Colonial Nigeria (1861–1960)

Colonial Nigeria is the period of British rule, from the annexation of Lagos in 1861 to independence on 1 October 1960. According to the Library of Congress country study, Britain moved towards control of the lower Niger cautiously: after abolishing the slave trade it made treaties with local rulers, and Lagos became a colony in 1861, although a parliamentary report of 1865 still urged withdrawal from West Africa. Competition from France and Germany, and the Berlin Conference of 1885, changed that.

British control spread in stages. The Oil Rivers Protectorate (later the Niger Coast Protectorate) covered the Delta and the coast; force was used against Ijebu, Oyo and, in 1897, Benin, whose oba was exiled. The Royal Niger Company held the Niger and Benue until its charter was ended on 31 December 1899. From 1900 Frederick Lugard, as high commissioner of the Protectorate of Northern Nigeria, conquered the north; in 1903 his forces took Kano and Sokoto. He governed through the defeated emirs, a system known as indirect rule.

In 1914 Lugard merged the northern and southern protectorates into one Nigeria. The country study stresses that unification remained loose: the north and south were run differently, Christian missions were kept out of the Muslim north, and in the east appointed "warrant chiefs" with no traditional standing were strongly resisted. Nigerian soldiers fought in the First World War, and after 1920 part of the former German Cameroons was administered with Nigeria.

The colonial economy was built on exports such as palm produce, cocoa and rubber, on tin from the Jos Plateau, and on railways and ports. Nationalist politics grew from the 1920s: the 1922 constitution allowed a few elected members on the Legislative Council, and later parties included the NCNC (1944), the Action Group (1951) and the Northern People's Congress. Three constitutions between 1946 and 1954 moved the country towards self-government; the 1954 constitution established the federal principle, and the Western and Eastern regions became self-governing in 1957. Oil was first found in commercial quantity at Oloibiri in the Niger Delta in 1956 and exported from 1958.

After conferences at Lancaster House in London in 1957 and 1958, and elections in December 1959, Nigeria became independent on 1 October 1960.