Patrones arquitectónicos

Throughout the war years the Information Offi cer, Rex Stevens, conducted briefi ng tours giving lectures on the progress of the war in public reading rooms and churches across Calabar Province. The war effort gave many causes championed in the progressive discourse of the ‘reading public’

a new economic and political imperative. A range of economic issues – the manilla exchange rate, tax collection, school funding and palm oil production – would dominate their concerns, along with a growing list of

‘social ills’ which would fall under their increasingly vigilant and vociferous purview, including court corruption, masquerade violence, child betrothal, human traffi cking and juvenile delinquency. Their campaigns were literate, generational, Christian and increasingly nationalist.

The war years witnessed a maturation of ‘progressive’ political discourse expressed by an expanding ‘reading public’. It was not only the educated elites and public letter-writers for whom written English was gaining in importance. An increasing readership of so-called ‘semi-literate’ traders, school-leaver clerks, bureaucrats and servicemen also fostered a new urban popular culture in the form of the ‘Onitsha Market Literature’, a pamphlet literature comprised of images from western cowboy movies, love stories and the adventures of legendary merchants.¹ With a broader base of public opinion to which to appeal, the progressives’ tone during the war gained in confi dence and authority. The spirit of this moment would link the progressive discourse of the educated elites to the radical nationalist discourse of the would-be trader tycoons and their trans-Atlantic trade schemes. Overall the war witnessed a shift in public opinion from petitioning to censure, and an overtly public sphere was cultivated by the improvement unions, the press and the literary societies.²

The political ground shifted quickly during the war with the effect that the views of the progressive elite and the radical nationalists began to converge. At the beginning of the war government propaganda efforts sought to defl ect local agitation by enlisting the support of the anti-colonial nationalist faction. By the end of the war, however, the nationalist agenda had broadened its constituency and it was not only the radical core that the Colonial Government attempted to outfl ank but also the improvement unions and the conservative press that had affi liated to and were supporting emergent nationalist political parties.³

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‘

’

During the late 1930s events in Europe had seen the interests of the radical nationalists converge with the views of more mainstream progressive elites.

This process was hastened by rumours of the transfer of Nigeria to German sovereignty printed in the West African Pilot which reached the Nigeria Youth Movement (NYM) in November 1938. Among the 500 traders, teachers and local chiefs at the NYM meeting in Aba was Prince Peter Eket Inyang Udo. There he heard his friend and new business partner O. A. Alakija condemn the prospect of the transfer of sovereignty:

The British Nation had never conquered Nigeria but the Nigerians, of their own accord, had invited Britain to be their protector. That in compensation for her protection she had received the mineral and agricultural wealth of the country. Now it was realised that this wealth was diminishing because of the invasion of the country by European fi rms Britain was prepared to throw off her yoke of responsibility and hand the country to Germany. British policy in Nigeria had broken down the rule of the native chiefs and now that the people were no longer united and in a position to resist interference they were to be handed to a nation who was well known throughout the world to be Negro haters.⁴

Pre-war propaganda by British colonial offi cers highlighted precisely those aspects of Nazi policy that would affect the anti-colonial elite. Summaries of Nazi policies which curtailed freedoms on citizenship, marriage to Euro-peans, access to higher or university education, the ability to travel to Europe and the right to strike and form trade unions were circulated to newspaper editors in 1938 and 1939. It was no coincidence, then, that Reverend Potts Johnson, the NYM chairman, reminded his audience that German rule would have signifi cant consequences: no lawyers in court, no police, no trade and no church-going. The fear of such a prospect and the effect of this propaganda were signifi cant. While the resolution passed at the NYM meetings was that if Nigeria was transferred to Germany it would constitute the ‘most serious breach of trust ever known in the history of any race’, it was passed with ‘undivided loyalty to the throne’, unanimous support for the launch of the ‘Nigeria Defence Fund’ and the meetings dispersed to the tune of ‘God Save the King’.⁵ As the war drew on, however, this loyal chorus faded.

