CONTENTS

Page
OXFOR9 ~OJ'lP9~. ?L1SGQ~" ~~ YORK
TORONTO'' ME_Lll01ttRNE M%~LTNG:rQ]'\T';~APE TOWN
INTRODUCTION . vii
IBADAN NAIROBI DAR ES SALAAM ADDIS ABABA
KUALA LUMPUR SINGAPORE .JAKARTA.):J.ONG KONG TOKYO
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ix
DELJI BOMBAy CAfGUtfA•MADRAS: KARACHI •.

1. ORIGIN OF EUROPEAN CONTROL AND ANGLOSPANISH

CONNECTION 1

2. HISTORY OF LABOUR RECRUITING 23

© NIGERIAN INSTITUTE OF INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS
3. THE SECOND WORLD WAR AND THE PREDOMINANCE OF
NIGERIAN LABOUR IN FERNANDO PO 36

ISBN 978 154082 6

'> ..' !-: .f~~·.",.,;.l··:,<.~_.: ·~···.'

isBN' o 19 575457 3

Stadt- u. Univ.--Bibl.
..
---.Frankfurt
.-------J1 Main

Printed by Oluseyi Press Limited lbadan.

Published by OxJoNi:rJ,;tversity Press Nigeria
Oxford il!Juiie, iddo Gl&,·ip/M.B.i so95;-ibadrm, Nigeria

V
 INTRODUCTION
The publication of this monograph marks the inauguration of
the Monograph Series of the Nigerian Institute of Internation-
al Affairs. It is a welcome addition to the multiplicity of
publications emanating from the Institute: the Seminar Series,
the Lecture Series, the Bulletin on Foreign Affairs Series,
the Nigerian Journal of International Affairs and the Annual
Survey of Nigerian Affairs.
This particular monograph also symbolises the co-operative
working relationship between the Institute and Nigerian
scholars in Nigerian universities. Even though the Institute
does not have as much money as it would like to have to
cover the research activities of its own resident staff, it is still
prepared to make allocations to scholars outside the Institute
because it firmly believes that it should not be a closed
shop but should be a forum for the dissemination of
ideas by the community of Nigerian intellectuals in both the
public and private services.
Lagos, January, 1978
Dr. A. Bolaji Akinyemi
Director-General

vii
 ORIGIN OF EUROPEAN CONTROL AND
ANG LO-SPANISH CONNECTION
./" ..,.." ·v"""-._..·--·-'-·""-'·"'"'"·\
! •Kano \
......
The name "Nigeria" is of course a creation of the British just
I as the country is a creation of British imperialism. The British

mt~=:::::71
~/ C-Calabar
connection with what became Nigeria goes back to the era of
the slave trade, when Africa's contribution to the rise of
· PH- Port western capitalism was in the provision of cheap labour
l "'"·-..r Harcourt

2<(0 ~ ~oqkms required in the nursery land of the sugar cane and cotton
s:nio City 100 200 300miles plantations of the ne'(V world. When the trade in 'black
cargoes' became unattractivt;~ to the British, present day
Nigeria because of its agricUltural potentialities rec~ived the
.I attention of British entrepreneurs who were interested in
developing and fostering what was then called "legitimat~ _
\
( traqe". The period of "free trade imperialism" coinciding with ·
the period of British industrial and commercial ascendancy
came to an end at the twilight of British industrial supremac}l'
and at ·the advent on the industrial scene of new nations,
particularly Germany and the -United States. "Free trade
imperialism" in the Bights of Benin and Biafra was translated·
between the 1880s and 1900s into territorial annexation of
8 I G H r=oF-a 0 N N Y
what became Nigeria. .
Santa lsobel
FERNANDO POO
'The Spanish connection with Equatorial Guinea is perhaps
100 200 Kms much more romantic than the bread and butter relationship
0 50 100 Miles
of Britain to Nigeria. Spanish colonies in the Gulf of Guinea
consisted of the Islands of Annobon, Femando Po, (known
to its African inhabitants as Hedepette) Corisco, Elobey
Grande and Elobey Gluco and an enclave in the Cameroons
situated round the Rio Muni basin. The aggregate area is
128,060 square miles and the native population was estimated
in 1943 to be 163,000 of which some 33,000 were on the
Island of Femando Po. Spanish residents numbered 2,800. 1

