Capitalism In The Colonies: African Merchants in Lagos, 1851 - 1931 [Chapters 13 - 14]

History is all around us

What We Owe to Agege

There was another type of Saro we haven’t fully explored. Like others, they were kidnapped, sold into slavery, freed by the Royal Navy, and taken to Sierra Leone. However, some were less influenced by missionaries, often because they spent little time in Sierra Leone before returning to what is now Nigeria. Unlike most, these Saro settled in Abeokuta instead of Lagos. James Osolu Coker (a.k.a Ajobo) and his wife Dotunmu belonged to this group, and their son, Jacob Kehinde Coker, is the focus of this chapter. Their choice of Abeokuta over Lagos profoundly shaped Jacob’s life, exposing him to two distinct worlds.

Jacob began his career in Lagos as a clerk in 1885 but struck out on his own by 1892, importing manufactured goods and trading in produce. In 1893, he purchased a farm in present-day Agege, delegating its management to Moses Somefun, a fellow Egba, while he focused on his Lagos business. The farm remained uneventful until after 1903, when Jacob shifted his focus from merchant trading to farming. This change was prompted by a series of family losses: his father James died in 1904, leaving behind a large family. Shortly after, his Uncle Harry, who succeeded James as head of the family, also passed away, followed by Joseph, the eldest surviving son, within a year. With his father’s assets spread across Lagos and Abeokuta, Jacob took on significant new responsibilities. Balancing these demands proved challenging. He assigned his brother Ben to oversee the Abeokuta holdings and entrusted another brother, John, with managing his Lagos business. However, in a story that will be all too familiar to contemporary Nigerians, John ran the Lagos business into the ground, accruing debts that took Jacob six years to settle.

In those days, Agege was both a refuge and a contested no-man’s land, vastly different from what it is today. Claimed by both Isheri (under Daniel Taiwo, who we met in earlier chapters) and Ota, it became home to diverse settlers, including Hausas from the north and those fleeing Dahomey’s tyranny. By the early 20th century, land values soared—from near-worthless exchanges in 1893, when Jacob Coker bought his land, to £100 for 50 acres in Ifako by 1911. Agege’s appeal lay in its fertile soil, less salty than Lagos’s coastal land, and its proximity to the Iju River, which allowed the surrounding land retain water for farming and also served as a transport route. The 1897 extension of the Lagos railway to Agege further boosted its accessibility, reducing travel time to 35 minutes.

By 1907, Jacob Coker had planted 30,000 cocoa trees in Agege and he was not the only one doing so: Rufus Wright had 40,000 trees and the Colonial official in charge of Forestry and Agriculture noted in 1906 that there were ‘several small cocoa plantations in the southern part of the Protectorate, the best being at Agege’. By buying up more and more land as far as Alagbado and Ifo (he raised money against his properties in Lagos from Isaac Williams, Josiah Doherty, Candido da Rocha and others), Coker gradually became the biggest player in the cocoa game in Agege and environs. A deeply intelligent and talented man, he demonstrated his commitment to industrialisation by founding an institute in Agege in 1916 ‘which offered training in mechanical as well as agricultural skills’.

There was also a political angle to the farming in Agege that is worth touching upon. Here we quote Professor Hopkins at length:

Coker stood at the head of an assorted farming community. A small number of planters with varied but sizeable farms formed Coker’s inner circle. His closest associates were headed by Frederick Ephraim Williams (1867–1918), and included Joseph Ogunola Beckley (1862–1923), Samuel Alexander Jibowu (1862–1928), and Moses Odeyinka Somefun (1862–1929). The members of this group were all Egba, who came either from Iporo Ake (as did Coker) or the adjacent township of Ijeun, and were born within a few years of each other in the 1860s. Coker, Beckley, Jibowu, and Somefun were all educated at Ake school, Iporo. Williams was educated in Lagos because his family moved there after the Ifole in 1867. All of them were Christians and members of the Anglican Church; all of them joined the African Church when it was formed in 1901 or shortly afterwards. Many of them increased these affiliations through ties of marriage.71

Coker and his associates from Abeokuta were also Egba patriots who found themselves compelled to adjust to political upheaval in their homeland.72 The Egba had managed to hold on to their independence after the colonial government invaded the Ijebu in 1892. However, there was a price to be paid. The British insisted on reforms that resulted in the creation of the Egba United Government (EUG) in 1898. (Page 412)

This arrangement ended with the arrival of Lord Lugard. In 1914, the EUG was abolished, and the Egbas were absorbed into the new Nigerian colony, losing their independence. There’s a running joke that the Egbas have played a role in every pivotal moment in modern Nigerian history (from Obasanjo to MKO Abiola)—not always for good. For this group that always managed to punch above its weight, ‘twas ever thus.

Also in 1907, Coker and other farmers established the Agege Planters Union (APU) to exchange ideas, adopt best practices, and pool resources. Serving as secretary, Coker helped expand the group to over 300 members by 1909, with membership open to all, including Hausas. The APU provided support to members, including funding members’ funerals and advocating against government policies that threatened their interests. Since cocoa farming required significant upfront investment in seeds and labour long before earning export revenues, farmers often faced cash shortages. Coker, able to borrow against his Lagos properties, became a crucial financial backbone for the union. The Agege pioneers were courageous and determined but nothing was easy for them and from 1905 when the railway line reached Ibadan, it had started to face competition from there as cocoa farming spread into the hinterlands. As was discussed in the previous section on JPL Davies, labour was a serious problem from which the APU was not exempt and there were even rumours that the African churches were supporting polygamy as a way of breeding more labourers (nonsense, of course).

