Nigeria: Its peoples and its problems

About this book

E. D. Morel’s Nigeria, its peoples and its problems is a nonfiction study that blends travel narrative, ethnographic observation, and political commentary on the British Protectorates of the early twentieth century. The book opens with a lengthy acknowledgment in which Morel thanks railway officials, merchants, and native communities for their hospitality during his journeys, then moves into an introduction that explains his aim: to assemble recent Times articles and additional material into a portrait of Nigeria as it exists “to‑day.” He promises a mixture of “pen and ink sketches” and more systematic essays on the country’s geography, cultures, and the challenges facing its governors, while explicitly positioning the native Nigerian as the central figure rather than a peripheral subject.

The voice is that of a well‑connected British observer writing in 1911, marked by a formal, earnest tone and a clear imperial perspective tempered by a sympathetic concern for indigenous welfare. Its style is descriptive yet argumentative, interweaving personal anecdotes with detailed analyses of trade, law, and education. Readers interested in colonial history, early anthropological accounts, or the complexities of British‑African relations in the pre‑World‑War era will find the work both informative and reflective of its time.

Opening lines

Also to the Management and Staff of the Southern and Northern Nigeria railways; in particular to the Director of the Public Works Department of the Northern Protectorate, Mr. John Eaglesome and to Mrs. Eaglesome, and to Mr. Firmin, the Resident Engineer of the Southern Nigeria line at Jebba. …

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