By all yardsticks Fernando Po was the most important part
of Equatorial Guinea, and the Spaniards hardly paid any
regard to other areas.
The first whiteman to visit Fernando Po was Fernan Po,
one of the earliest Portuguese navigators who came to the
island during the reign of King Alonzo V and certainly
between 1469 and 1474 and gave the island the name of
"Formosa". On his return journey he died opposite the island,
and his companions as a gesture of goodwill and through a
sense of loss decided to immortalise his name by giving the
island hi~ name. 2 Portugal, in consequence of the "discovery",
claimed the island as her own. The Portuguese did try to
plant colonies on the island, and one persistent but unsuccess-
ful colonizer was Don Ramirez de Esquival who during the
16th century undertook to settle Portuguese colons on the
· island, but the irregularity of supplies arriving on the island
from Europe and the hostility of the native population, the
Bubi saw to the failure of the Portuguese attempt at coloniza-
tion. 'Many of the settlers died of hunger, others were believed
to have been killed by the Bubi, while stragglers escaped into
the interior and "went native" in order to survive. Femando
Po was ceded to_Spain by the 13th, 14th and 15th Articles of
the Treaty of Pardo concluded between Spain and Portugal on
1 March 1778.3 As in the subsequent history of Euro-
African relations, this Treaty was concluded using African
territories as diplomatic counters on a European diplomatic
chess board, for some territorial concessions along their
frontiers. Portugal ceded Fernando Po to Spain with a view
to promoting their "mutual trade in slaves" and also "in order
that the subjects of the crown of Spain may establish them-
selves in the said Island and from thence pursue their
commerce and the slave trade in the ports and on the coasts
of the continent and rivers opposite to the Island, but without
prejudice to the trade which the Portuguese may carry on in
the said ports and on the said coasts".4 When the Island of
Ferhando Po was ceded to Spain, trading rights over what
became Nigeria, the Cameroons and French Congo were
2
among the concessions of the treaty.5 The Spanish expedition
which set out to take Femando Po left Monte Video in April
1778, only one month after the definitive treaty had been
signed and consequently before there could have been any
exchange of the ratifications. However, formal transfer of the
island took place on the island on 24 October 1778, when
Don Luis Caetano de Castro formally handed over the island
to the Spanish representative Conde de· Argelexox
(Argeligos).6 The expedition sent to take possession of
Femando Po and Annobon consisted of two frigates with a
crew of 547. They had with them 170 marines including a
staff of 11, and it was commanded by the Con de de
Argelexox. They reached Femando Po on the 24 October
1778 only to find that the Portuguese settlement no longer
existed. The Conde, however, attempted to form one for
Spain, but half of his men fell victim to the climate before six
months had elapsed and he returned home with the ·
( '
remainder to tell his tale and complain that his country had
been deceived by Portugal in her attempt to palm off upon
Spain a territpry to which she herself had no claim. 7 With
this experience Spain took no interest in Femando Po or
any part of Equatorial Guinea until the nineteenth century.
This must have been a welcomed development for the Bubi
population of the island who were at least spared for almost
a century the horrors of plantation economy and its attendant
human wastage. The Bubi, who arrived on the island from the
adjacent continent some time during the fourteenth century,
are Bantu speaking and therefore must be related to other
Bantu speaking peoples of adjacent coasts of present day
Central Africa. When the Europeans first visited Femando Po
the Bubi numbered just a few thousand rural folk who lived
on the .lower slopes and valleys of Pico de Sante Isabel, the
highest peak (about 9,000 ft. above sea level) on this
mountainous and volcanic island. Their life style was simple;
they gathered the fruits of -wild palm and occasionally
exchanged yams and other staples with passing ships. The ·
Mrican population of bot}l Femando Po and Annobon was 1
3
complete!~, :unaware of any Spanish claim of suzerainty over
their terri~ories; in fact, Spain herself took so little interest in
these possessions that when the Island of Annobon was
finally visited by representatives of Spain in 1836, the
expedition found the Africans to be under the impression
that they were still the subjects of Portugal. s The Spanish
territory of Rio Muni on the mainland received even less
attention. It was not until1901 that the Spaniards attempted
occupying the territory effectively.9
BRITISH INTEREST IN FERNANDO PO
The attention of the British governm~nt appeared to have
been drawn to this island in the summer of 1825, when some
British merchants sent a petition to the Colonial Office as"king
the government to allow them to settle on the island.10 One
of the motives urged upon the government for obtaining this
permission invariably was that a British settlement there
would afford a check to the slave trade. The British
merchants also claimed that the island offered more security
to them and that they could explore adjacent coasts particu-
larly the Niger Delta from the island.ll Just around the same
time the merchants were pleading with the government for
permission to establish a trading settlement on Fernando Po,
the British government received remonstrances from the
Portuguese and Spanish governments complaining about the
unhealthiness of Sierra Leone, the seat of the Court of Mixed
Commission which had been set up after the abolition of the
slave trade to punish those engaged in illegal traffic in fellow
human beings. Britain then took up this matter by proposing
that the Court of Mixed Commission should be removed to
Fernando Po, which on account of its situation near the
resort of the slave traders and on account of its reported
salubrity, was a more desirable spot, for the purpose. The
British government decided in the Cabinet meeting of 11
July 1825 to sound the opinions of other members of the
4
Court of Mixed Commission, particularly the important ones
such as Portugal, Spain and the Netherlands. The Dutch
government did not object, the Portuguese Foreign Minister
Porto Santo answered that "setting aside all questions of,
property and sovereignty, His most faith full majesty had no
objectionthat the mixed commission should be transferred to
that Island . . . ." 12 The British envoy in Madrid was then
instructed to make the proposal to Spain in the sense of the
proposition already made to Portugal, and that he should add
the fact of the consent of the latter power. The Spanish
foreign member, the Duke del Infantado, answered that "His
Catholic Majesty only waited for further information as to
the possibility of effecting the object, before he acceded to
the proposal". 13 Asked what other information was wanted
by Spain, the minister said "whenever I would notify to him
that the Commissioners could be lodged on the Island, His
Catholic Majesty would name a commissioner to reside
there".l 4 The British volunteered to provide neces~ary
accommodation and even infrastructure to facilitate the
movement and work of the Court of Mixed Commission,
realising that by its position Femando Po commanded nearly
all the abominable traffic in slaves. The British were therefore
eager to stop the trade at its source by locating the Court of
Mixed Commission on the island. Femando Po was nearer
the Bight of Biafra, where the slaves were mostly captured,
than was Sierra Leone 1,500 miles away. The British were
decided on pressurising the Spaniards to agree to moving the
Mixed Commission to Fernando Po. They were this, eager
because the task of stopping slavers on the high seas was
becoming not only hazardous to British sailors but to the
slaves themselves since they were quickly dumped into the
sea on the approach of a British cruiser. With British
diplomatic pressure, ,the Spaniards agreed to the sue of
Fernando Po as the seat of the Court of Mixed Commission.
But hardly had they granted this concession when they began
to raise issues oflegal technicalities. Firstly, they claimed, and
rightly so, that by Article 12 of the Treaty concluded on the
5
23 September 1817 setting up the Court of Mixed
Commission, it was stipulated that "the Mixed Commission
should reside in two points, one of which should absolutely
be in the English and the other in the Spanish Dominions". 15
What the Spaniards were saying was that since the other seat
of the Court of Mixed Commission was in Cuba which was a
Spanish domain, it Would not be right to locate the second
seat in Eernando Po. The Spanish told the British government
that unless a prior negotiation and transfer of Fernando Po to
'Britain were undertaken British occupation of Fernando Po
wpuld not only breach international law but also the article
setting up the Mixed Commissions.16 The Spaniards, in order
to solve the legal issue of the transfer of the Court of Mixed
Commission to Fernando Po offered the sale of the island to
Britain; the Spanish foreign minister informed his British
counterpart that " . . . if England, from any political or
commercial object, should fmd it convenient to acquire the
property or sovereignty of the Islands of Fernando Po and
/An:nobon in the Gulf of Guinea, the Spanish government will
make no difficulty in ceding them to Great Britain on such
just and reasonable conditions as may be stipulated ... " 17
The British for several reasons were not prepared to add an
inch of territorY to their empire, since the conventional
political wisdom of the day was against imperialism. Many
British politicians believed that trade would naturally find its
outlets and markets without the necessity of creating a
mercantilist empire where British trade woul;fbe protected
against foreign competition. The British ()»t of sheer confi-
dence in their commercial and naval supremacy felt they did
not need. this kind of empire, although while prepared to
keep what they had in the Indian sub-continent and Canada
and Australia they were nevertheless firm believers in Adam
Smith's theory of anti-Imperialism and free trade. Secondly,
right from 1822 people with vested interests in Sierra Leone
had always argued against acquisition of Fernando'Po on the
grounds that it would compete with Sierra Leone. They were
only prepared to support British presence on the island
6 7
through stationing of men-of war on the North-western bay
of the island.lB ·
The British were also not prepared to dis~uss the question
of sale of the Island .of Fernando Po and the.British emphat-
ically declared that " ... H.M's government cannot agree to
enter into any negotiation for the purchase of the Ishtrid-the
consent of the Crown of Spain to the establishment there of
the. slave trade commission, must either be gi~en gratuitously
or altogether withheld . . . "19_ When Spain realised that the
British were not interested in buying Fernando Po, the sale of
which was to be .used by. Spain to defray the claims of her
subjects after the abolition of the slave trade, 20 she neither
gave her verbal consent or dissent to the idea of removing the
Court of Mixed Commission to Fernando _Po. But the
Spanish government spokesman, the Duke del lnfantado, had
on 12.Apri11826 said that whenever the Spanish government
was notified that the Mixed Commission could be comfort-
ably lodged on the Island " ... His Catholic Majesty would
name a Commissioner to proceed to Fernando Po".21
It was precisely upon these grounds as well as the accession
of the other powers, particularly Portugal and the Nether-
lands, that the colonial office informed the Lords of the
Admiralty of government's decision that the Admiralty
should ·send "an officer of experience and discretion" to
Fernando ..Po " ... in a vessel of war to prepare a suitable
residence in that Island for the reception of the several
members of the Mixed Commissi-on Court· and of the slaves
who should be brought there for adjudication, as well as
barracks for the accommodation of such troops as might be
necessary. to protect the establishment from the incursion of
the Natives : .. " 22 The Admiralty chose Captain Owen for
this pioneering job. He sailed from Plymouth on 29 July
1827 and was empowered to found a settlement on Fernando
Po.23 Captain Owen was to call in Sierra Leone on his way. to
Fernando Po. The Governor of Sierra Leone was instructed
to provide a black company of the Royal African Corps
together with an adequate number of artificers and to give
assistance with building materials. In view of the considerable
burden the expenditure on Fernando Po caused to the Sierra
Leone treasury, the Governor of the colony demanded that
Fernando Po should be put under his remote control, a
demand to which the home government acceded. To prevent
Captain Owen from carving out a little colony for himself, he
was specifically told not to enter into any treaty or political
engagement with the Africans on the island.
Communication of the British presence on Fernando Po
was made to the Spanish government through the British
envoy at Madrid. M. Salmon, the new foreign minister of
Spain, surprised the British ambassador by his hostile attitude
to the Fernando Po expedition. He claimed that Britain had
