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The Dilemma of Press Freedom in Colonial Africa: The West African Example1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2009

Fred I. A. Omu
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Extract

One of the most striking features of the African nationalist movement is the great effort that was made to safeguard the freedom of the press. As British subjects, most of whom were trained in Britain, educated Africans assumed that they were entitled to enjoy a free press, which was an essential ingredient in the British political tradition. Their newspapers were almost unavoidably highly critical, and colonial administrators sought to control them. A variety of factors contained official repressive enthusiasm, and these provide the key to the relatively small number of press prosecutions and the seeming reluctance to enforce press legislation. The situation is illustrated from the history of the early nationalist newspaper press in former British West Africa.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 9 , Issue 2 , April 1968 , pp. 279 - 298
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1968

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References

2 Up to the end of the First World War, the period covered by this study, with the exception of Senegal, former French West Africa produced no popular newspapers. For this reason, the study has been limited to former British West Africa.

3 Lagos Weekly Record, 28 June 1919.

4 See Wickwar, W. H., The Struggle for the Freedom of the Press, 1819–1832 (London, 1928), 18–28.Google Scholar

5 The first newspaper was the Sierra Leone Gazette, founded in 1801 by officers of the Sierra Leone Company. After a varied career, it ceased in 1827. In 1843 the Wesleyan Missionary Society produced the Sierra Leone Watchman, a philanthropic and political publication. The Wesleyan headquarters suppressed it in 1846.

6 For a fuller discussion of the Era and the Drape-Hill controversy, see Omu, Fred I. A., ‘The New Era and the abortive press law of 1857’, Sierra Leone Studies, no. 23 (1967).Google Scholar

7 I have seen neither the original Bill nor the Ordinance as passed. The information here has been taken from summaries of the Bill contained in the issue of the New Era for 13 Apr. 1857, and Drape's Memorials and letters to the Colonial Office.

8 CO. 267/260, Hill to Labouchere, 26 Feb. 1858.

9 CO. 267/257, Hill to Labouchere, 22 May 1857.

10 C.O. 267/258, Hill to Labouchere, 17 Oct. 1857: C.O. 267/260, Hill to Labouchere, 8 Feb. 1857. The Amendment (no. 13 of 1858) was to supply a date which was found missing in the Ordinance.

11 C.O. 267/258, Labouchere to Hill, 22 Jan. 1858.

12 C.O. 267/260, Hill to Labouchere, 26 Apr. 1858. See also C.O. 267/260, Hill to Stanley, 16 Apr. 1858.

13 Minute in C.O. 267/260, Hill to Labouchere, 26 Feb. 1858.

14 CO. 267/260, Stanley to Hill, 20 May 1858.

15 The Sierra Leone Spectator and West African Intelligencer. It was begun on 3 04. 1858.Google Scholar

16 Herd, Harold, The March of Journalism (London, 1952), 147–59.Google Scholar

17 C.O. 267/263, Association.… to Lytton, 9 Sept. 1858.

18 C.O. 267/263, Hill to Stanley, 8 Sept. 1858.

19 C.O. 2671263, Lytton to Hill, 16 Sept. 1858. The repeal took effect from 11 Oct 1858. For a reprint of the repeal proclamation, see the Lagos Standard, 15 07 1903.Google Scholar

20 C.O. 267/255, Hill to Labouchere Oct. 1856; Labouchere to Hill, 13 Feb. 1857. Also C.O. 267/261, Hill to Stanley, 4 Aug. 1858.

21 ‘An Ordinance to Provide for the Registration of Newspapers and their Proprietors and for the printing on newspapers of the names of the Printers’ (no. 43 of 27 Dec. 1924). During the First World War a Press Censorship Ordinance was passed, but it was a temporary measure. Earlier the Official Secrets Ordinance had been passed (no. I3 of 1889), but it was not expressly directed against newspapers. For its origins, see Williams, Francis, Not in the Public Interest (London, 1965), 15 ff.Google Scholar

22 Kimble, D.,A Political History of Ghana, 1850–1928 (Oxford, 1963). 67.Google Scholar

23 C.O. 96/172 (conf.), Griffith to Stanley, 2 Feb. 1886; Stanley to Griffith, 55 Mar. 1886.

24 ‘Extract of a minute from the Chief Justice to the Ag. Governor dated the 17th February, 1894’, Enclosure I, C.O. 96/243, Hodgson to Ripon, 26 Feb. 1894.

