THE BRITISH AND THEIR USAGE OF INDIRECT RULE IN THEIR COLONIES DURING THE COLONIAL PERIOD

The socio-political and economic challenges faced by Britain in administering their colonies were very many. This brought about their needs to re-organize their political strategies in the administration processes. The reality was that the British tried to create British styled administrative systems in most of their colonies but failed. The reality was that in British African colonies, the challenges faced by the British differ. For instance, in Nigeria the British saw that they faced different challenges in different parts of Nigeria.
Before the introduction of the indirect rule system by the British, they made a whole lot of mistakes. They failed to understand the culture of Africans in their duties. They thought that African have the same cultural orientation. They do not know the richness and sensitivity of the cultures of most parts of Africa. For this reason they encountered very great oppositions in most places in Africa during the colonial period. The multiple resistance which turned brutal in some instances like the Akassa Raid in resent Nigeria, the Ekumeku movement in present Nigeria, the mai mai movement in the East African region made the British to re organize their strategy.

Another factor that worked against the British was that they had a very low number of British personnel available for the day to day administrative duties. Though there were some other Europeans available but the problem of trust happened to be a stumbling block. This was coming from the fact that there was the move to acquire territories by European countries generally. The infusion of elements from other European countries can work against the British interest.

A very important factor was the imperialistic tendencies of the British. The British government in London was not interested in sending funds from Britain to its colonies. The main focus was in getting money from its colonies to the main land. This happened that each colonies British elements organized government had the duty of raising their own fund locally. To this effect, the possibility of paying the government officials became very hard. This brought about the low number of British personnel in government in their colonies. The best effective method was the use of local political structure with British official’s supervision and organization. This as well made thing very difficult for the British that though they controlled their illegal territories, they found things very difficult on the ground. They witnessed a lot of oppositions. Their imperialist tendencies as well did not help matter as it worsen the issue on the ground. It brought about lack of trust between them and the locals.

Get an ebook copy of KANEM-BORNO EMPIRE: A great Political Geographic Location that existed in Africa Written by Onuh Fortunatus the Moderator of this website. To get it click the link below.