The 1914 Amalgamation

The two protectorates were administered separately and had different finances. Southern revenue from customs duties on imports and exports was comparatively strong, while the northern administration ran at a deficit and depended on subsidy from London. Officials argued that a single administration would allow revenue to be pooled, railway policy to be planned as a whole, and staffing to be reduced.

Frederick Lugard, who had governed the north and later returned as Governor-General, was the principal architect. The decision was taken by colonial administrators and approved in London. There was no consultation with the populations concerned, and no representative body existed that could have expressed their consent.

The merger created one government, one budget and one civil service at the top, under a Governor-General based in Lagos. Beneath that level, administration remained divided. The Northern and Southern Provinces kept separate structures, separate legal arrangements in important respects, and different approaches to local government, education and missionary activity.

In the north, indirect rule through emirs was maintained and Christian missionary activity was restricted in Muslim areas, which shaped the later distribution of mission schools and of the English-language education that led to clerical and professional employment. In the south, where mission schooling had been established earlier, a larger Western-educated group emerged sooner.

The name Nigeria, derived from the River Niger, had been in use in English writing since the 1890s and was applied to the combined territory. A small Nigerian Council was created with limited advisory functions and no legislative authority over the north.

The amalgamation set the outer shape of the country that became independent in 1960, and left its internal divisions in place. Because the two halves continued to be run differently for decades, the merger is frequently described in later Nigerian political debate as an administrative convenience rather than a settlement negotiated between the peoples affected.

Debates about federalism, revenue allocation, the number and boundaries of states, and the balance between regions all trace part of their history to this date. Lagos remained the seat of government until the capital was moved to the Federal Capital Territory at Abuja in 1991.