25 Queen's Advocate, E. Bruse Hindle's Report on the Ordinance, Encl, no. 2, C.O. 96/236, Hodgson to Ripon, 5 Sept. 1893.

26 Minutes in C.O. 96/236 cited.

27 Minutes in ibid.

28 C.O. 96/236, Ripon to Griffith, 2 Nov. 1893.

29 C.O. 96/243, Hodgson to Ripon, 26 Feb. 1894.

30 C.O. 96/243, Ripon to Griffith, 13 Apr. 1894. The Ordinance met with criticism from the unofficial members but was re-enacted as no. 8 of 1894 (13 August). C.O. 96/247, Griffith to Ripon, 31 Aug. 1894; Ripon to Griffith, 2 Oct. 1894.

31 C.O. 247/I, Freeman to Newcastle, 6 Dec. 1862. For details, see Omu, Fred I. A., ‘The “Anglo-African”, 1863–65’, Nigeria Magazine, no. 90 (09. 1966), 206–12.Google Scholar

32 C.O. 147/I, Newcastle to Freeman, 28 Jan. 1863.

33 The African Times was founded in 1861 as the journal of the African Aid Society and edited by Ferdinand Fitzgerald, Secretary of the Society. Persons who constituted the butt of Fitzgerald's attacks succeeded in closing the Society and the paper in 1866. But Fitzgerald took over the journal himself as proprietor and editor until his death in 1884 at the age of 77.

34 African Times, 23 04 1866.Google Scholar

35 This should not be confused with the missionary newspaper edited by Rev. Townsend at Abeokuta. For the missionary paper, see Omu, Fred I. A., ‘The “Iwe Irohin”, 1859–67: a study in the origins of the Nigerian Newspaper Press’, Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria, IV no. 2 (12, 1967).Google Scholar

36 The writer is currently working on a history of this newspaper from 1890 to 1930, when it ceased. For a portrait and appraisal of J. P. Jackson (and his distinguished son Horatio Jackson) see Omu, Fred I. A., ‘The Nigerian newspaper press, 1859–1937: a study in origins, growth and influence’, Ph.D. thesis (Ibadan, 1965), ch. 2.Google Scholar

37 Four other (ephemeral) newspapers were founded in the 1 890s: the Spectator (1893), Lagos Echo (1894), Lagos Reporter (1898) and the Wasp (I900).

38 13 Mar. 1896.

39 See Anene, J. C., Southern Nigeria in Transition, 1885–1906 (Cambridge, 1966), passim.Google Scholar

40 Nigerian Archives, Ibadan, C.S.O. I/86/3, Chamberlain to Moor, 20 Aug. 1901, which mentioned Moor to Chamberlain, 14 Dec. 1901 (missing). Also C.S.O. 1115/3, Moor to Chamberlain, 27 May 1902.

41 The governor, Sir F. Cardew, claimed that newspapers which encouraged the people not to pay the House Tax and incited them to rebellion were read to chiefs in the protectorate by Creole traders and clerks. (Lagos Standard of 15 June, 1898, reproduced an article in News of the World which reported Chamberlain as saying in the House of Commons that he had been informed that the Sierra Leone press had incited the hinterland chiefs to resist the collectors of the tax.) Sir Donald Chalmers, who investigated the disturbances, was of the opinion that the impeachment of the press was baseless. According to him, the incitement by the press was ‘a hypothesis not built up by means of any sound induction from facts’ (Parliamentary Papers, Lx, (1899),Google Scholar ‘Report.… on the Insurrection in the Sierra Leone Protectorate’, C. 9388 and 9391). For an authoritative analysis of the factors in the insurrection, see Hargreaves, J. D., ‘The establishment of the Sierra Leone Protectorate and the insurrection of 1898’, Cambridge Historical Journal xii, no. 1 (1956).Google Scholar

42 C.S.O. 1/1/30, Macgregor to Chamberlain, 19 June 1900; C.S.O. 1/3/5, Macgregor to Chamberlain, 2 Oct. 1901.

43 C.S.O. 1/16/3, Chamberlain to Moor, 20 Aug. 1901.

44 A mission-inspired publication, the Calabar Observer, was started in 1902. For details of Moor's debate with Chamberlain, see chapter 5 of my Ph.D. thesis.

