In an article titled ‘Lord Lugard’s Magic and Flora Shaw’s Spell',
former PDP Presidential spokesperson, Olufemi Olu-Kayode said Nigeria
needs a lot of prayers. He said the name Nigeria has some satanic
premonition which only prayer can solve. According to him, Lord Luggard
and his wife Flora Shaw, who gave Nigeria her name, were occultic
worshipers. He said the literal meaning of Nigeria is “the area of
darkness”. The article after the cut...
In 1916, Lord Frederick
John Dealtry Lugard, the 1st Baron Lugard, the fourteenth Governor of
Hong Kong and the first Governor-General of Nigeria, said the following:
“Lagos has for 20 years opposed every Governor and has fomented
strife and bloodshed in the hinterland. I have spent the best part of
my life in Africa; my aim has been the betterment of the natives for
whom I have been ready to give my life. But after some 29 years, and
after nearly 12 years as Governor here, I am free to say that the people
of Lagos and indeed the westerners are the lowest, the most seditious
and disloyal, the most purely prompted by self-seeking money motives of
any people I have met.”
As if that were not bad enough, two years
later, on September 25th 1918, in a letter to his colleague Walter H.
Lang, Lugard wrote the following: "The Hausa-Fulani has no ideals, no
ambitions save such as sensual in character. He is a fatalist,
spendthrift and a gambler. He is gravely immoral and is seriously
diseased that he is a menace to any community to which he seeks to
attach himself."
Lugard's words are utterly reprehensible. They
represent the most appalling examples of racial stereotyping that I have
ever seen. Yet he didn't stop there. In his book titled 'The Dual
Mandate' (pg. 70) 1926 he wrote the following:
"In character and
temperament, the typical African of this race-type is a happy,
thriftless, excitable person. LACKING IN SELF-CONTROL, DISCIPLINE, AND
FORESIGHT. Naturally courageous, and naturally courteous and polite,
full of personal vanity, with little sense of veracity, fond of music
and loving weapons as an oriental loves jewelry. HIS THOUGHTS ARE
CONCENTRATED ON THE EVENTS AND FEELINGS OF THE MOMENT, and he suffers
little from the apprehension for the future, or grief for the past. His
mind is far nearer to the animal world than that of the European or
Asiatic, and exhibits something of the animals' placidity and want of
desire to rise beyond the State he has reached. Through the ages THE
AFRICAN APPEARS TO HAVE EVOLVED NO ORGANIZED RELIGIOUS CREED, and though
some tribes appear to believe in a deity, the religious sense seldom
rises above pantheistic animalism and seems more often to take the form
of a vague dread of the supernatural . HE LACKS THE POWER OF
ORGANIZATION, and is conspicuously deficient in the management and
control alike of men or business. HE LOVES THE DISPLAY OF POWER, but
fails to realize its responsibility... he will work hard with a less
incentive than most races. He has the courage of the fighting animal, an
instinct rather than a moral virtue... In brief, the virtues and
defects of this race-type are those of attractive children, whose
confidence when it is won is given ungrudgingly as to an older and wiser
superior and without envy...Perhaps the two traits which have impressed
me as those most characteristic of the African native are HIS LACK OF
APPREHENSION AND HIS LACK OF ABILITY TO VISUALIZE THE FUTURE."
There can be little doubt that this arrogant englishman was a rabid
racialist who had nothing but the deepest contempt for our people. He
was also one of the most uncouth and vulgar souls that ever polluted our
shores with his unwholesome and malevolent presence.
It is one of
the greatest ironies of modern history that this ignorant seafarer was
the individual that recommended to the British Colonial Office that the
Northern and Southern Protectorates of Nigeria and the Lagos colony,
should all be merged into one large country. That recommendation was
accepted and consequently Lord Lugard can legitimately be described as
the chief architect of modern-day Nigeria.
It was actually Lord
Lugard's wife, Miss Flora Shaw, that proposed the name Nigeria for our
country. This was done in an article that she wrote for the London Times
on January 8th 1897. She and Lugard got married five years later in
June 1902 after which she became known as Lady Flora Lugard. Shaw was
well connected.
Her mother was a French lady of Mauritian stock by
the name of Marie Adrienne Josephine and her father was Major-General
George Shaw, a respected British army officer. She was colonial editor
of the Times of London where she wrote an influential weekly column
titled ''The Colony''.
She was not only stunningly beautiful but she
also had vision and substance. Given that, one finds it difficult to
comprehend what an enterprising and extraordinary woman like this found
attractive in an abominable scalywag like Lord Lugard. I daresay that
this was a classic case of the beauty and the beast.
Despite his
pretensions of love Lugard despised the numerous ethnic nationalities
of Nigeria and he continuously expressed his contempt for us with his
insulting and condescending commentaries.
Perhaps his best known
intervention was made in 1914 in a letter that he wrote to the British
government just a few weeks prior to the amalgamation. He wrote as
follows:
"What we often call the Northern Protectorate of Nigeria
today can be better described as the poor husband whilst it's southern
counterpart can be fairly described as the rich wife or the woman of
substance and means. A forced union of marriage between the two will
undoubtedly result in peace, prosperity and marital bliss for both
husband and wife for many years to come. It is my prayer that that union
will last forever".
From this contribution it is clear that
ours was a ''forced'' union. It is also clear that Lugard saw northern
Nigeria as a ''poor husband'' that needed constant attention and support
whilst he saw southern Nigeria as nothing more than a ''rich wife'' or a
''woman of substance and means'' whose plight was to be constantly
pillaged and ravished.
This was his vision: a northern Nigeria
that was essentially the ''head of the household'' and that would remain
in control of all the power and resources of the state and a southern
Nigeria that would play the role of a passive and subservient wife whose
destiny it was to remain in perpetual subjugation and bondage.
Sadly this was the crooked foundation upon which our union was built.
What made it even worse was the fact that the so-called ''southern
wife'' and ''northern husband'' were never asked if they wanted the
marriage in the first place.
The truth is that the British
colonialists were masters of divide and rule. The amalgamation of the
southern and northern protectorates was a Greek gift which was designed
to fail and to crumble at the appropriate time. Nigerians have done well
to have held it together for so long and the fact that we have only
experienced one civil war is miraculous.
Despite all pretensions,
the only thing that has kept us together is the oil of the Niger-Delta
and the extraordinary resilience, patience, faith, fortitude, zeal and
strength of the Nigerian people themselves.Mr. Sola Adebowale, a writer,
understood the mindset of Lord Lugard. He captured it rather well on
Facebook in 2014 when he wrote the following:
''Lugard was a
stark illiterate and it was quite unfortunate that that was the best
that imperial Britain could send to Africa. Hence he was noted to have
vehemently opposed native education for Africans. And he was said to
have loathed the educated and sophisticated Africans of the southern
coastal regions who had been educated by the Christian Missionaries
before him and instead wined and dined and positioned the uneducated
feudal hordes of Africa to the forefront of leadership of Africa. Is
that not the albatross against many African nations till date? Hence the
moral right of Devil Lugard to pontificate about Africans is
questionable''.
Mr. Adebowale has hit the nail on the head. I concur with his submissions.
Permit me to end this contribution with an interesting aside. It is
generally agreed though not commonly admitted that both Lugard and Flora
Shaw were Luciferians who practiced the black arts and all manner of
satanic rituals. He was a "High Priest of the Freemasons" whilst they
were both avid folllowers of Aleister Crowley, the leading satanist of
his day and the self-styled "worlds most wicked man".
This explains a
lot. It also explains why Shaw gave us the name "Nigeria"- a name which
has questionable roots. Anyone that doubts this should consider the
literal translation of Nigeria from latin: it means "the area of
darkness" and there is a deep spiritual and mystical reason that she
gave us that name. It comes with a lot of baggage because not much good
can come out of an area of darkness.
Most of the former British
colonies changed their names after independence for similar reasons but
because most of our leaders in Nigeria were not aware of these matters
they refused to do so. Lugard and Shàw were an unlikely couple who had
no children. What held them together was more spiritual and mystical
than anything else and Nigeria and the Sudan are their joint legacy to
the world.
Sadly both countries are having major challenges today.
Sudan has broken into two after a protracted and bitter civil war whilst
Nigeria is experiencing serious regional, ethnic and religious
tensions. It is clear that our nation needs a good deal of prayer. May
God deliver us from Lord Lugard's magic and his beautiful wife's spell.