sent out an expedition of troops as a preliminary step for
acquiring jurisdiction and property over the Island. He then
said Spain could not consent to this step over a Spanish
possession, and then added that Spain was willing and ready
to cede the island " ... on just and reasonable terms". 24 The
British reaction was the same as it was earlier, that is they
were not interested in buying the island. The Spanish govern-
ment was told that if it continued to object to British presence
in Fernando Po Captain Owen would be recalled and the
Court of Mixed Commission would have to remain in Sierra
Leone which Spain and Portugal had criticised as an
unhealthy place. The Spanish government answered that
supposing Spain did accede to the proposal of removiilg the
Court of Mixed Commission to Fernando Po, she would still
expect explanation as to the meaning of the title of
"Governor" said to have been conferred on Captaih' Owen
(the superintendent of the establishment) and as· to the
reported plan of " ... military occupation and colonisation
and local authority".2s The Spanish ministet, M. Salinon,
added that these explanations would be . unnecessary if
England acquired " ... the property and sovereignty of the
Island in the manner proposed by the Spanish government
"26
While this diplomatic bargaining continued for a whole
8 9
year, construction of houses continued on Femando Po and
by July 1828 buildings for the accommodation of the Court
of Mixed Commission were ready. At this point the British
before proceeding further again asked the Spanish ambassador
in London, Conde de Ofalia, in September 1828 whether the
Spanish government were to be considered as agreeing to the
temporary settlement of Fernando Po. He replied that he was
" ... only authorised to propose to the government of Great
Britain the cession by Spain of the property and sovereigrity
of Fernando Po and Annabon on reasonable terms, and not
to treat separately and solely for the removal of the Mixed
Commission" _27 He said that he would write to Madrid on -
the subject once more. Conde de Ofalia shortly afterwards
announced that his government was disposed to concede the
permission requested for the removal of the Court of Mixed
Commission from Sierra Leone to Fernando Po but demand-
ed that the British should put forward " ... an authentic
document formally and explicitly acknowledging the incon-
trovertible rights of sovereignty and those of prpperty and
p·ossession vested in Spain over the said Island of Fernando
Po and which were acquired under an onerous title by article
13 of the Treaty of March 1778". 28 The British Foreign
Office instructed the British envoy in Madrid -to tell the
Spanish government that " ... H.M.G. have no hesitation in
meeting the wishes of the Spanish government, by engaging
in the most ample and unequivocal manner, that no danger
will ever result to the rights of Spain, whatever they may be,
to the sovereignty of Femando Po from the establishment
now forming in that Island for the simple object of ~xecuting
the existing treaties for the suppression of the slave trade."
The Spaniards were told that Captain Owen had been directed
to limit his operation to the establishment of a residence for
the Mixed Commission and was and would be invested with
no authority which could interfere with the rights of the
sovereign of the Island whoever he may be. 30 He was directed
to add a declaration that "Great Britain had no private object
in view in the proposed measures nor any end to answer by it
.· .···:
 in which Spain, as a party to the slave trade abolition treaties.
ought not to participate . . . "31 In spite of all· these
assurances M. Salmon, the Spanish foreign minister, said that.
" . . . the assurances given by the British government were
irisufficient and that the ack.nowledgement of the rights of
sovereignty of Spain was desirable". 32 M. Salmon instructed
the Spanish ambassador in London, M. de Zea, to continue
negotiation and to receive the formal declaration required.
What it seems the Spanish government wanted was the sale of
their possession in Guinea to the British. Since 'they had not
incurred any expenditure on developing the islands, and since
its acquisition was through diplomacy and not 'discovery'
they did not seem to appreciate the worth of the island and
wanted in the bargain to make some profit by selling the
island to a relatively prosperous Britain which was expected
fo relish the acquisition of the island if not because of any-
thing else, at least because of her naval necessity. After much
debate the Colonial Office advised that Spain should be made
to cede Fernando Po to Britain temporarily, but Lord
Ab~rdeen, the Foreign ·Secretary, thought it best to limit the
.. Brjti$h deinand to a request "that Spain sho1;1ld grant permis-
sion for the establishment of the Commission in that Island
as ·a Spanish possession. " 33 The British government then
wrote M. de Zea, the Spanish ambassador in London, on the
28 October 1830 plainly and p·ositively recognising on
the part of Britain the sovereignty of Spain over Fernando
Po. The note made it clear that " ... no danger, wrong or
impediment will ever result to the sovereign rights, power and
authority of His Catholic Majesty over Fernando Po from the
establishment now forming in that Island . . . "34 Lord
Aberdeen added that the superintendent had been directed to
limit his operations to that object alone and to provide for
the future disposal of such of the captured Afric~ns as may
be liberated by the adjucation of the Courts. He made it clear
that Captain Owen was granted no powers beyond what were
necessary to maintain order within the establishment and to
preserve those employed under him from the attacks of the
10
natives and that he was ", .. invested with no authority nor
was it intended to supply him with any, which can in any
way interfere with the rights of His Catholic Majesty". 35
With this clear undertaking to preserve the rights of Spain in
Fernando Po, the Spanish government gave its consent _and
asked that this be incorporated into a treaty. When this agree-
ment was reached in 1831·, Britain inserted two vital clauses
in the agreement: ·
(a) That the emancipated negroes may be. located on the
Island of Fernando Po without detriment to their rights
as British subjects.
(b) That Britain be granted the power of removing such
slaves as may be employed in Fernando Po to some
British possession when the Commission shall cease to
reside at Fernando Po and the Island shall revert to
Spain.
The insertion of these clauses caused a breakdown in negotia-
tion and the Spanish promise that as soon as Britain
guaranteed the sovereign rights of Spain, she would
promulgate a royal Cedula relative to the grant of the
p.ermission, was not fulfilled. What seemed to have angered
the Spanish government was the impression created by the
two clauses inserted in 1831, that Spain was not likely to
respect or uphold the right of liberated Africans on Fernando
Po.
It was at this juncture that the Colonial Office advised the
Foreign Office to propose to Spain that Fernando Po be
exchanged for Crab Island or (Becque Island) in the British
Virgin Islands in the West Indies. What the British were
offering was at that ·time being claimed by Spain, so it was
not surprising that they got no reply to the new offer of
territorial exchange. In any case Spain at that time was think-
ing of converting Fernando Po into a "convict settlement" on
the pattern of Botany Bay in Australia. In view of this the
Colonial Office wrote to the Foreign Office in August 1832
that "Lord Goderich considering the altered circumstance
under which it is hoped that the slave trade will be carried on
11
 · for the future and the difficulties which have been interposed
to the settlement of this question, has come to the resolution
that the most prudent course will be to withdraw the
establishment from Fernando Po and that it will be proper
for the F.O. to acquaint His Majesty's minister at Madrid,
that this resolution having been adopted, the negotiation
respecting the exchange of Fernando Po for Becque (Crab)
Island cannot any longer be caft:ied on". 36 By October 1832
the Commissioners of the Court of Mixed Commission were.
duly apprised of the issue of this transaction, so that it would
be clear to them that they need · not prepare to move to
Fernando Po. · · · Africans in Fernando Po numbering over a thousand,43 there
While these series of negotiations were proceeding many
liberated Africans had already been landed at the Is~and of
Fernando Po from captured slave vessels. Their number rose
from 505 in 1828 to 818 by 1835.37 The result of'this was
that a British stamp was being given to the island since many
of these Africans who were liberated by the British navy
claimed British protection and later British citizenship. Their
presence on. the island even after the British had officially
withdraw:n.in 1834 was to shape the course of future develop-
ment of Feriiari~6 Po.38
PERIOD OF UNOFFICIAL
... . . BRITISH
.
CONTROL
When the British government. severed its links wit4 Fernando
Po officially, several. ·lib~rated Af:nc.al}s were s;hipped to
Freetown, Cape Coast ~~nd pat;ticularly Bathurst39 with its
.J better and cooler climate, ·and the naval stores were ·
transferred to the Island or" Ascension; 40. but severalliberat~d.
Mricans remained on the island and many more continued to
be landed there after 1834. The break up of the British settle-
ment also did not mean complete abandonment of the island,
for the Royal Navy continued to pay occasional visits to the
island.41 By 1836 the political vacuum in Fernando Po had
been filled by a company of English merchants. 42 This
12
group included Messrs Dillon, Tennant and Company in
which the famous John Beecroft was a partner; it also
included Lynslager in whose employment was John Holt who
later bought over the Lynslager business from his African
wife after the former had died in 1867. The British continued
to be concerned about the fate of the liberated Africans still
remaining on the island and even sent a one-man mission to
enquire into their affairs in 1838. The mission however found
out that the liberated Africans in Fernando Po lived better
than those in Sierra Leone and were not prepared to leave the
island. Since there was this sizeable population of liberated
was the need for some kind of law and order and leadership.
This role was ably performed between 1834 and 1849 by two
interesting English adventurers on the Coast, namely James
worked officially for the British as Superintendent ofWorks
and had acted for Lt. Col. Nicolls as Superintendent in
1831. Lynslager on the other hand was a successful
businessman. These two men virtually ruled the island
businessman. These two men virtually· ruled · the island
together between 1834 and 1849 without any legal authority.
Even when Spain asserted her·.sovereignty over the island in
1843, when Don Juan Jose de·Lerene symbolically replanted
the Sp.anish flag, they had to accept the fait accompli of the
power and influence of this duo, so that they appointed John
Be.ecroft as Governor and James Lynslager as Chief Magistrate
of fhe. ·island that. numbered about 35,000 Africans in
1843.45
. The assertion of Spanish sovereignty over the. island did
not affect British dominance o( the island. Ftom the island
too, British influence was to spread to the coast of Nigeria on
which the settlement had depended for food following the
incessant shortages of victuals from Sierra Leone. In fact it
was the knowledge of the Delta and its immediate hinterland
gathered by John Beecroft while in Fernando Po that made
the task of intervention in the politics of what was to become
Southern Nigeria almost inevitable. When as a result of his
13
 activities in Fernando Po, Lord Palmerston appointed John
Beecroft as her Britannic Majesty's consul to the Bights of
Beni:ri and Biafra, Beecroft quickly implemented palmersto-
nian forward policy in Nigeria. The palm oil trade in this area
then was worth over a million pounds sterling and the Royal
Navy was used to protect British merchants and to open up
the coast of Nigeria to British goods. It wa~ in this
connection, that Lagos was occupied in 1851 by Beecroft and
King Pepple of Bonny deposed in 1854, although these
actions were later rationalised as moves aimed at suppression
of the slave trade. Even by 1839 the British, it was apparent,
were already regretting46 not ·having bought Fernando Po
since Spain. had been offering it for sale to her since 1829.
. The Bri~ish seemed to have sounded a note of interest in
buying the isiand in 1841 for £60,000, but the project had to
be abando.ned owing to. popular indignation in Spain and the
opposi~ion of, the Cortes. 47 But as pointed out previously,
the. British .continu~d to dominate. the island. The only
challenge to their authority was the abor,tive insurrection of
liberated Africans in 1857 which .was sparked off by the
irrational behaviour of James Lynslager, the acting governor,
. who threatened to shoot a Sierra Leonian carpenter.
. .
The rebelli()US state of affairs was the result of lack of
support from Spain since ho Spanish man-of-wiu visited the
island from 1846 to 1857 and no civil or military functiona~
ries were in Fernando Po to assist Lynslager.~8 The liberated
Mricans had been angered specifically by Lord Shelburne,
the Secretary of State for the colonies, who declared in 1856