45 C.S.O. 1/152, Moor to Chamberlain, 12 Oct. 1901; C.S.O. 1/16/4, Chamberlain to Moor, 31 July 1902; C.S.O. 1/153, Moor to Chamberlain, 28 Nov. 1902.

46 C.S.O. 1/3/3, Macgregor to Chamberlain, 4 Jan. 1902.

47 Minutes in C.O. 147/160, Macgregor to Chamberlain, 4 Jan. 1902; Chamberlain to Macgregor, 19 Mar. 1902.

48 30 April 1902.

49 Government Gazette, Colony, of Lagos, , 01.–12. 1903, pp. 74–7. Lagos Standard, 18 02. 1903.Google Scholar

50 Macgregor was instructed to forward the opinion of the Chief Justice: this did not seem as favourable as that of the governor.

51 For example, Lagos Standard, 10 06 1903; Lagos Weekly Record, 6 06, 13 06 1903.Google Scholar

52 See Lagos Weekly Record, 1 07 1903.Google Scholar

53 Minute by H. B. Cox in C.O. 147/167, Macgregor to Chamberlain, 5 July 1903; C.S.O. 1/2/74, Chamberlain to Macgregor, 26 Aug. 1903.

54 Between 1930 and 1935 there were probably only two prosecutions: Rex v. Coulson Labor, 1930; Police v. D. O. Oke, 1935.

55 Legislative Council debates, 6 10 1909; Nigerian Chronicle, 22 10 1909.Google Scholar

56 C.S.O. 1/21/3, Egerton to Crewe, 27 Nov. 1908. Enclosure no. a, Green to Egerton, 29 Sept. 1908; no. 4, Pennington to Egerton, 26 Nov. 1908.

57 C.S.O. 1/21/3, Egerton to Crewe, 27 Nov. 1908.

58 C.S.O. 1/22/2, Crewe to Egerton, 24 Feb. 1909.

59 Natarajan, S., A History of the Press in India (London, 1962). 153. 162.Google Scholar

60 Lagos Standard, 29 09. 1909.Google Scholar

61 See Lagos Standard, 17 11. 1909.Google Scholar

62 Ajasa, Kitoyi in Legislative Council Minutes, 6 10 1909.Google Scholar

63 Sapara Williams and Obadiah Johnson, when the Bill came to committee.

64 See reprint in Nigerian Times, 3 05 1910.Google Scholar

65 See ibid., 26 April 1910.

66 H. S. Hewitt v. Chris Johnson (editor, Nigerian Chronicle), 1910. Johnson was fined £ 100 plus 30 guineas cost.

67 J. B. Davies, editor of Times of Nigeria, was prosecuted and convicted twice during the First World War for anti-British comments which were clearly improper at the time. In 1928 Herbert Macaulay and Dr Caulcrick, proprietors, and I. A. Olushola, editor of the Lagos Daily News, were all convicted for publishing a false rumour which led to public demonstrations against Macaulay's political enemies.

68 Perham, M., Lugard, The Years of Authority, 1898–1945 (London, 1960), 390.Google Scholar

69 Ibid. 597.

70 See note 6 above.

71 It was stated to be an offence to do ‘any unlawful act calculated to interfere with the free exercise by the Governor or a Lieutenant-Governor of the duties or authority of his office or with the free exercise by a member of the Executive or Legislative Council of his duties as such member’ (Chapter 8, section 61, Criminal Code no. 15 of 1916; Nigerian Gazette, 01–06 1916;Google ScholarTimes of Nigeria, 14 12 1915).Google Scholar

72 See C.O. 583/59, Lugard to Long, 17 Aug. 1917.

73 Perham, , op. cit. 598.Google Scholar

74 See C.S.O. 1/32/12, Lugard to Long, 87 Aug. 1917, Ends.4, 5, 6.

75 Legislative Council Minutes, 13 07 1987.Google Scholar

76 Minutes in C.O. 583/59 cited.

77 See note 29 above.

78 C.O. 583/59, Long to Lugard, 21 Nov. 1917.

79 C.S.O. 8/33/60, Harcourt to Lugard, 23 Dec. 1918; Nigerian Gazette (1918), 50.Google Scholar

80 Rex v. Horatio Jackson, 1925; Rex. v. J. A. Olushola, 1929; Rex v. Herbert Macaulay & two others, 1929; Rex v. Ajasa, 1936, was withdrawn after the accused apologized in court for contempt of court—publication of matter that was sub judice.