SUMMARY
The emergence of British colonial rule in Nigeria in 1900 was as a result of the continuous European presence in the continent of Africa since the 15th relations they had with the indigenous Nigerian people and the subsequent annexation of Lagos in 1861. Thus southern Nigeria became a colonial territory of Britain. However, not until the Berlin West Africa conference of 1884/1885, the British government could not claim total control of the Nigeria territory and when the conference was over, Britain became the official colonial masters of Nigeria. thus for administrative convenience, the colonial government of Britain began the process of amalgamating the Nigerian territory, first was the 1906 amalgamation of the southern protectorate of Nigeria to the colony of Lagos and alter in 1914, the southern protectorate was amalgamated with the northern protectorate to form a
unified Nigerian state.
The highlight of the assessment of the British colonial administration in Nigeria from 1900-1960 was aimed at the exploitations of the abundant natural resources imbedded in Nigeria. This has been affirmed by various political analyses which this work or research project has reviewed. Hence, the British government in search of cheap raw materials to feed their industries back home came into West Africa and Nigeria was among the West African countries that were affected by the economic exploitation of Britain. Shokpeka and Nwaokocha,1 affirms that the colonial economy in most Africa was structured to improve the economies of the colonizing or metropolitan powers. In the scheme of things, what mattered was how the colonial economy could benefit the colonizers. Hence, colonial economy in Nigeria could be summed up in one word ‘Economic Exploitation”. it is important to note that agriculture formed the mainstay of Africa’s economy in the pre-colonial past. In this enterprises food production featured prominently for most of Nigeria, hence like most traditional African societies ‘there was self-sufficiency in food supply’. However, Usoro2 noted the fact that one major reason why Britain colonized Nigeria was to ensure cheap and steady supply raw materials to British industries, the colonial administration completely discouraged the cultivation food crops while encouraged cash crops production. This led to the adoption of various agricultural policies aimed at ensuring the smooth cultivation of cash crops. Examples of these cash crops were; Timber, Rubber. Cotton, Palm Kernel and others. And as A. G. Hopkins3 puts it, British colonial economic policy up to 1945 was characterized by a number of agenda; central to these was maximally exploiting the natural and human resources of Nigeria for the natural and human resources of Nigeria for the express purpose of securing profitable trade in the world market.