Given the devastation slavery caused in Nigeria, those who opposed it deserve recognition. The APU championed wage labour, even as wages rose and labour grew scarce. Jacob Coker, rejected the use of slave labour (despite his father - a former slave himself - using it in Abeokuta) with intellectual and religious clarity. He also promoted fair practices, urging APU members not to poach labourers from each other while they were under contract. He encouraged technology adoption, organising a demonstration of a palm oil extraction machine invented by an Abeokuta teacher, as one example. In 1912, the APU persuaded the government to build a road linking Ebute-Metta and Agege and became Nigeria's first farmers to invest in motor vehicles, later forming the APU Motor Transport Company in 1916. Unfortunately, their imported lorry proved too heavy for the rudimentary roads of the day. Meanwhile, APU cocoa achieved premium quality, fetching top prices in Lagos and winning government agricultural prizes. Their reputation drew attention, including a 1909 ‘courtesy call’ from the Director of Agriculture in French West Africa.

The influence of Jacob Coker and the APU remains underrated. They ‘opened up’ the hinterland to new ideas by bringing freehold land sales - previously limited to Lagos - to Agege. They were generous with their knowledge and resources so much so they freely seeded the ideas that would eventually whittle Agege’s dominant position in cocoa farming. By 1918 Coker owned 2,000 acres in Agege and a car in Lagos. He also became influential in politics: when the Alake of Egbaland, Gbadebo I, died in 1920, Coker and others teamed up to back Ladapo Ademola against another candidate backed by another Egba faction. Ladapo won and became Gbadebo II, reigning as Alake from 1920 to 1962.

On a personal note, before leaving Nigeria, we lived in Coker Village, Ifako. I knew little of its history then, beyond hearing about land disputes involving countless Coker descendants. My mother still calls Ifako First Baptist Church in Coker Village her church and keeps weekly contact with its Pastor and members. I share this only to highlight how history surrounds us, waiting for curiosity to uncover it.

Coker’s story is not yet finished in the book. There will be more in the coming chapters.

- Feyi

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1914

World War I (1914–1918) disrupted the economy of Lagos, which was deeply integrated into global trade networks. Before the war, Nigeria exported 75% of its palm kernels, 53% of its groundnuts, and 46% of its cocoa to Germany. When Britain declared war, German firms such as the influential African Association, which had developed competitive shipping routes and superior pricing mechanisms, were abruptly removed from the market. This significantly impacted local merchants as they lost a considerable portion of their export market. The supply chain for trade was also disrupted due to import restrictions from Germany, as many merchants could not import inputs for their machinery and finished products like textiles.

The commercial environment became even more dominated by British firms, and the colonial economy was subsumed under war economics for British interests, further alienating African trading firms and merchants in Lagos. The sudden removal of German firms gave British firms like John Holt & Co., The Niger Company, and the African and Eastern Trading Corporation opportunities to consolidate their grip over trade in Lagos. Yet, the war created shortages in essential imports, such as textiles and machinery, raising costs significantly for African merchants who relied on imported goods to sustain their businesses.

I mentioned in the last review that the evolving rationale of colonial governance and economic policy did contribute to the lack of diffusion of the Industrial Revolution to Lagos and the colonies writ large. Merchants were no longer partners in creating new commerce and markets—they were now subjects in a new extractive economy. This new equilibrium became very stressed in 1914 because of the war. For example, shipping vessels were requisitioned by The Royal Navy for military use. This led to severe shipping shortages that affected the export and import trade. The struggles of the trade economy did lead to calls for import-substitution manufacturing by the then Governor Frederick Lugard. However, British firms showed no interest in the idea, and local firms and merchants had neither the resources nor committed institutional backing. As Professor Hopkins puts it, "This was a hope, not a policy."

The economy, after the war, went through a boom and bust cycle. From 1919 to 1920, there was some economic optimism fueled by European demand for Nigerian palm oil and kernels. Prices for agricultural exports surged, creating a speculative boom. African merchants, sensing an opportunity, took significant loans to expand operations. However, this speculative optimism was short-lived. By 1921, the global market for Nigerian exports collapsed as Europe's economic recovery faltered. Palm kernel prices fell by nearly 50% between 1920 and 1921. Many African traders, heavily indebted due to wartime borrowing, were forced to liquidate their assets. The volatility mainly affected middle-tier traders, who had no capital backup comparable to the large British firms. This post-war economic volatility had an uneven impact on the commercial environment. Large British consolidated their opportunities and even became monopolistic by excluding African merchants from key profitable markets, such as the export of processed palm oil. However, these challenges activated the cooperative instincts of the local merchant community. They formed organisations to negotiate better credit terms and further internationalise their businesses.

By the late 1920s, the economy of Lagos was marked by stagnation. Trade volumes, particularly for palm kernels and cocoa, declined. The terms of trade also worsened as European markets imposed stricter quality standards on Nigerian exports while offering lower prices.

For African merchants, the post-war economic downturn compounded the colonial government's racial economic policies. British firms remained dominant, while African merchants were increasingly sidelined. By the time of the Great Depression (1929–1931), the economy in Lagos was in crisis. The colonial government's emphasis on reliance on commodities export as the primary source of growth left the city vulnerable to fluctuations in global demand, resulting in widespread unemployment and poverty among the mercantile class.

These economic pressures catalysed political activism among Lagos merchants. Organisations like the Lagos Chamber of Commerce began to advocate for fairer treatment of African businesses. This period also laid the groundwork for the nationalist movements of the 1930s and 1940s, which would challenge colonial economic policies and eventually contribute to Nigeria's push for independence.

-Tobi

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