It was a measure of the ‘patriotic’ ethos of the improvement unions that in 1940 the Ibibio Union asked the Governor not to regard it as a separate body distinct from the Native Authorities because membership of both councils and the Union was so common. The Union outlined to the Governor its desire to be considered part of the administrative structure and represented its role as a mediator: ‘To go hand in hand and interpret the policies of the

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Government to natives, to see that the laws and orders of the Government were kept, and [to be] a medium through which the government can speak to the Ibibio tribe as a whole’.⁶ At the District Offi cers’ conference in 1940, however, delegates deplored the tendency for the Union to consider itself above the authority of the District Offi cer (and to go over their heads to the Resident or the Chief Commissioner), and they disliked the way in which the clan councils were subjugated to its wishes: ‘The councils should be representative of the villages and the people but their opinions were only representative of the Ibibio Union’.⁷ The Resident of Calabar Province suggested that it would be unwise to go against the Union, and that it would be ‘very bad policy to antagonise them’.⁸ He cited the fact that when, through pressure of work, a DO could not attend one of the Ibibio Union’s annual meetings, there would be open talk of a boycott.

As the Resident’s advice implies, by the outbreak of the Second World War the Ibibio Union had become a signifi cant political force and was increasingly recognised as such both by communities, through the Clan Councils, and by the authorities:

The Ibibio Union … every year becomes a greater infl uence in the Ibibio country. It has attracted the best elements of the Native Admin-istrations in addition to Ibibios of the educated and employed classes to its active membership. Its opinions and advice are increasingly followed by the Clan Councils. It is consulted by the Administrative Staff on matters affecting the Ibibios generally as for instance the question of maintaining or reducing the existing tax rates when it was defi nite in its opinion that they could safely be maintained. It has [also] concerned itself with the conditions of service of the employees of the Native Administrations.⁹

The Union was galvanised by the return of graduates from Britain and America in the mid-1940s, who became instant ‘personalities’. Celebrations for the return of Dr Egbert Udo Udoma (see Figure 5.1) on 25 October 1945 included a reception, where, dressed in his barrister’s wig and gown, he handed back the packet of ‘sand of his fatherland’ which had been given to him eight years previously to confi rm physically and metaphorically his status as a ‘son of the soil’.¹⁰

Beyond the high-profi le groups such as the Ibibio Union it was reported that across the country during the war there was ‘a craze for organising improvement unions, leagues, movements and clubs’ which, in the rhetoric of the time, were being organised ‘with but one common objective which is African re-birth, part of a recent avid thirst for advancement’.¹¹ The increasing political and economic weight of the unions led to fears among the colonial staff that failure to regulate the unions would lead them to divert their activities into ‘undesirable channels’. In the absence of legislation to

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register the improvement unions, it was recognised by this time that ‘Such unions are increasing in number and represent a defi nite social trend which is a part of the political consciousness of the country’.¹²

In tandem with the Ibibio Union, the arena in which the concerns of the urban elite were debated in Calabar Province was fostered by the bi-weekly journal, the Nigerian Eastern Mail. The style and content of Nigeria’s news-papers had been infl uenced by those published in Sierra Leone and the Gold Coast since the 1850s.¹³ The wanderings of the coastal intelligentsia and their professional acumen in law and journalism fi gured directly in the publication of the Nigerian Eastern Mail. The Mail’s proprietor, C. W.

Clinton, had come from Sierra Leone and spent his early career in Accra, where he met and married Muriel McCarthy, daughter of the Chief Justice of the Gold Coast in 1901. He practised law at Sekondi until 1919 when he left for Calabar to become leader of the Eastern Bar. His son, James, was the Mail’s editor.