that " ... the liberation by British Authorities of slaves taken
out of ships captured by British Cruisers will not entitle such
slaves to be considered as British subjects. Fermindo Po never
was part of the possessions of the .British Crown and the
residence of such slaves in Fernando Po after their liberation
cannot give them any other character or status than that of
being during such residence subjects of the authority of the
Crown of Spain."50 It was in fact to resolve this anomalous
14
situation of an absentee sovereign that the blacks wanted to
set up a government of their own to protect themselves from
the irrational tendencies of Lynslager, the businessman-turned
-governor. The news of this threatened rebellion compelled
the Spaniards fmally to send a Governor to Fernando Po in
1858. He was Commander Don Carlos Chacon51 and he took
over from James Lynslager as Governor of Fernando Po,
Annobon and Corisco, Lynslager having been acting governor
for eleven years and Chief Magistrate and Governor for· four
years. The period of British political ascendancy and cultural
domination seemed to be coming to an end. As if to signify
the dawn of a new dispensation Don Carlos Chacon immedia-
tely issued a proclamation saying that "the religion of this
colony is that of the Roman Catholic Church, as the only one
of the Kingdom of Spain with the exclusion of any other and
no other religious profession is tolerated or allowed ... and
any other religious denominations would have to confine
their worship within their OWI}~private houses or families". 52
This proclamation was however nbt enforceable until the
Spaniards could garrison the island with Spanish troops. The
leader of the Baptist Mission, one Rev. Nicoll, a Sierra
Leonian, immediately said that his fellow settlers would not
· abide by the law and would expect the long hand of the
British navy to protect them against Spanish tyranny. The
bluff seemed to have succeeded temporarily for three Sierra
l..eonians, Peter Nicolls, (not the Rev. Nicoll .mentioned
above), Richard Brwe and Samuel Johnson were subsequently
appointed as Justices of the Peace, although later on in the
year the Baptists were asked to leave the island by Madrid.
Even though the Baptists did not leave as ordered, the
British did not raise a finger in their defence, since Britain
during this time was preoccupied with the Niger expedition.
The British by 186553 were beginning to be hurt by Spanish
policies, especially by high taxes, so that they began to mpve
out to Ambas Bay and particularly to Victoria in what became
the Cameroons. But of course not all of them were moving
out, some remained and prospered. First they traded. in palm
15
 oil which they bought from the native Bubi and sold to
European merchants in Oarence <?Ji: Santa Isabel. Later when
cocoa was introduced to the isl~d •. the black settlers m~ved
into the cocoa trade. The crq~twas mtroduced from Brazil to
Sao Tome in 1822 and in·\lS54 to Fernando Po. It was from
Fernando Po thaJ. cocoa came to the Gold Coast, Nigeria and
other West Mrican States. The Sierra Leonian settlers
established cocoa plantations and invested their profits from
the palm oil trade in their various cocoa plantations to the
extent that by the 1880s one of the Sierra Leonians, William
Alien Vivour, was Fernando Po's largest land owner.5 4 By
this time the Spaniards had become aware of the econorqic
potentialities of Fernando Po, and were creating problems for
non-Spanish subjects especially in land ownership. Neverthe-
less, culturally, English speaking people were still the
dominant element in Fernando Po's life. The primitive
Methodist-Missionary Society had missions and schools where
only English was the medium of expression up till 1885.
They were forced to use Spanish and English in 1887 or close
down.ss In short, English culture was so dominant up to the
1890s'*at a Catholic missionary complained that ·~the Island
of Bernando Po above all, has been captured by the English
blacks of Si~rra Leone . . . and thus, the major part of the
Island is in the hands of these English Blacks and they have
herded the Bubis, the natives of the Island into the interior of
the Island, the wqrst part of all, where the means of subsis-
tence are hardly found and those foreign English blacks have,
for the most part, the better coastal soil. "56
' ·The economy of the island at this time was still solidly in
the hands of not only black settlers who claimed British
citizenship but the carrying trade of the island was also
· monopolised by the British. For example in the last quarter
·of the 19th century the English firms of John Holt and
Company, Blythe, Hamilton, Struthers and Harrington mono-
polised t~e paim oil and kernels trade of Fernando Po.57 In
view of -this British predominant position in Fernando Po,
their activities began to attract the attention of other powers
16
in Europe. The Germans were said to be interested in buying
the island from Spain. The British ambassador in Berlin,
reported that the influential Gennan journal the Kolonialsrit:
schrift stated in June 1907 that Spain had conceded to
Germany the right of pre-emption over the Island of
Fernando Po. He also claimed that a "Fernando Po
committee" had been formed in Germany which would
induce the Imperial government to purchase the Island
outright. This group believed that Fernando Po was not that
valuable but that they were out to prevent "a second
Zanzibar" on the West Coast of Africa.SB The Belgians at
another time were also alleged to be interested in Fernando
Po. People with Congolese interest and background wanted
to secure from the "weak and poverty stricken"59 Spanish
government the lease of all the unoccupied land in Fernando
Po and the Spanish possession of Rio Muni. The scheme
involved the creation of two large chartered companies for
exploitation and administration of these areas. TJ:le rights of
Spain would still exist nominally, but to all intents and
purposes Fernando Po, Corisco Bay and Rio Muni would
become Belgian. One thing that was clear was that Spain
wanted to sell Fernando Po arid ,was listening to anybody
prepared to offer a high price.60
British Imperialists did not remain inactive during this time:
Sir Ralph Moor, Commissioner and Consul-General in charge
of the Niger Coast Protectorate, commented that"... should.
there at any time be a question of Spain parting with the
Island, I should strenously urge Her Majesty's government to
take steps to obtain possession of it as it would fonn a most
valuable sanatorium for Nigeria". As a Briton with the tradi-
tional love of ports that could be useful to the royal navy, he
· added that " ... its position would .be almost invaluable as a
coaling station particularly having regard to the fact that it
can be easily defended and has a good harbour into which the
largest ships of Her Majesty's navy can go for coaling
purposes". 61 "It is a great pity that we have__~t got, Fernando
Po," minuted an official of the Colonial Office, "Bu ti-do---not
17
 suppose that there is any chance of being able to acquire it
and all that we can do is to see that Germany doesn't get it
behind our backs."62 Private capitalists like John Holt also
pleaded with the British government to annex Fernando Po.
He claimed that Fernando Po had a fine climate and would
be good as a sanatorium. John Holt was insistent on keeping
the horrible Belgians out. He wrote"... we ought not to let
the_ place go to the Belgians or anybody else if we can help it.
It was ours until we chose to give it up to Spain after having
spent a lot of money on it. Holt claimed that Fernando Po
would be an ideal place for the headquarters of the govern-
ment of Nigeria. Just sixty miles from the mouth of the old
Calabar river, he felt it was a desirable adjunct to Nigeria
especially since the Island was more conducive to work and
for-~ecuperation from insect borne diseases prevalent around
the Niger Delta.63 The British were so concerned about the
- future of Fernando Po that they were even toying with the
idea that Germany could be offered Rio Muni while the
British would keep the island. They however made it quite
clear to Spain that " ... it is to the interest of Great Britain
that Fernando Po should remain in Spanish possession, as a
British occupation would be politically inexpedient and in a
military sense undesirable, while if the Island belonged to a
strong naval power with which we were at war its capture
might become necessary. "64 While all this was going on, one
thing that the British themselves realised was that they did not
have a stronger claim to Fernando Po than that of the
Germans. Even the British Foreign Office commented that
Fernando Po was much nearer to the Cameroons than to ·
Nigeria and doubted " ... whether the German government
would be pleased to see a repetition off the Cameroons
Colony of the Zanzibar and Pemba grievance off German
East Africa."65 The British finally decided against pressing
their claims, although they knew Fernando Po in enemy hands
would be detrimental to Nigeria's security, but the argument
against annexation was, however, overwhelming as can be seen
in the stand of the British Colonial Office, when one of its
18
principal officers wrote "The C.D.C. reported that Fernando
Po may in fact be regarded &S geographically a dependency of .
the Cameroons which belong to Germany and that the
occupation of the Island by ·Great Britain would almost
inevitably be regarded by Germany as a menace to the
Cameroons. This is probably true and I conclude that it is out
of the question for us to take any steps to acquire the
Island."66 The result of this was that Britain was not going
to allow Fernando Po to be annexed by any other power
while she herself was not going to annex the territory; the
Germans were however keeping their options- open and had
designs about Fernando Po which the British did not dare. to
ignore especially because of the generally hostile attitude of
the Germans to British imperialism which they felt had been
at Germany's expense. The security aspect of Fernando Po's
question was to assume a wider dimension during the two
World Wars when Spain and consequently Fernando Po were
manifestly Pro-German. The labour question, which is not
unrelated to the security of Fernando Po loomed larger in the
history of Fernando Po's relation with other West Mrican
countries particularly with Nigeria.
REFERENCES
1 F.O. 371/49640. Foreign Office Research dept. Memo on Spanish
Guinea, 1 Feb. 1945.
2 C.O. 82/9. Memo presented to Lord Palmerston by S. Bandinell
on Fernando Po. Jan. 30, 1939.
3 C.O. 82/1. The Conde de Ofalia Minister Extraordinary of His
Catholic Majesty of Spain to Viscount Dudley, His Britannic
Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs
10 Sept. 1827.
4 - C.O. 82/9. Memo presented to Lord Palmerston 30 Jan. 1839.
19
 5 F.O. 371/49640. Foreign Office Research dept. 1st Feb. 1945. 27 Ibid.
6 c.o. 82/1. 28 C.O. 82/1 F.O. note of27 Dec., 1828.
7 C.O. 82/9. The number of colonists and seamen who went to 29 C.O. 82/9 Memo presented to Lord Palmerston 30 Jan., 1839.
Feman do Po was 705; 494 died within six months and only
30 Ibid.
211 made it back to Spain.
31 Ibid.
8 F.O. 371/49640. Foreign Office Research dept. Memo of 1st Feb.
1945. 32 Ibid.
9 See Jide Osuntokun: 'Nigeria~Femando Po Relations from 33 Ibid.
colonial times to the present' in Nigeria and the World ed. by 34 Ibid.
Bolaji Akinyemi (N.I.I.A.) forthcoming.
35 Ibid.
10 C.O. 82/9. Memo by S. Bandinell of F.O. on Femando Po,
36 C.O. 82/4. 24 Sept., 1831.
Jan. 30, 1839.
37 The number landed in 1828 was 505, in 1829, 161, in 1833, 152,
11 C.O. 82/4. Lt. Col. Nicholls to Lord Gorderich, 26 March 1831.
in 1834, 108, in 1835, 44 making a total of 8f8.
12 Quoted in C.O. 82/9. Memo by S. Bandinell30 Jan. 1839.
38 F.O. 371/49640. Forei~ Office Research Department's memo of
13 Ibid.'. 1st Feb., 1945. ·
14 Mr. I.amb H.B.M. ambassador in Madrid to F.O. quoted in C.O.
39 C.0.82/5. 14/8/1832.
82/9.
40 Ibid.
15 C.O. 82/1 Conde de Ofalia to Earl of Dudley 10 Dec. 1827.
16 Ibid.
41 c.o. 82/7. 3 May, 1834.
42 C.O. 82/9. Lord Glenelg to Lord Palmerston Dec. 20, 1838.
17 C.O. 82/1 Conde de Ofalia Minister Extraorditiary of His Catholic
Majesty of Spain to Viscount Dudley, His Brittanic Majl)sty's . 43 C.O. 714/167. Captain Owen to C.O. 28 April1828.
Principal Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs 10 Sept. 1827. · 44 C.O. 82/4. Lt. Col. Edward Nicolls to C.O. 24 Jan., 1831.
18 The Royal Gazette and Sierra Leone Advertiser August 12, 1822.
45 F.O. 2/19 J. Hutchinson H.M's consul to Earl' of Clarendon,
19 C.O. 82/1 Earl Dudley to Conde de Ofalia, Jan. 10, 1828. 23 May, 1857. See also F.O. 84/775, Palmerston to Beecroft
20 C.O. 82/1 George Bosanquet British ambassador in Madrio to Earl 12/71849. K.O. Dike: John Beecroft 1790-1854 Her
Dudley, 17 March, 1828. · Brittanic Majesty's consul to the Bights of Benin and Biafra
1849-1854" Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria
21 C.O. 82/1 Earl Dudley to Conde de Ofalia, Jan. 10, 1828. .(J.H.S.N.)Vol.l,No.l p. 7.1956.
22 C.O: 82/9 Memo presented to Lord Palmerston by S. Bandinell of
46 C.O. 8l/9. Lord Palmerston to Lord Glenelg 30 Jan:, 1839.
F.O. on Femando Po. 30 Jan, 1839.
23 c.o. 82/110 Sept., 1827. 47 F.O. 371/49640. R.O. Research Dept. 1st Feb., 1945.
48
24 C.O. 82/9 Memo by Bandinell of F.O. of 30 Jan., 1839.
49 F.O. 2/19. J. Hutchinson H.M's Consul to Earl of Qarendon
25 Ibid.
23 May, 1857.
26 Ibid.
50 Ibid.

