New archives catalogue additions - Nigeria

Included in the recent batch of handlists added to the ULRLS catalogue are three collections relating to Nigeria


Nigeria: Mid West Affairs: Oba of Benin (ICS92) includes papers dating from 1926 to 1946 concerning the Oba of Benin, including correspondence with the Governor on the revision of the Benin-Warri boundary, 1926; correspondence and papers on links between Eweka II, Oba of Benin and Fio Agbano II, King of Glidji, Togo, 1934; correspondence on request from the Oba for the use of armed Nigerian police during burial ceremony for his mother, 1935; correspondence and papers on alleged libel of Akenzua II, Oba of Benin by H O Davies in article 'My Impressions on Nigeria' in the 'Daily Service', 1940; and correspondence on award of CMG to Akenzua II, 1946.

Nigeria: Mid West State Movement (ICS93) dates from c1956 to 1963 and includes copies of papers on the case for a Mid-West State in Nigeria, 1956-1963; comprising papers produced by the Mid-West Plebiscite Committee, and the Mid-West State Movement, on the campaign for a separate state, with report a tour of the Benin and Delta Provinces. The demand for a separate State or Region by the peoples of the Benin and Delta Provinces of Western Nigeria, the Edo, Urhobo, Isioko, Itsekiri, Western Ibo, Ishan and Afenmai dated back to 1938. After World War Two the demand began to gain momentum. The matter was discussed at the 1957 Conference on the Nigerian Constitution, and the British Colonial Secretary, Alan Lennox Boyd [later Lord Boyd of Merton] appointed a Commission of Inquiry, under Sir Henry Willink to ascertain the facts about the fears of minorities in Nigeria and to propose means of allaying those fears, and to make recommendations on the creation of new states.

J G Wallace papers (ICS111) contain a rough draft of a history of British Law in Northern Nigeria, 1948-1959; and research papers and partial drafts of a history of Benue Province, Nigeria, c1959. The latter include copies of works by others, and of official administrative correspondence and reports, c1928-1959. The two works were originally intended as two volumes of one work; however, the volume on legislation having been completed more readily than that on Benue, Wallace intended to publish it separately. However, there is no evidence that either progressed beyond the state in which these drafts and notes were found. Very little information is known about Wallace apart from a note of his appointments in the Overseas Civil Service in one of the files in ICS111. He was assigned to the Northern Region of Nigeria in 1954, and after passing examinations, was appointed as a member of HM Overseas Civil Service in 1956. In that year he was made a Grade III Magistrate and posted to Nasarawa Division, then became an Administrative Officer Class IV in 1957. In 1958 he was posted in charge of Wukari Division, then of Lafia Division.