteenth Century British West Africa’, in Journal of African Studies (Washington, D.C.), 11, 1, 1975, pp. 87–107.Google Scholar

^{page 494 note 4} Interviews conducted in July 1979 with No. 23411, ex-Sgt. Major Gbadamoshi Adedeji, Iwo; No. 15307, ex-Private Oyeleke, Ibadan; No. 1325, ex-Corporal Afalabi, Ibadan; No. 4463, ex-Private Baba Tunde, Ibadan; and No. 32584, ex-Private Adeyemi, Ibadan.

^{page 494 note 5} Ukpabi, loc.cit.

^{page 494 note 6} Interviews, Adedeji, Oyelek, Afalabi, Baba Tunde, and Adeyemi.

^{page 495 note 1} Page, op.cit. and Ellenwood, loc.cit. have made similar observations.

^{page 495 note 2} Migeod, F. W. H., A View of Sierra Leone (London, 1926), p. 186.Google Scholar

^{page 495 note 3} ‘A Reader of West Africa in East Africa’, in West Africa (London), 11 11 1919.Google Scholar

^{page 495 note 4} Ibid.

^{page 495 note 5} Railway Department to Central Secretary, 16 January 1918, CSO 19/6 N 446/18; Central Secretary to AG Base, Dar es Salaam, 25 March 1918, CSO 19/6 N 607/18; Treasury Department (Hyatt?) to Central Secretary, 31 December 1919, CSO 19/8 N 49/20. This unit, which included men from the Gold Coast, sailed to Dar es Salaam in late 1917 and returned to Lagos and Accra in mid–1919.

^{page 495 note 6} Lugard, to Law, A. B., 1 12 1916, CO 583/50/844.Google Scholar

^{page 496 note 1} E. St. C. Stobart, ‘A Record of the Doings of the Nigeria Regiment during the Campaign in German East Africa, December 1916 – December 1917’, 12 April 1919, CO 445/47/28875.

^{page 496 note 2} Interview, Oyeleke.

^{page 496 note 3} Interview, Baba Tunde.

^{page 496 note 4} Interview, Oyeleke.

^{page 496 note 5} J. Beringer, Medical Officer of Health, Lagos, to Andrew Boyle, Acting Governor-General, 30 October 1918, CO 583/74/28850.

^{page 496 note 6} Haywood, Colonel A. H. W. and Clarke, Brigadier F. A. S., The History of the Royal West African Frontier Force (Aldershot, 1964), p. 319.Google Scholar

^{page 497 note 1} Boyle, Andrew to Secretary of State for the Colonies, 20 10 1918Google Scholar, CSO 19/6 N 2736/18.

^{page 497 note 2} Colonial Office to Lugard, 27 March 1919; ibid.

^{page 497 note 3} G. W. Moran, ‘Report on Training Centres’, 26 January 1918, CO 445/44/18468; Cunliffe's ‘Recommendations for Reorganization of the West African Frontier Force’, in Boyle to Milner, March 1919, CO 445/47/23456.

^{page 497 note 4} Killingray, David, ‘The Idea of a British Imperial Army’, in The Journal of African History (Cambridge), 20, 3, 1979, pp. 421–6.CrossRef Google Scholar See also his Ph.D. dissertation, ‘The Colonial Army in the Gold Coast: official policy and local response, 1890–1947’, University of London, 1982.

^{page 497 note 5} Haywood and Clarke, op.cit. p. 323.

^{page 497 note 6} Feneran, E. C. to Cunliffe, , 26 12 1918Google Scholar; Sargent, T. to Cunliffe, , 9 02 1919Google Scholar; and Mann, G. D. to Cunliffe, , 26 12 1918Google Scholar; CO 445/47/23456.

^{page 497 note 7} T. M. Russell Leonard to Cunliffe, n.d., ibid.

^{page 498 note 1} Feneran, E. C. to Cunliffe, , 26 12 1918Google Scholar; Sargent, T. to Cunliffe, , 9 03 1919Google Scholar; and Mann, G. D. to Cunliffe, , 26 12 1918Google Scholar; CO 445/47/23456.

^{page 498 note 2} Haywood, and Clarke, , op.cit. p. 319.Google Scholar

^{page 498 note 3} Lt. Gibb, Colonel to Cunliffe, , 1 03 1919Google Scholar, CO 445/47/23456.