20 21
 51 F.O. 2/25. Hutchinson to Earl ofMalmesbury 28 May, 1858.
S2 Ibid.
53 F.O. 2/45. Charles livingstone H.B.M. Consul to F.O. 2 June,
1865. 2
54 I.K. Sundiata: Prelude to Scandal: Uberia and Femando Po
'
1880H930 'Journal of African History XV' 1974, p. 98. HISTORY OF LABOUR RECRUITING
55 c.o. 520/39. The introduction of cocoa to Fernando Po produced a shift
56 Cristobal Femandex: Missiones Y Missioneros en la Guinea from trade in palm oil to plantation agriculture. In the last
espanola. Madrid 1962, p. 109. See Sundiata op. cit p. 98. quarter of the 19th century when Femando Po was still
57 F.O. 371/26908. C.W. Michie note encl. in B.R Bourdillon to Rt. dominated by English firms, labour became scarce as a result
Hon. Lord· lloyd of Dolobran, Secretary of state for the of the gradual economic transformation of .:he island. Labour
colonies. 4 Jan., 1941. requirements of both Spanish and alien employers were
58 C.O. 520/U. British ambassador in Berlin to F.O. 5 July, 1901. inadequately met by the unsophisticated Bubi of the island.
By the 1880s it became the usual practice for these English
59 West Africa, 2 March 1902.
firms and their Spanish hosts to encourage "Kru men" from
60 C.O. 520/11. Sir M. Durand British ambassador in Madrid to F.O. Liberia employed in the various vessels plying the West
17 ~y. 1901. Mrican route, to accept employment on shore. Considerable
61 . C.Q; 44411. R Moor to C.O. 7th April, 1899. numbers of Kru men were employed in this way and th~
. 62 C.O. 444/1. Antrobus minute of 21 Aug., 1899. terms of employment were generally acceptable to those
63 See C.O. 520/11. John Holt to F.O. 10 April1901~ also /bid John
employed. Spanish mercantile firms also began to require
Holt to F.O. 28 March 1901. C.O. 520/12 John Holt to F.O. more labour than the island could supply and consequently
22 March 1901. the Spanish government decided to permit the transport of
Kru men on the gun boats "Prosperidad", "Ligera" and
64 C.D.C. (Colonial Def~nce Council) 2 in C.O. 520/11 27 March,
1901. "Concordia" that used frequently to visit the island. 1 The
labourers~ must have been psychologically over-awed through
65 . C.O. 520/11. F.O.to C.O. 28 March, 1901. their experience in these gun boats. After reaching Femando
· 66 C;O. ·520/12. Charles Strachey's minute of March 27, 1901. Po, they were expected to remain on the island for one year.
Food was provided free and wages were in kind. The usual
payment was a Dane gun and a supply of powder. These
conditions continued till about 1890 when the wide-spread
destruction of oil palms, resulting from the production
of palm wine, caused the trading community to look for new
exports. As pointed out earlier, cocoa began to take pride of
place around this time. In actual fact the planting of cocoa
on a commercial scale was first encouraged by the English-
man, Lynslager. The trade grew and Spanish and Portuguese

