Sir Frederick Lugard, who had been appointed Governor of both Northern and Southern Protectorates in 1912, became the first Governor of a united Nigeria.
The country continued in this form until 1954 when 4
a new Constitution came into force. This Constitution created t h e .Federation of Nigeria, consisting of the Federal Territory of Lagos and three Regions, based upon the traditional ethnic groupings of the three main tribes, that is, Hausa/Fulani in the Northern Region, the Yorubas in the West, and the Igbos in the East. In each Region, in addition to the dominant tribe, there were a number of minority groups.
1. See generally Burns, 1969, pp. 217-22; F.D.Lugard, Nigeria: Report on the Amalgamation of Northern and Southern Nigeria and A d m i n i s t r a t i o n , 1900-1919, Cmd. 468, London, 1920.
2. See Nigeria: "Report by Sir F.D.Lugard on the Amalgamation of Northern and Southern Nigeria and A d m i n i stration, 1900- 1919", Cmd 468.
3. For a full discussion of the amalgamation generally, see Margery Perham, Lugard: The Years of Authority, 1891-1945,
(London: Collins, 1956-60) Vol.II, Chapter XX; See also E.D. Morel, Nigeria, its Peoples and its P r o b l e m s , 2nd edition, (London: Macmillan, 1912); Crowder,pp. 188-206. 4. See Federal Constitution of Nigeria, 1954.
5. See further Coleman, 1965, op., c i t .. pp. 369-408; Crowder,
o p . cit., pp. 224-36; Kalu Ezera, Constitutional Developments in N i g e r i a , (London: Cambridge University Press, 1964);
Frederick A. Schwarz, Nigeria: The Tribes, the Nation, or the Race - The Politics of I n d e pendence. (London: M.I.T. Press, 1 9 6 5 . In 1963, a portion of the Western Region was detached to form a fourth Region - the Mid-Western Region.
(VI) The post-Independence era
Nigeria became an independent country on 1 October I960, followed in 1963 by the. creation'of the Republic of • Nigeria."^
In 1963, a new Region, the Mid-Western Region, was
2
carved out of the Western Region.
In 1966, the country suffered two successive military coups, followed in 1967 by a bloody civil war which lasted
until 1970.3
The immediate cause of the war was the attempt by the Eastern Region to secede from the Nigerian Federation and to establish the independent republic of Biafra. Although the war affected the whole country, the peoples of the former
Eastern Region bore the heaviest toll, and at the end of the war in 1970, not only had they lost a significant proportion
of their population, but in many cases, all their material p o s s e s s s i o n s . Men may be the main casualties on the battle field, but women are the princip&t sufferers in any war. Not only did women of the Eastern Region lose their fathers,
husbands and sons, but, in many cases, they lost their dignity, by wide scale rape, brutality, and other forms of degradation. It is important to bear this point in mind, and the impact of the war and its effect on women and marital life will be
ventilated at various points of this thesis. It is pertinent to note, however, that "it's an ill wind that blows nobody good", and in some respects, the war had a beneficial
repercussion on the status of women. For example, during the war many women were forced to assume new responsibilities;
1. See Nigeria Independence Act, I960 (8 and 9> Eliz. 2.C.55); and Constitution of the Federation Act, 1963> No. 20 of 1963. See also Oluwole I. Odumosu, The Nigerian
Constitution: History and D e v elopment. (London: Sweet and Maxwell, 1963).
2. See the Mid-Western Region Act 1962, No. 6 of 1962, L.N. 96 of 1963.
3. See N.U. Akpan, The Struggle for Secession, 1966-1970- A Personal Account of the Nigerian Civil War (London: Frank . Cass, 19?l); John tie St. Jore, frhe Nigerian Civil W a r ,
(London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1972); John J. Stremlau, The International Politics of the Nigerian Civil W a r ,
often they were the sole breadwinners of the family when the men were too scared to venture out for fear of being conscripted into the ..army. After the. war, they, asserted an independence hitherto unknown t o y m e n in some communities, for example, E k e t .^
In 1 9 6 7 , Nigeria was divided into twelve States in- 2
stead of the three previous R e g i o n s .
In 1976, after another bloody coup in 1 9 7 5 , this division into twelve States was replaced by one of nineteen States with the Federal Territory. The present States are Anambra, Bauchi, Bendel, Benue, Borno, Cross River, Gongola, Imo, Kaduna, Kano, Kwara, Lagos, Niger, Ogun, Ondo, Oyo, Plateau, Rivers and Sokoto.^
B. Nigerian Women
(I) Introduction
"There is no such thing as Nigerian women. There are only Igbo women, Yoruba woman, Hausa/Fulani women, and hundreds of others’1.
This is the emphatic statement of an eighty year old Igbo Chief. He continues, 11 It is the British who created
Nigeria, not God, we are all different."
