https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1493-2696
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ABSTRACT
The deliberate efforts of Nigerian World War II veterans to advance their material interests amid the wave of radical anticolonial nationalism helped them to mediate colonial rule in Nigeria. Most literature on World War II and nationalism in Nigeria portrays veterans as objects of nationalist mobilization. Drawing on colonial records and newspapers from archives in Nigeria and the United States, this paper argues that Nigerian veterans were far more interested in their social and material interests than being objects of radical anticolonial nationalist mobilization in postwar Nigeria.
Acknowledgments
I am grateful for the guidance and support of numerous mentors in writing this article. Dr. Joseph Hodge, my doctoral advisor, provided invaluable assistance throughout the thinking and research process. Dr. Saheed Aderinto and Dr. Timothy Stapleton offered feedback on how to refine the ideas in the article. Dr. Oliver Coates, Dr. Solomon Okajare, and Dr. Sunday Ogunode provided feedback that strengthened the piece. Dr. Damilola Adebayo offered useful insights. Dr. Devin Smart provided a platform for my initial presentation of this article at the West Virginia University African Studies Workshop before it was later presented at the 15th Annual ASMEA conference in Washington, D.C., in 2022. I received helpful feedback from him, Dr. Tamba M’bayo, and Dr. Brooke Durham. Lastly, I thank Dr. Franck Salameh, the Journal of the Middle East and Africa editor, and the anonymous reviewers for their thoughtful suggestions that enhanced this paper.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 National Archives Kaduna (hereafter referred to as NAK), F/N 70056, “Employment of Ex-servicemen,” 10.
2 National Archives Ibadan (hereafter referred to as NAI), IBLAB 1/98, “Tools for Ex-servicemen,” 19.
3 Ibid., 25.
4 Ibid., 30.
5 Emman Mordi, “Forward Petitions to NEWA for Whatever Assistance, if Any:” Postwar Demobilization Conundrum in Nigeria, 1946–1951,” Journal of Asian and African Studies 55, no. (2020): 586–99.
6 The works in this category include G.O. Olusanya, The Second World War and Politics in Nigeria, (Ibadan, and London: Evans Brothers, 1973); G.O. Olusanya, “Ex-servicemen and Politics in Nigeria,” The Journal of Modern African Studies 6, No. 2 (1968): 221–32; and Chima Korieh, Nigerian and World War Two: Colonialism, Empire, and Global Conflict (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020), Ch. 5.
7 Nigerian Daily Times, “Nigerian Ex-Servicemen Co. LTD.,” May 18, 1946, 26.
8 Ibid.
9 Gregory Mann, Native Sons: West African Veterans and France in the Twentieth Century (Durham: Duke University Press, 2006), 144; Myron Echenberg, Colonial Conscripts: The Tirailleurs Senegalais in French West Africa, 1857–1960 (London: James Currey, 1991), 127–45.
10 Alfred Tembo, War and Society in Colonial Zambia (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2021), 11.
11 Nancy Lawler, Soldiers of Misfortune: Ivoirien Tirailleurs of World War II (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1992.), 203–46; and Tony Chaffer, The End of Empire in French West Africa: France’s Successful Decolonization? (Oxford: Berg, 2002).
12 Mann, Native Sons, 23.
13 For instance, the Nigerian Youth Movement was mainly concerned about the professional discrimination of Africans and the absence of Africans within the senior or top hierarchy of the civil service.
14 Details about the history of labor and urban migration in Africa and Nigeria can be found in Frederick Cooper’s “Urban Space, Industrial Time, and Wage Labor in Africa,” in Struggle for the City; Migrant Labor, Capital, and the State in Urban Africa, edited by Frederick Cooper (Beverly Hills: Sage Publications, 1983), 1–45; and Sara Berry, “Work, Migration, and Class in Western Nigeria,” in Struggle for the City; Migrant Labor, Capital, and the State in Urban Africa, edited by Frederick Cooper (Beverly Hills: Sage Publications, 1983), 247–71.
15 Eric Hobsbawm, and Terence Ranger, eds., The Invention of Traditions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1963); and E. P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class (London: Vintage, 1966).
16 E. O. Egboh, “Trade Union Education in Nigeria (1940–1964),” African Studies Review 14, no. 1 (1971): 83–93; Frederick Cooper, Decolonization and African Society: The Labor Question in French and British Africa (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996); and Hakeem Tijani, Union Education in Nigeria: Labor, Empire, and Decolonization since 1945 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012).