22 23

i.
colonists began to buy land extensively from the indigenous
· Blibi paying for it with gin and brandy. The results were
quickly disastrous for the Bubi, who by 1905 were regarded
as a degenerate race, well on the way to extinction.
Agricultural development in Femando Po faced. various
constraints. There was little or no infrastructure on the
island, thus hampering mobility of goods and the small labour
force available. The Spanish regime had hardly taken an
interest in linking the capital with other centres of settlement.
San Carlos, for example, had no road link with Santa Isabel, a
distance of thirty miles, with the result that goods had to be
sent by sea to and from these important settlements. There
was also constant fluctuation in the price of cocoa, and the
Mrican planter was open to speculative deals with European
entrepreneurs, so that many African planters went bankrupt
or sold their property to their European competitors. Apart
from this problem, the several Sierra Leon \an settlers and the
British community were open to nationalist attack from
Spaniards who manipulated the laws of nationality to under-
mine the prosperity of these alien capitalists. 2 But the
greatest problem of all the problems facing Femando Po was
shortage of labour. Even though only 3.5 per cent of the land
area of the island was under cultivation by 1912, the
question of labour was crucial to the economic development
of the island. Unfortunately for Femando Po, the period the
Spanish government wanted to embark upon agricultural
exploitation of the island coincided with the period of the
intensification of agricultural exploitation by other European
powers in West Africa, particularly Germany. 3 The result
was under-development in Femando Po, as compared with the
neighbouring Portuguese Island of Sao Tome, which exported
over sixty million pounds sterling worth of cocoa, compared
with six million pounds sterling produced in Femando Po in
1909.4 The reason for this gross disparity was availability of
labour to Sao Tome from Angola which served as a human
resetvoir to the Portuguese Atlantic Islands, whereas Femando
Po did not have such a reservoir on the mainland. Rio Muni
24
(
i
wa~ hardly in a position to supply labour to Femando Po
since Rio Muni itself was not yet pacified, and the Spanish
government was not in effective occupation of the entire
area. It became quite clear then to all concerned that if
Femando Po was to develop, labour must be sought
somewhere in West Africa.
African labour recruiters first made their appearance about
1896. About that time a Lagosian named Reis began import-
ing Yoruba labour from Lagos and Ijebu-Ode.s The Yoruba
soon decided that the conditions in Femando Po were
unsatisfacto:ry so this source of labour supply dried tip. Some
450 of them had to be repatriated en masse at the expense of
the Spanish government when they went on illegal strike.
About 1900, a Sierra Leonianby the name of Vivourstarted
to bring labour in considerable numbers from Freetown,
Monrovia and Accra. The Spaniards enacted in 1906 a labour
code and conditions improved for migrant workers. In spite
of this the Sierra Leonian government put an end to organised
recruiting, apparently because they considered the methods
Hsed illegal. It was useless to seek supplies of labour in the
neighbouring Cameroons, as the German concessions were
then employing nearly 40,000 Mricans and were even recruit-
ing labour from Liberia. Accordingly, the Spaniards sent a
labour commission to Liberia. The success of this mission can
be gauged by the fact that by 1901 there were already 933 6
Liberian labourers on the island. The Spano-Liberian agree-
ment was conceived in a liberal spirit and modelled on the
Portuguese labour agreement whereby many thousands of
Angolans and Mozambiqans had been indentured for work in
Sao Tome and Principe. Before 1901, and particularly in the
1890s recruitment of labourers from Liberia was done
through private individuals. It was in these circumstances that
one German, August Humplmayr, was given recruiting rights
along with some Liberians. These rights were subsequently
abused and were consequently abrogated. African recruiters
usually went into the interior where they linked up with
chiefs who produced these labourers and were able to smuggle
25
 them on to Spanish ships without paying any taxes to the
Liberian government. But from 1897 the Liberian government
tried to control this new slave trade by demanding that
contractors of labour should post a $150 bond for labourers'
return and imposed a fine of $100 for a labourer who might
die in Fernando Po. The recruiter was also to buy his licence
for $250 ~d pay $5 on each labourer. In spite of these laws
illegal trafficking continued because it was profitable. In
1903 the Liberian government signed an agreement with the
German firm of Wiechers and Helm. The posting of a bond
was waived and in return the company promised to repatriate
'time expired' l~bourers back to Liberia. Workers were not to
be permitted under any circumstance to remain in Liberia for
more than two years. A similar agreement was signed with
another German firm Woermann Linie A. G. with the import-
ant difference that the Woermann Company could ship their
labourers to anywhere outside Fernando Po. In the recruiting
exercise the headman seemed to play an important role and
he and the Liberian national treasury benefited from this
traffic either through payment of commission and taxes
· directly to the headman, the agents and the Liberian govern-
ment, or through fraudulent means whereby some months'
salaries were collected by agents before the labourers left
Liberian shores. The German firms themselves made profits
ranging from 100 to 150 per cent through the same
fraudulent methods.? But another accord was signed by
Liberian and Spanish authorities in Fernando Po in 1905 to
block the loopholes in the existing agreements. The
liberian authorities were under so much international
pressure that by 1908 they had tightened things up to such
an extent that the Spanish authorities began to find it
extremely difficult to recruit labour. When the Spaniards
tried to tap the labour resources of Rio Muni, 8 they met
with failure, because Spanish planters and traders in Rio Muni
had become sufficiently numerous that they were able to
impress upon· the authorities that their labour needs were
great enough to absorb all the available local labour supply.
26
Since the British embargoed the export of labour from their
colonies to Spanish Guinea, the Liberian connection was
revived again and after the Liberian Secretary of State, Joseph
J. Sharp, had toured Fernando Po in 1913 and apparently
reported favourably about the labour conditions, the two
governments signed a labour agreement in 1914 permitting
Liberian labourers to be recruited for service in Fernando Po.
The Liberian economy at this time was in a mess and by 1912
the country's economy had been put to international
receivership because of inability of the country not only to
service loans, but to pay back the loans themselves. The
outbreak of war in 1914 further damaged the economy of
mercantile and shipping companies. With the outbreak of war
the question of labour shortage assumed security dimensions.
Relations between British Nigeria and Spanish Equatorial
Guinea before the war had not been cordial because of
Britain's opposition to Spanish labour recruitment in West
Africa as a whole and in Nigeria in particular. The Spaniards
had been illegally recruiting people from the Eastern part of
Nigeria, particularly in the lgbo heartland where labour was
abundant. 9 The Spaniards were in the habit of making
exaggerated promises of high wages which were never paid
and of hiding the fact that the labourers were going to
Fernando Po. It is quite clear that since 1827, Fernando Po
had been heavily dependent on Old Calabar and had to a
certain extent maintained this state of dependency even up
to the outbreak of the First World War. In order to put an end
to the illegal human traffic between Nigeria and Fernando Po,
the British Admiralty was given the power of "search and
arrest" over Spanish ships that might be suspected of
f
!'
I
!
indulging in the human traffic which the Nigerian authorities
saw as a new slave trade.
When war broke out in Europe, it was quite clear that the
Nigeria-Fernando Po relation was going to undergo a period
of strain. The Germans had always been interested in
Fernando Po; they had made economic inroads into the
island, and the carrying trade of the island was largely in their
I 27