This was his way of expressing the historical fact that the political entity now known as Nigeria, described as
h
"Africa's Goliath" , only came into existence around the
1. Many male informants in Eket stated that it was difficult to relegate women to their former, docile and servile status, after the Nigerian Civil War, and this caused the break-up of many homes.
2. See States (Creation and Transitional Provisions) Decree, 1967, S.l, Decree No. 14 of 1967.
3. See States (Creation and Transitional Provisions) Decree, 1976, secs. 1 and 6 and the Schedule, Decree No. 12 of
1976, Laws of the Federation of Nigeria; The Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1979* First Schedule Part 1; and Map I, p . 6 5 .
4. See John Hatch, Nigeria: A H i s t o r y , (London, Heinemann Educational Books, Ltd., 1971) p . 9.
beginning of the present century. Before this, as previously noted, there was only a multiplicity, of tribal groups, living at various levels of technological development with little or no contact with each other ranging in size from a few
thousands to many m i l l i o n s ; speaking between them two hundred and fifty or more dialects; presenting cultural contrasts in social structure, religion and customs; and having different
. .
2and more often than not, obscure origins.
How far justified is the old C h i e f Ts assertion? This is not an appropriate forum to engage in a political debate as to how and when a group of different tribes can accurately be described as a nation. It may be pertinent to point out, however, that the welding of a diversity of tribes into a "nation" or "state" is not a problem peculiar to
Nigeria. A similar process has occurred in most countries of the world. For example, British women include English,
Scottish, Welsh and Irish women, each group of which can be broken down into further sub-tribes. The only difference being that the diversity among Nigerian tribes, has not, as in other countries, been mellowed by the passage of time. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland has existed for nearly three centuries, Nigeria for little more than three d e c a d e s . It is difficult to find any contemporary nation that did not b e gin as a geographical expression, in one form or another, from its,already existing heterogeneous socio
cultural systems. Nigeria is thus not unique
1. A variety of links existed between the various states and peoples which were the predecessors of modern Nigeria; between Kanem-Bornu the Hausa States, Nupe, the Jukun kingdom, the Empires of Oyo and Benin, the Delta States and the loosely associated Igbo communities, see Thomas Hodgkin, Nigerian Perspectives: An Historical A n t h o l o g y , 2nd e d i t i o n (I960, London: Oxford University Press, 1975), p . 2; Cf. Obafemi Awolowo, Path to Nigerian Freedom.
(London: Faber and Faber, 19^7), p.^7- "Nigeria is not a nation. It is a mere geographical expression... The word 'Nigerian1 is merely a distinctive appellation to distin guish those who live within Nigeria from those who do not." 2. Hatch, Nigeria: A H i s t o r y , o p . cit., pp. 9, 12-16; see
J.E. Adetoro, The Handbook of Education in N i g e r i a . 3rd edition, (Ibadan: African Educational Press, 19^6), pp.1-9; Burns, 1969, op. cit., p. 25.
in this respect. ^
Even though the term "Nigerian women" is acceptable as an accurate general description of the women to w hom this
work relates, it is still necessary, for the better understanding of the topics dealt with later, to locate the various groups
of women in their geographical, tribal and historical p e rspect ives. A sustained and systematic account of the complex and diverse histories of the various peoples and civilizations is not possible here. The subject is brilliantly documented else-
p
where. All that is attempted in this section, is to give in concise form, essential basic information about the tribal groups which will be referred to in later chapters. This process necessarily involves choice, and the main determinant has been the relative size of the groups.
According to the 1963 Census, Nigeria has a population of 55*670,000 people, 49.5 per cent of whom are females. It is the most populous country on the African continent''* and is
4
more than three times the size of the United Kingdom. Although the country is now divided into nineteen states^ the former d i c h o t o m y of Northern and Southern Nigeria is a convenient one,
and will be used in much of this work.^
1. See Onigu Otite, "On the Concept of a Nigerian Society" in Ethnic Relations in N i g e r i a , edited by A.0. Sanda, (Ibadan: Dept, of Sociology, University of Ibadan, Caxton Press,
(West Africa) Ltd., 1976),p . 4.
2. See Michael Crowder, The Story of N i g e r i a , 1978; Thomas Hodgkin, Nigerian P e r spectives, op. cit., 1974; J.C. Anene, Southern Nigeria m T r a n s i t i o n , lo05-1906, 1966;
J.S. Coleman, N i g e r i a , o p . c i t ., 1965; Alan Burns, History of N i g e r i a , 1969; John Hatch, Nigeria: A H i s t o r y , 1971.
3. Crowder, o p .c i t ., p . 11; The total population of Nigeria in 1963 was 55*670,000 - Census of Nigeria, 1963, Vol. 3, See Map No. 3.
4. Annual Abstract of Sta t i s t i c s , 1974, Federal Office of Statistics, Lagos, p.l. The area of Nigeria is 923*769 square m i l e s .
5. See above, Map No. 1, p. 6 5 . 6. See further above, pp. 70-78.
TABLE 1:1