17 Wale Oyemakinde, “The Nigerian General Strike of 1945,” Journal of Historical Society of Nigeria VII, no. 4 (1975): 693–710.
18 Moses Ochonu, Colonial Meltdown: Northern Nigeria in the Great Depression (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2009); and Joseph Hodge, Triumph of the Experts: Agrarian Doctrines of Development and the Legacies of Colonialism (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2007).
19 Published Annual Report on the Department of Labor and the Resettlement of Ex-servicemen (Lagos: Government Printer, 1945), 8–9.
20 The Pittsburgh Courier, “Africa Speaks: Nigerian Workers Swear Never to Surrender their Demands from Government,” August 11, 1945, 6. See also Wale Oyemakinde, The Nigerian General Strike of 1945, Journal of Historical Society of Nigeria VII, no. 4 (1975): 693–710.
21 The Pittsburgh Courier, 6.
22 Chicago Defender, “150, 000 Out in African Strike.” July 28, 1945, 10.
23 Published Annual Report on the Department of Labor and the Resettlement of Ex-servicemen, 6–8.
24 Lisa Mueller, Political Protest in Contemporary Africa (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018), ch 2.
25 New Journal and Guide, “British Tories Oppose Delegation of Real Power to West Africans,” December 23, 1944, 2.
26 Ibid.
27 Ibid.
28 For details about the role of the Western-educated elite in World War Two mobilization in Nigeria, see Saheed Aderinto, “Isaac Fadoyebo at the Battle of Nyron: African Voices from the First and Second World Wars, 1914–1945,” in African Voices of the Global Past: 1500 to Present, edited by Trevor Gretz (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 2014), 107–38; and Bonny Ibhawoh, “Second World War Propaganda, Imperial Idealism and Anti-Colonial Nationalism in British West Africa,” Nordic Journal of African Studies 16, no. 2 (2007): 221–24.
29 Afro-American, “British Keep Ban on African Press,” March 2, 1946, 7. See The Chicago Defender, “Ban Nigerian Newspapers,” March 2, 1946, 6.
30 The Chicago Defender, “Ban Nigerian Newspapers: British Blame Zik Papers for Strike,” March 2, 1946, 6.
31 The Chicago Defender, “British Efforts to Muzzle Colonial Press Bared at Meet,” June 29, 1946, 5.
32 Ibid.
33 Afro-American, “British Keep Ban on African Press,” March 2, 1946, 7.
34 See, for instance, in The Chicago Defender, “London Students Back Striking Workers,” July 21, 1945, the resolution calls upon colonial secretary Stanley and the Nigerian Governor Richards to abandon the use of military force and the withdrawal of defense regulations to intimate the strikers and citizens. Finally, the meeting asked that demands of the strikers be granted and that any acts victimizing strikers and the exercise of their constitutional rights be suspended. A similar meeting was held in Manchester under the auspices of the Pan-African Federation, at which over $500 was collected for strike relief. Similar meetings and demonstrations are planned at Liverpool and other cities by the federation, 1 & 6.
35 Nnamdi Azikiwe, My Odyssey (New York: Praeger Inc, 1970), 359–60.
36 Afro-American, “Azikiwe’s Arrest Denied by British,” July 28, 1945, 10.
37 Ibid.
38 Oliver Coates, ““His Telegram Appears to be Hysterical, but he’s very Astute:” Azikiwe’s Spectacular Self and the 1945 Strike in Nigeria,’” Journal of African Cultural Studies 30. no. 3 (2018): 227–8. See James Coleman, Nigeria: Background to Nationalism (Berkeley & Los Angeles: California University Press, 1958), 287.
39 Coleman, Nigeria, 289.
40 “The number of Nigerian Ex-Servicemen already demobilized is said to be about 40 000.” See the Nigerian Daily Time, May 18, 1946. No. 294.
41 National Archives Ibadan (Henceforth referred to as NAI), Ijebu Prof., 2867 G, “Ex-servicemen Nominal Rolls, Vol. I.” 1946, 66–365; and National Archives Ibadan, Ijebu Prof. I., 2867 G, Vol II., “Nominal Rolls -Discharged Soldiers,” 1946, 366–545.