hands. The Spanish authorities there were also solidly
pro-German. The Germans during the war were also using
Fernando Po as transmitting stations to get in touch with
their warships scattered in the Southern Atlantic and the
British also had ample evidence to suggest that Spaniards were
engaged in gun-running for the Germans during the period of
hostilities in German Cameroons.lO Even after the conclusion
of hostilities in 1916, the Spanish authorities continued to
give succour to defeated German troops and their Mrican
soldiers who were "interned" in Fernando Po, but who were
allegedly training to reoccupy the Cameroons. Constant was
the correspondence between Lagos and London and between
London, Paris and Madrid over the hostile attitude of the
~uthorities on Fernando Po Island to allied milita:ry opera-
tions in. the Cameroons. Although the fears of the allied
powers about subversion through Fernando Po came to
. nothing, the fact still remains that Fernando Po in the hands
of a hostile power was a thorn in the flesh for the British
authorities in Nigeria. Even a "neutral" Femando Po during
the First World War caused considerable heart-ache in
Nigeria.tt·
With the end of the war and the imposition of a League of
Nations mandate on the Cameroons, administered by the .
British and the French, the security aspect of Fernando Po's
question receded. It seems that the evacuation from the
Cameroons of about 16,0001 2 Cameroonians, about 5,000
to 6,000 of whom were soldiers, in 1916 -helped to alleviate
the problem of labour in Fernando Po during the First World
War; but with the signing of the Armistice and the end of
hostilities the perennial question of labour shortage had to be
faced again; this time not in Fernando Po but in the whole of
Equatorial Guinea. Labour from 1920 onwards was encou-
raged into Rio Muni from Gabon and the Cameroons under
French mandate. Labour from Liberia into Fernando Po
continued until 1928 when it came under severe international
pressure and opposition. By 1931 the Liberian government
was forced by international pressure to stop sending
28
··..:
.. . . - •• .--· I
labourers to Fernando ·Po. By this time also, Liberia was no
longer the Cinderell~ that she used to be. As a result of ~e
opening up of the count:ry by the Firestone Company of
Amenca and the intensive plantation of rubber in 1923, the
Liberian exchequer was no longer in the penurious state that
one had come to expect.B The exclusion of Liberia as a
source of labour from 1928 compelled the Spanish authorities
to adopt other methods. Unorganised recruiting from various
points on the West African coast still brought in labourers but
in insufficient quantity. The island enjoyed a post-war boom
during the 1920s and as this neared its climax around 1929
various efforts were made to procure labour at all costs.
In 1929 Madrid tried to beat the problem of shortage of
artisans by unsuccessfully arranging· that Rumania should
send to Femando Po skilled carpenters, smiths and
mechanics.14 In 1931 the Chamber of Agriculture in
Fernando Po sent a mission to China to recruit 'coolies' but
the mission proved unsuccessful. Children and women were ·
consequently recruited into the labour force in Fernando Po
and the judicial system was used to brand all jobless people as
rogues and vagabonds to compel them into plantation work.
These measures seemed to have sufficed to induce labourers
to go to the pl~ntation until 1933 when the French govern-
ment complained to the League of Nations of the treatment
meted out to Cameroon labourers in Spanish Guinea.
This in effect meant that the Spaniards could not continue
treating their subjects with the same kind of inhumanity
previously prevaling on the island without attracting inter-
national attention. A treaty to regulate the enlistment of ·
Cameroonians was signed between the French and Spanish
governments in 1934 and the Spaniards issued a Labour
Code on Februa:ry 15, 1935 containing a number of the
provisions of the agreement. This decree firstly,· made
provision for the supply of food and quinine for labourers •
an.d secondly, a Spanish consul de Carriere was appointed to
Duala to supeiVise and encourage recruiting; but it seems, he
had scant success. The French authorities seemed to have
29
 been equally dissatisfied for they denounced the treaty in
Febraury 1936.15
In 1937, the farmers of the island began to look seriously
for labour in Calabar and the part of the Cameroons under
British Mandate. The threat this posed to the security and
peace of Nigeria was such that the government set up a
preventive branch in the police to deal specifically with the
traffic in human cargo to Fernando Po. Just at the time the
measure was beginning to have an impact on the illegal
traffic, the Second World War broke out and the preventive
service was withdrawn thus resulting in practical monopoly
of the traffic in mep. by canoe owners around the Cross River.
The traffic, illegal as it was, was well organised by the
recruiters in Nigeria and Spanish authorities and employers in
Fernando Po. The canoes generally sailed in convoys. The
Spanish government and employers paid recruiters liberally
both in sterling and pesetas out of which the "canoe men"
and paddlers received their share. They supplemented this
revenue by trading in contraband.
It can thus be seen that the Spaniards from about 1890
onwards recruited labour from most parts of the West Coast.
Thanks to their methods they were made to abandon Sierra
Leone, Liberia, and the Cameroons under French Mandate as
recruiting grounds. By 1939 they turned their attention to
South-Eastern Nigeria. Here they had a dozen or so "native"
recruiters who were given ample funds with which to operate.
The sea journey was short and the rewards were considerable.
Moreover, labour conditions on the Island of Fernando Po
had so improved that service on the island was not unattrac-
, tive to people who were jobless while in Nigeria. The Spanish
. authorities knew that Nigeria was the last obvious source of
foreign labour and they were not prepared to fail since
failure would mean the loss of 12,000 tons of cocoa and
3,000 tons 16 of coffee exported annually from Fernando Po
to Spain. These commodities Spain could not get in any
other place because she had scarce foreign reserves, most of
which was committed to buying military hardware because of
30
the internal political problems in Spain itself. In order not to
fail, the Spanish authorities in Femando Po were prepared to
liberalise their labour legislation in favour of better treatment
for contract labourers.
The only labour codes that tried to regulate the conditions
of labourers in Femando Po before the Second World War
were the 1906 'Reglamento del Trabajo Indigena, i.e. the
Native Labour Code. This code was described as provisional
but it remained on the statute books until 1940. The code
was not completely illiberal; it provided for a one year
contract a minimum wage, and also made provision for keep-
ing half,the wage with the labour officer as savings. Nursing
mothers and children under ten were not to be put to he~vy
work. There was the provision for free rations and hous~ng.
Men were expected to work for ten hours and women e1~t
hours daily. Labourers, however, could not _leave _theu
employers or even the plantations except w1th wntten
permission. This code applied to alien labourers, ~ut
occasionally it was stretched to apply to the Bubi population·
of the island. In 1908, for example, during one of the
recruiting shortages of labour, all Bubis not possessing one
hectare of land were compelled to enter temporary contract.
The alternative was forty days hard labour. These provisions
were so harshly enforced that by 1910 the supposedly docile
Bubi of Balache area revoltedP In spite of the existence of
the 'Reglamento del Trabajo lndigena of 1906 it seems t?e
planters were not obeying the laws, for in 1915 the Spantsh
authorities in series of exhortations and commands . to
planters made it clear that the planters were not fulfllhng
their side of the labour bargain especially the aspect that
enjoined them to pay half the wage of each l~bourer to. t~e
labour officer as savings. In 1929, the Span1sh authont1es
became so angry with some planters who were accused of
giving the island an "evil reputation" internationally th~t ~ey
began to impose heavy fines for such illegal acts as wh1ppmg.
In spite of these attempts and another one ~n 193'! to
liberalise the Spanish regime on the island, there still remamed
31
 some fundamental problems such as the non-payment of
adequate compensation for injured labourers, the fact that
estate~ of deceased labourers were forfeited to the Spanish
colonial government and finally the lack of choice of who t
work for. The si~ation was so heavily weighted in favour ~
0
the planters that. 1f a labourer declined to accept the contract
place.d before h1m, he could be treated under the existing
Spanish laws a~ a rogue and a vagabond, offences punishable
by transportatiOn to a plantation for hard work. It is often
forgottyn ~hat Spain did not treat her own subjects better
tha~ th~ aliens .who came to work as contract labourers in her
~erntones. Th1s was . due to the kind of colonial regime
Impos:d on her colomes. The colonial system was of course a
reflectiOn of the way of thinking about Africans harboured
by those who shaped Spanish colonial policy.
COLONIAL POLICY
Th~ ~oli~y of the .spanis~ government was originally that of
assimllatl?n, a pobcy which was similar to that of France and
Portugal I~ the1r African territories. This policy's premise was
t~?:fol~; 1t was adopted in the beiief that Africans had no
CIVilizatiOn or. culture worth keeping, so it was thought
necessaty to Wip~ out this inexistent or at best barbaric past
and be!?n to wnte a new civilization upon a cultural tabula
rasa, as It ~ere: ~~condly, the policy was adopted in the belief
that Sp~msh CIVilization was the best. This cultural arrogance
w~s typical of the latin countries of Europe in their relation
With non-Eu.ropean peoples. In the case of Spain in Fernando
Po, ~e Afncans, because of their small number, did not
constitut~ any ~onstraint on whatever Spain did, so that
changes ~ Spamsh colonial administration were primarily
due ~o ~lther changes in colonial personnel or changes in
Spanish mternal.politi~ at home. The assimilationist policies
~do~te~ by Sprun entailed the imposition on the colony of
mst1tut10ns of metropolitan Spain. By 1915 th s ·h
th ·ti 1 . , e panis
au on es c rumed that they were adopting a new policy of
32
"attraction" or association based on respect for native institu-
tions, but the fact was that in the case of Spanish Guinea the
aim of the Spanish government was solely domination for the
purpose of exploiting the territory by means of native labour.
Thus, for example, in spite of Spain's adherence to the forced
labour convention of 1930, forced labour (Prestacion
personal) continued until 1938. By 1938 Spain recognised in
Femando Po two categories of African subjects. There was a
class of "emancipated natives"; these were people who had
shown themselves in various ways to possess a fairly high
standard of "character and ability". These people were
subjected to the same system of justice as Europeans, i.e.
they were tried according to Spanish laws. A law further
defining the degrees of emancipation was passed on 30
December 1944 and by this law fully emancipated subjects
came under metropolitan Spanish law without prejudice to
such modifications that might be introduced by colonial
legislation.
"Unemancipated natives", i.e. other Africans who were
mostly illiterate, came under the protection of a Patronato of
natives. This was a council for the protection of "natives"
which came into existence in 1928 with the main task of
advising the Governor-General on African affairs. A further
revision of this system was made in 1938; consequently,
administration of "native justice" was based on 'native usage'.
Polygamy though countenanced was discouraged by a system
of fmes operating after the third espousal. There was a
hierarchy of native courts culminating in the Supreme Native
Tribunal consisting of groups of Africans nominated by the
Governor-General and sitting under the presidency of Spanish
officials, although the authorities claimed in 1939 that it was
their aim to exclude European officials from "native" court
administration.
The territorial administration was based on separate
administration for Fernando Po and another one for Rio
Muni and the remaining islands. The government took little
interest in African education though Catholic missionary
33
 societies were allowed to operate in Spanish Guinea; Before 9 Jide Osuntokun: Anglo-Spanish Relations in West Africa during
the Second World War then, one can conclude that Spain was the First World War 'JHSN. Vol. VII, No. 2, June 197 4
beginning to take more interest in Spanish Guinea not for p. 292.
altruistic reasons but solely for purposes of exploitation. 10 Jide Osuntokun.lbid. p. 296.
Statements of the Spanish ''mission" in Africa were being Jide Osuntokun.lbid. P· 301.
11
made that it began to seem that the " ... rod of the exploiter
has been so swathed in altruistic professions that it has come 12 Ibid. p. 299.
to look almost like an umbrella. "18 It was, however, clear 13 See J. Osuntokun. 'Nigeria-Femando Po Relation' Coming up in
that since Femando Po was dependent on migratory labour A B Akinyemi Ed. Nigeria and the World. Papers read at
which gave the island a transient nature, the full impact of N:I.I.A. conference held in Lagos in Feb. 1976. See also M.~·
Spanish administration was never really felt and even up till Akpan: liberia and the Universal Negro hnprovement Assocta·
1940, "Pidgin English" continued to be the lingtUJ franca of t. The background to the abortion of Garvey scheme for
ton.
African colonisation. Journal of Afi.
ncan Hi"zs tory XIV 1 1973
the island. This dependence on migratory labour made
p. 121.
Femando Po almost a no-man's island and made her future
not only economically19 doubtful but also politically 14 F.O. 371/26908. Op. cit.
unsafe.20 15 Ibid.
16 Ibid.
17 F.O. 371/26908. C.W. Michie. Op. cit.
18 Ibid.
REFERENCES 19 Value of exports from Femando Po.
1929 1930 1931 1933
F.O. 371/26908. C.W. Michie, H.B.M. Vice Consul encl. in B.H.
Bourdillon to Rt. Hon. Lord lioyd of Dolobran, Secretazy of £128,560 £234,200 £77,600 £56,360
state for the colonies. 4 Jan., 1941.
These figures reflect declining labour supply'. partic~lar~~e~:
2 I.K. Sundiata op, cit. pp. 101-103. 1931 figure reflects the stoppage oflabour recrmtment m li .
3 . H.R. Rudin: Germans in the Cameroons 1884-1914: A case See. F . 0 . 371/49640. Research Dept. 1st Feb., 1945. th
study in Modern Imperialism: Yale Univ. Press 1938, 20 C 0 583/248. Reporting the migration of Germans .from e
pp. 315-316. . Cameroons
. under Bn"tish Mandate to Femando Po m August
4 I.K. Sundiata, op. cit. p. 100. 1939.
5 F.O. 371/26908 C.W. Michie Vice-Consul in Santa Isabei, enclo.
In B.H. Bourdillon to C.O. 4 Jan., 1941.
6 I.K. Sundiata. Op.cit. p. 103.
7 I.K. Sundiata. Op. cit. p. 104.
8 Ch. III of Spanish Guinea labour code issued in 1906 article 38
adjured Spanish administrative officers to meet labour needs
of Fernando Po by official recruiting.

