Bussa rebellion

Background

During World War I, the increased demands on the colonial state, combined with its growing shortage of manpower, put strain on British and French colonial holdings in West Africa. Uprisings in British Nigeria and French Dahomey in particular served to "embarrass" European colonial powers and special precautions were taken to suppress them. Rebellions by the Egba people and the Iseyin were the cause of particular concern.

Bussa was located in Borgu Province, in the west of Northern Nigeria. Traditionally, Bussa had been part of the Borgu Emirate, but it had been conquered by the British and annexed into the Northern Nigeria Protectorate. Between 1912 and 1914, under the auspices of Frederick Lugard, Northern and Southern Nigeria were merged into a single Nigerian protectorate. Lugard was a chief proponent of allowing limited self-determination to local states, known as indirect rule, based on traditional tribal groups but within the aegis of general British control.

Lugard argued that where possible, pre-colonial aristocrats or kings should be retained as indirect rulers in British service to give greater legitimacy to the system. The hereditary emir of Bussa, Kitoro Gani, was judged to be a weak ruler who did not have enough influence to collect taxes or fill quotas of labourers to work on building railways. In 1912, therefore, the resident at Yelwa, A. C. Boyd, forced a major administrative reform on the Borgu Emirate which was divided up into administrative areas, each ruled by a beit-el-mal, or Native Administration. In Bussa, the Administration was put under the control of Turaki, a former royal advisor. Taxes were also raised.