42 On the role of Nigerian soldiers in World War Two, see, for instance, Chima Korieh, Nigeria and World War Two: Colonialism, Empire and Global Conflict (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020); Gabriel O. Olusanya, The Second World War and Politics in Nigeria 1939–1953 (Ibadan: Evans Brothers Limited, 1973); Gabriel O. Olusanya, “The Role of Ex-Servicemen in Nigerian Politics,” Journal of Modern African Studies 6, no. 2 (1968): 221–32; and Adrienne Israel, “Measuring the War Experience: Ghanaian Soldiers in World War Two,” The Journal of Modern African Studies 25, no. 1 (1987): 159–68.
43 Mordi, “Forward Petitions to NEWA for Whatever Assistance, if Any,” 586–99.
44 National Archives Enugu (hereafter referred to as NAE), Riv. Prof 2/1/67, File No. C, 411 G, “Ex-servicemen Taxation of,” 1946.
45 NAI, ComCol, File No. 2807/S.8, Vol. I. “Nigerian Ex-servicemen’s Welfare Association – General Question,” 1946, 4.
46 Timothy Stapleton, West African Soldiers in Britain’s Colonial Army (Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 2022), 325.
47 Cheikh Anta Babou, “Decolonization or National Liberation: Debating the End of British Colonial Rule in Africa,” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 632 (2010): 41–54.
48 Hodge, Triumph of the Experts; and M. P. Cowen, and R. W. Shenton, Doctrines of Development (London: Routledge, 1996).
49 Hodge, Triumph of the Experts, 4.
50 NAE, Riv. Prof 9/1/1247, File No. OW: 5517K, “Trades Training School for Ex-servicemen,” 1947.
51 NAI, Riv. Prof, File No. R.P: 5951, “Ten Years Plan for Development and Welfare for Nigeria,” 1945, 1–89.
52 Nigerian Daily Times, 1946.
53 Ibid., May 18, 1946, No 294.
54 Ibid., 1946.
55 Ibid.
56 Ibid.
57 Lagos Daily, “Resettlement of Ex-Servicemen,” September 5, 1946; and National Archives Ibadan, File No. W.P. 676, “Employment of Ex-Servicemen by Government Departments – Monthly Return,” 1945, 22.
58 NAI, File No. 41683, S.4 Vol. II. “Employment of Ex-servicemen Returns by Labor Department,” 1951.
59 West African Pilot, 1946.
60 NAI, File No. 41683/s2, vol. I.A., Ex-Servicemen Applications for Employment,” 1945.
61 NAI, Ijebu Prof. I, File No. 2867E, “Employment of Ex-Servicemen Ordinance 1945: Registration of Employers,” 342.
62 Ibid.
63 NAI, ComCol, File No. 2807/S.II/C.I, “Allen Report,” 1948.
64 NAI, ComCol, File No. 2807/s.11/c.6., “Committee Appointed to Consider Unemployment Among Ex-Servicemen – Proposed Training of African Typists,” 1948.
65 Ibid.
66 Ibid., 60.
67 Ibid., 76.
68 Ibid., 56.
69 Ibid.
70 L. P. M., “Nigeria under the Macpherson Constitution,” The World Today 9, no. 1 (1953): 12–21.
71 On how the demands of veterans remained unfulfilled by the colonial government, for instance, see Geoffrey I. Nwaka, “Rebellion in Umuahia, 1950–1951: Ex-servicemen and Anti-colonial Protest in Eastern Nigeria,” Transafrican Journal of History 16 (1987): 47–62.
72 West African Pilot, 1957.
73 Ibid.
74 Hollis Lynch, K.O. Mbadiwe: A Nigerian Political Biography. 1915–1990 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), 151.
75 Lynch, K.O. Mbadiwe, 151–83.
76 West African Pilot, 1957.
77 Nwaka, “Rebellion in Umuahia, 1950–1951,” 60.
78 West African Pilot, January 26, 1957.
79 Ibid., 1959.
80 NAK, File No. AD/1/78, “Nigerian Ex-Servicemen Welfare Association,” 1965, 2.
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Waliu A. Ismaila
Waliu A. Ismaila is a Lecturer at the Department of History and Political Science at Utah Valley University. As a historian of modern Africa, he is interested in the everyday history of ordinary people and marginal colonial spaces in late colonial Nigeria. His ongoing book project examines Nigerian veterans through the lens of colonial welfare policies. Focusing on the postwar life and experiences of Nigerian World War II Veterans, their wives, and households. Thematically, it is at the intersection of British imperialism, war and society, the African diaspora, masculinity and gender, decolonization, Colonial Welfare Development (CWD), and the end of empire in Africa. He teaches African, World, and World War II history.