Figure 5.1 Dr Egbert Udo Udoma (Reproduced with kind permission of Spectrum Books Ltd)¹⁴

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When it was launched in 1935 the Nigerian Eastern Mail had a circulation of 2,000, rising to 3,160 in 1937.¹⁵ The paper’s editorial stance was inde-pendent but conservative, and consequently was highly regarded in colonial circles. The Resident of Calabar Province commented, for instance, that it was ‘remarkable for its tone of moderation and intelligent criticism’.¹⁶ Indeed, when the government faced increasingly robust populist attacks from the overtly nationalist ‘Zik Press’ during the war, it had even more reason to welcome Clinton’s tempered editorial policy:

The comparatively healthy tone of public opinion in the Province is due in no small degree to the infl uence of Mr JV Clinton, Editor of the ‘Nigerian Eastern Mail’. In refusing to be coerced into the parrot-like repetition of empty slogans, and in attempting always balanced, reasoned and progressive comment on matters of public interest, Mr Clinton has continued to render most valuable public service.¹⁷ Just after the war G. I. Jones conducted an unoffi cial survey among the reading public of the south-east. Five publications fi gured, including the two government journals (the Gazette and the Nigeria Review) and three commercial publications (the Nigerian Eastern Mail, the Nigerian Observer and the Eastern Nigerian Guardian). The Gazette was popular among civil servants as it was the offi cial organ of the Government; the Review’s read-ership grew during the war because of its coverage of Nigerian troops serving overseas; and almost 30 per cent of Jones’ sample read Zik’s Guardian for whom the charismatic editor’s syndicated column ‘Inside Stuff ’ was a particular attraction. In the 1946 survey 15 per cent of the newspaper-reading public took the Nigerian Eastern Mail, and did so for the accuracy of its reporting and the balance of its views expressed in Clinton’s editorials.

These features made it the leading journal in Calabar Province.¹⁸

The relationship between the Nigerian Eastern Mail and the various improvement unions in Calabar Province was close. Several local agents, press representatives upon whom the papers were heavily dependent both to report the news and to sell copies, were leading members of the Ibibio Union. S. E. Hezekiah was the Mail’s representative in Uyo and then Port Harcourt before taking up an appointment with the Ibibio Union’s National Secretariat as a Field Secretary in 1948. His successor at the secre-tariat, D. F. E. Essessien, was also a ‘freelance journalist’ covering stories in Uyo. During 1948–49 the newspaper had a regular ‘Ibibio (State) Union’

column, and Clinton himself, who was the head of the Calabar Provincial Union, used the paper to present his own political platform.

James Clinton launched a political party through his editorial column in 1944. His manifesto for the People’s Party of South-Eastern Nigeria antici-pated the future debates that Clinton’s editorials would lead. The manifesto proposed a radical agenda of abolishing Native Administration (including

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all ‘traditional dignitaries and chiefdoms’), deciding Native Court benches by ballot, codifying customary law, providing mass education, encouraging stronger consumer co-operative societies, establishing women’s represen-tative bodies and defending freedom of speech.¹⁹ While Clinton’s political ambitions were far-reaching, his achievements were few. Here it seems likely that his Sierra Leonean heritage almost debarred him from offi ce.

In March 1944 the nomination of Gage O’Dwyer as the representative of Ibibio Division to the Legislative Council was met with stinging opposition on the grounds that he was a Sierra Leonean and as such was ‘ignorant of the life and thought of the Ibibio people’. Clinton launched his manifesto within a few months. Shortly after its launch, Clinton reported that nobody had signed up for his party. In cosmopolitan Lagos it mattered much less that political careers were launched by newspaper owners who were largely Sierra Leonean descendants. In the provinces it mattered a great deal.

Clinton’s Mail, however, galvanised another group to this progressive cause during the war – soldiers.²⁰ Annang solders serving in the Middle East and South-East Asia (Burma) had kept in touch with the public in Calabar Province through the newspapers. The soldiers aligned themselves fi rmly within the ‘progressives’. The ‘Annang Boys of Ikot Ekpene’ serving in the Middle East, for instance, contributed the sum of £26 7s as a fi rst instalment towards the Ibibio State College Fund in October 1945.²¹ Their letters home also called for the development of social infrastructure in Abak. Sergeant Ekpe serving in India, for example, complained that while a fi fth of his command came from Abak Division they had heard nothing about the development of the area and called for schools, hospitals, roads and the abolition of the manilla currency.²² Of all the concerns voiced by eastern Nigerian soldiers on service in India and Burma during the war, reports reaching them from relatives of the escalating costs of brideprice had worried them most. Fears were aired in open letters that servicemen’s savings were being spent by relatives on luxuries, in marrying wives and of over-infl ating brideprices. The rising cost of brideprice led to calls for councils to set brideprice rates.

