NIGERIA IS A TRADEMARK AND PROPERTY OF THE BRITISH CROWN UNTILL THIS DAY..... ROYAL NIGER COMPANY IS TODAY UAC The British government had in 1899, repurchased the entity known as the Protectorates of Northern and Southern Nigeria from the Royal Niger Company (RNC). Perhaps, it is worth recalling, for purposes of fact, how the British sold and bought NIGERIA for a paltry £865,000.00. And this was done without due regard to the sensibility of its inhabitants. The deal was negotiated, struck, signed and delivered between the British conglomerate RNC and the British government. It was fully debated and approved by the British parliament in 1899. The deal originated from the Secretary of the Colonies after due consultation with the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir M. Hicks-Beach. On July 19, 1899, Sir Hicks-Beach tabled a Bill before the parliament, seeking to acquire the assets and liabilities of the RNC. These included treaties, conventions, agreements and arrangements, landed assets and untapped mineral wealth of the Niger area. The enactment of the Act finally withdrew the Charter granted to the company to administer the “Nigerian” territory. Parliamentarian Labouchere of Northampton started debate on the Bill. Apparently opposed to the acquisition, he stated, “The only fact that is absolutely clear to me is that we have got to pay the sum of £865,000…… One of the things we buy from this company is an assorted cargo of treaties, which they have made with diverse chiefs and others in the interior of Africa. We have, solely in consequence of this, to take over as part and parcel of the British Empire a huge district in Western Central Africa coterminous with the French frontier there, and which, in my opinion, we had far better have left alone”.
Posted on: Thu, 27 Nov 2014 22:50:44 +0000
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