Reconsidering Grassroots Resistance Movements Agianst British Colonial Policy in Nigeria: The Example of Adubi Uprising of 1918
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Date
2014
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Department of History and International Studies, University of Ilorin
Abstract
Colonial policies of taxation and indirect rule were highly contested and resisted in Southern Nigeria. As a culmination of the piece-meal conquest of Nigeria, the British signed a treaty with the Egba nation in 1914, which de-facto annuled the earlier treaty of friendship and commerce of 1893 and withdrew the opportunity that had been extended to the Egba to practice self-government. The argument was that the Egba people were incapable of governing themselves. An attempt by the Egbas to reassert their sovereignty had bitter consequences for them in the famous Ijemo massacre of 1914. For years, they bore bitter memories of the massacre, until they resisted their longsuffering in June 1918 by demonstrating their absolute dislike for the high-handedness of the colonial machinery in the Adubi uprising. This paper attempts to appraise the Adubi uprising, an episode in grassroots resistance movement against British colonial policy. Using the Egba example, it argues that unsolicited meddlesomeness in the socio-economic and political affairs of a people could generate tension and violent resistance.
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Afolabi, A. S (2014). Reconsidering Grassroots Resistance Movements Agianst British Colonial Policy in Nigeria: The Example of Adubi Uprising of 1918. Ilorin Journal of History and International Studies, Department of History and International Studies, University of Ilorin. 4: (1), 173-194, Published by the Department of History and International Studies, University of Ilorin.