^{page 498 note 4} Major Commanding 4th Training Centre, Ibadan, , to Jenkins, , 13 04 1917Google Scholar, CSO 19/5 N 1079/17.

^{page 498 note 5} Cunliffe, to Boyle, , 03 1919Google Scholar, CO 445/47/23456; and Haywood to Clifford, 25 May 1920, CO 445/58/29804.

^{page 498 note 6} Sargent, J., Acting Commandant, to Governor-General, 18 07 1921Google Scholar, CO 445/56/4228.

^{page 498 note 7} ‘Report of the Inspector General for 1922’, Kaduna (?), 28 May 1923, CO 4 5/62/26548.

^{page 498 note 8} Clarke, F. A. S., ‘Recollections of an Area Commander in Africa’, in Journal of the Royal United Service Institute (London), xciv, 1949, pp. 20–45Google Scholar; also Haywood and Clarke, op.cit. pp. 331–480.

^{page 499 note 1} Interviews, Baba Tunde and Adedeji.

^{page 499 note 2} Nigeria and the Great War (Lagos, n.d.), CSO 19/5 N 1735/17. On p. 20 there is a photograph entitled ‘The Tower of Babel – 12 men from one company, MI all of different tribes. Top row: Dekkakerri, Zeberma/Arriwa, Berri-Berri, Senegalese, Fulani. Bottom: Bauchi, Pagan, Barbarimis, Buzu, Hausa, Shewa Arba, Beddi’.

^{page 499 note 3} Haywood, to Clifford, , 22 04 1920Google Scholar, CO 445/51/29803.

^{page 499 note 4} My research disclosed no documentation on the existence of a veterans association, and none of those I interviewed had ever joined or even heard of such a group. In addition, Chief Olyonu of Ibadan, who was instrumental in establishing the Nigeria Legion, which brought together a number of post-World War II ex-servicemen's organisations in 1964, and Colonel Akafar, the Secretary of the Nigeria Legion, Ibadan, told me that they had been unable to find any record of post-World War I veterans associations.

^{page 500 note 1} See Ward, Steven R. (ed.), The War Generation: veterans of the First World War (New York, 1975)Google Scholar, for studies of British, American, French, Italian, and German veterans associations.

^{page 500 note 2} Ukpabi, Samson, ‘The Changing Role of the Military in Nigeria, 1900–1970’, in Afrika Spectrum (Hamburg), 76/1, pp. 61–77.Google Scholar

^{page 500 note 3} Allen, Victor of Lagos, West Africa, 17 01 1920.Google Scholar

^{page 501 note 1} Interview, Adedeji.

^{page 501 note 2} See Matthews, James K., ‘Clock Towers for the Colonised: demobilisation of the Nigerian military and the readjustment of its veterans to civilian life, 1918–1925’, in International Journal of African Historical Studies (New York), 14, 2, 1981, pp. 254–71.Google Scholar

^{page 501 note 3} Interview, Baba Tunde.

^{page 501 note 4} Allen, Victor, West Africa, 11 10 1919.Google Scholar

^{page 501 note 5} Colonial Office minute by Colonel Jenkins, 15 October 1919, CO 583/76/51430.

^{page 502 note 1} Allen, Victor, West Africa, 11 10 1919.Google Scholar

^{page 502 note 2} Osuntokun, Akinjide, Nigeria in the First World War (Atlantic Highlands, 1979), p. 297.Google Scholar

^{page 502 note 3} See Matthews, James K., ‘Reluctant Allies: Nigerian responses to military recruitment, 1914–1918’, in Melvin E. Page (ed.), Black Men in a White Men's War (forthcoming).Google Scholar

^{page 502 note 4} Palmer, to Lugard, , 2 03 1917Google Scholar, CO 583/63/3057.

^{page 502 note 5} Memorandum from E. M. Falk to Resident, Owerri, 20 May 1919, NNA, Owerri Provincial Papers.

^{page 502 note 6} Interview, Adedeji. For similar accounts in West Africa, see Thomas, Roger, ‘Military Recruitment in the Gold Coast during the First World War’, in Cohiers d'études afncaines (Paris), xv, 57, 1975. pp. 57–83.Google Scholar

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