Colonialism by Proxy: Hausa Imperial Agents and Middle Belt Consciousness in Nigeria

4. Hausa Colonial Agency in the Benue Valley

4 106 Hausa Colonial Agency in the Benue Valley The Benue Valley borders Southern Nigeria. It is easy, therefore, to assume that because of its geographical and cultural distance from the defunct caliphate and its proximity to Southern Nigerian culture, the influence of Hausa colonial agents could not have been as profound there. To the contrary, British colonialists assumed that precisely because of the distance between the region and the center of the caliphate it lacked the positive caliphate political institutions and socioeconomic values valorized as the bedrock of indirect rule. This conviction caused British officials to import and rely on hundreds of Hausa colonial agents among the Idoma, Tiv, and Igedde peoples. It was relatively easy for Hausa agents to flock to the Benue Valley: the Benue River, which might have limited the exposure of the Tiv, Idoma, and Igedde peoples to the caliphate and the jihad, now made entry into the region easy for British and Hausa personnel alike. In the early days of the colonial enterprise, Hausa personnel, as soldiers, guards, and interpreters, shadowed the British and mediated their encounters with the Tiv and Idoma. Trusted to carry out quotidian colonial tasks and viewed as racial and cultural superiors of the Tiv and Idoma, Hausa agents and officials quickly found a niche of authority in the colonial systems of Idoma and Tiv Divisions. They helped to fulfill British colonial demands but also carried out their own self-interested initiatives in the name of the British. Through skillful maneuvers, Hausa colonial agents expanded the depth and scope of their power even as a scanty and stretched British presence failed to define and police their activities. Given these circumstances, tension and conflicts were inevitable. The Tiv and Idoma preemptively attacked Hausa colonial agents even before colonial rule was consolidated, inaugurating a long cycle of anti-Hausa attacks and overwhelming British military responses. Growing opposition to Hausa subcolonial rule, violent anticolonial revolts, and attacks on Hausa colonial staff sometimes forced British officials to devise chieftaincy apprenticeships for the Idoma and to suspend Hausa chieftaincy in the Tiv area. Nonetheless, as the colonial period unfolded, the Hausa subcolonial presence actually increased even as British officials tried to use Idoma figure- Hausa Colonial Agency in the Benue Valley | 107 heads to conceal it. As the backlashes against Hausa rule signaled its growing unpopularity, British officials remained unwilling to craft an alternative form of rule or to consider the indirect rule ideal of indigenous colonial agency. Instead they resorted to reinforcing notions of Idoma backwardness as a way of justifying the continuation of Hausa subcolonial rule. The chapter begins with an exploration of the foundational problem of colonial communication and how that opened the way for Hausa interpreters, who, through their activities, reinforced for the British the necessity of Hausa colonial agents. Hausa Interpreters in the Benue Valley The adoption of the Hausa language as a colonial lingua franca in Northern Nigeria was regarded in British colonial officialdom as a pragmatic, cheap, and expedient administrative decision.1 It also necessitated a British reliance on Hausa -speaking intermediaries and interpreters who also knew the local languages of the Middle Belt. For this reason and others, the Hausa language generated 108 | Colonialism by Proxy ambivalence in British officialdom. As a sociolinguistic phenomenon, Hausa was both celebrated and lamented. In southerly colonial enclaves like Idoma Division , where people spoke little to no Hausa, its imposition as a medium of colonial communication was disruptive, especially since it necessitated importing hundreds of Hausa-speaking colonial operatives. The shift was radical, and its impact on relations between the British and the Idoma was dramatic enough to warrant official comment. One British official described the situation as “an unsatisfactory position [of] the European official having to commune with the Idoma through an [Hausa] interpreter.”2 He went further to record the assertion of one of his Idoma messengers, Itodo: “During his 17 years with Europeans he had not yet worked with an admin officer who knew the language, A couple could say ‘come,’ ‘go,’ ‘bring,’ etc, etc., but no one has been here yet who could understand a complaint or follow a conversation in Idoma.”3 This linguistic conundrum made the Hausa colonial interpreters an indispensable and powerful part of the colonial enterprise in Idoma Division, intensifying the friction both between the British and the Idoma and between the Idoma and Hausa colonial agents. The fact that most...