In the context of trade, the war years witnessed increasingly vocal oppo-sition to European fi rms, especially the United Africa Company (UAC), in the local press. The tone of the commentary and criticism during the war was set by the columnists who wrote in the Mail under the names Candidus and Impetus and who were stinging in their criticism of the UAC’s hypocrisy.

They showed how the higher prices for which palm products were bought in Liverpool meant the company had ‘fl eeced’ local producers; how plans for plantations were a ruse to confi scate land; how producers were not trained by the company and could not afford its machinery; and how the comforts for UAC employment applied only to European staff.²³

This attack on European trading monopolies resonated with earlier

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campaigns led by the radical tycoon nationalists. By the late 1930s Peter Eket had enjoyed a revival of his fortunes. Returning to New York he estab-lished ‘American African Overseas Ltd’ in April 1937 and secured another deal to export Nigerian palm oil to the United States.²⁴ Back in Nigeria he had become closely linked with O. A. Alakija, the son of A. A. Alakija, a prominent Lagos lawyer and member of the Legislative Council. Alakija junior was also a lawyer and was based in Aba. He was a member of the Nigerian Youth Movement and a known nationalist agitator. In 1938 during the cocoa hold-up in the Gold Coast he supported palm oil selling boycotts in Warri. Together Eket and Alakija formed the ‘New Africa Company’

which was to organise the direct export of palm products to the US in conjunction with local suppliers such as the Ibibio Farmers Association, which was formed in 1939. In October that year Alakija addressed 3,000 members of the association in Uyo claiming that the New Africa Company intended to ‘represent the entire farmers of the West Coast of Africa on the world market’.²⁵

The transatlantic deal fell through because of the war and the diffi culties of acquiring export licences when the British brought palm oil purchasing under central control. In the process, however, Alakija had been circulating information in the south-eastern provinces that ‘America was willing to assist in the economic development of the Nigerian as a step towards the achievement of native independence’.²⁶ With the onset of war the threat of the compulsory purchase of palm products, which would prevent local producers from shipping their own commodities, was met with vocal oppo-sition from the Ibibio Farmers Association. The Association claimed that it had the fi nance in place for a new deal with New York and therefore had contracts to fulfi l in America which would be undermined by the Govern-ment’s proposals.²⁷ The Commissioner rebuffed their petition saying that their decision ‘not to sell your produce to the Home Government at this time of War means that you are for Hitler’.²⁸ Nevertheless, the threat of a palm oil ‘hold-up’ was suffi ciently serious for the Nigerian Government to petition the Colonial Offi ce to permit the proposed transatlantic trade deal despite the wartime restrictions because of its political implications.²⁹

Peter Eket joined the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC) in 1944 and was quick to support Zik and to make announce-ments that the future for unity and self-government lay with joining the National Council.³⁰ Even the relatively moderate members of the literary club in Ikot Ekpene were debating self-government in August 1944.³¹ This growing mood of opposition was infl amed by the introduction of a raft of legislation in 1945. The various unions, associations, societies and clubs which made up the NCNC called on the public to oppose the legislation.

Of the Bills opposed, the Minerals Ordinance, which vested rights to these resources in the Crown, was especially unpopular and was deemed

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patible with treaty obligations and inconsistent with protectorate status.

Opposition from the press and the reading public towards this ‘Imperial roguery’ galvanised support for self-rule:

Opposition from the press and the reading public towards this ‘Imperial roguery’ galvanised support for self-rule: