Lord Lugard’s Magic and Flora Shaw’s Spell, By Femi Fani-Kayode

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) of 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 ORGANISED 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 ORGANISATION, and is conspicuously deficient in the management and control alike of men or business. HE LOVES THE DISPLAY OF POWER, but fails to realise 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 VISUALISE THE FUTURE.”

There can be little doubt that this arrogant English man was a rabid racist 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 (of) 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 followers of Aleister Crowley, the leading satanist of his day and the self-styled “world’s 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 Shaw 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.

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