34 35

3 the fact that emigration was usually highest from August to
THE SECOND WORLD WAR AND THE PREDOMINANCE
OF NIGERIAN LABOUR IN FERNANDO PO
It is generally accepted that when people move voluntarily
from one place to another, they must be doing so because the
recipient area must have something more than the losing area
to offer. This would be true not only with regard to itJ.temal
migration, either rural-urban, or urban-urban migration, but
also when international boundaries are involved. The
migratory phenomenon could be explained in the sense of
"push" an d " pu11" 1ac
1'. t ors. "Push" m
· th e sense of unfavourable
conditions at home and "pull" in the sense of an assumed
~avourable condition in the receiving areas. Political oppres-
swn, lack of economic opportunities, shortage of land in
particular, could lead to exodus of a people to another more
favourable area. There is of course the "ethnic pull"; that is
people tentl to migrate to an area where representatives of
the parent ethnic group already existed.! These factors
applied in the case of labour migration to Femando Po from
Nigeria.
Right from 1828 to the eve of the Second World War
Nigerian labour had always played an important role in th~
economic well-being of Fernando Po. By 1941, for example
there were .1 0,000 Nigerians in Fernando Po.2 This labou;
came mainly from Owerri, Calabar, Qgoja, Onitsha and
Cameroons provinces in that order of importance. The
seven divisions showing the highest recruiting rates were
Owerri, Aba, Eket, Afikpo, Bende, Ikot-Ekpene and Uyo.
These areas are thickly populated to the extent that it would
be difficult to resist the argument that shortage,of land was
{)ne of the main factors causing emigration. The second factor
was the liberal payment made to recruiters by Spanish
36
authorities and employers for each man brought to Femando
Po.3 The third factor driving labourers to Fernando Po was
pressure of tax collection in Nigeria. This was borne out by
October which was also the period of tax collection. There
was also the fact that Nigerian labourers engaged in lucrative
contraband trade.
The above should not be interpreted as suggesting that
conditions in Fernando Po were so good that Nigerians were
streaming to the place in large numbers, for in 193 7 and 193 8
the Spaniards were faced with the perennial problem of
scarcity of labour. This was primarily due to ill-treatment of
Nigerian nationals there and the inconvertibility of Spanish
pesetas as a result of non-recognition of Francisco Franco's
regime by Great Britain. Even the presence of Nigerians in
Fernando Po was illegal as far as the British authorities were
concerned. Recruitment of labour to anywhere was forbidden
by the Nigerian Labour Ordinance No. 1 of 1929, and
emigration of labourers to Femando Po was specifically
forbidden by the same law. 4 Nevertheless, the Nigerian
government was quite aware of the fact that 'Nigerian' people
had been going to Fernando Po illegally from 1828 onwards.
Hence, in 1939 an administrative officer was sent to Femando
Po by the government of Nigeria, to investigate labour condi-
tions on the island and to evolve in collaboration with the
Spanish authorities 'measures which would ensure the welfare
of Nigerian labourers.s Thjs mission laid the foundation for
the Anglo.Spanish labour accord signed in 1942, but negotia-
tion of which began in 1940, which was designed to streamline
relations between Nigeria and Fernando Po.
Various reasons led to the signing of this agreement. The
British were too anxious about the threat of the possible use
of Fernamio Po against British territories by the Axis powers,
since it · was even rumoured that Spanish territories were
und.er Nazi influence and that there was a group l~ader
(Fuehrer) for- the Qerrtian National Socialist Workers Party in
Fernlilldo Po,-. whose name was given as Dr. Joseph Worner. 6
37
 'lhc Nigerian Fernando Po labour accord was therefore
negotiated in the spirit of Anglo-Spanish rapprochement
and in consideration of Great Britain's world wide interests. 7
At. the same time the British were prepared to consider
offensive action against Fernando Po if Spain went over
to the Axis powers, and the British Admiralty even
commented that a naval operation to capture Fernando Po
should not be a heavy commitment since the number of
troops on the island was not more than 200. As if to prove
this point, the British Naval Commander-in-Chief South of
the Atlantic, without reference to either the Foreign Office
or the Colonial Office, and to the two offices great embarrass-
ment and annoyance, ordered H.M.S. Dragon to proceed on
6 July 1940 to evacuate all British nationals with the
exception of the Vice-Consul. 8 The Spanish authorities were
not given prior information about this and they made the
right deduction by strengthening the defences of the island
• by bringing 2,5~0 Moroccan and Spanish troops to beef up
· the 200 local nfles. 9 The action of the British did not
e~dear them to the Spaniards who were in any case sympathe-
tic to the German cause and discriminated against British
nationals in Fernando Po throughout the war. In spite of the
war, or perhaps because of it, the British went ahead to
negotiate a labour treaty with Spain concerning Fernando Po
and Nigeria from 1940 to 1942. The ostensible reason for
this agreement was to prevent illegal trafficking in labourers.
The British claimed that:
... the object of these negotiations with the Spanish gevernment
was to regularise what had become a large scale traffic in labour
and to endeavour to eliminate the unscrupulous native 'bl;1ck
?irder' who earned a lucrative livelihood by kidnapping the
Ignorant peasants from the Ibo and Ibibio areas .. .10
The question to ask is why the British had to wait until the
time of the war to use Nigerian labour to bait Spain out of
possible desertion to and militazy cooperation with the axis
powers against the allies. One can of course argue that the
British recognised that if they did not do anything at that
38
time the problem would get out of hand since the number of
· Nigerians on the island was on the incn3ase. 11
In December 1942 a treaty was signed between Nigeria and
the Spanish authorities in Fern~ndo P.o to obtain a regular
supply of healthy labourers. The agreement stipulated that
only labourers over the age of 16 could.be recruited. Records
and photographs of each labourer were kept at Calabar and
Santa Isabel. The labourer could be recruited to work in
agriculture, industzy or forestzy. The duration of the contract
was initially one year for· bachelors and. two years for a
married man who went with his wife. The contract was
renewable for. the same number of years, but in the case of a
bachelor, he must first return to Nigeria before taking up
another contract. Adequate rations and shelter were to be
provided free. An agricultural labourer was to be paid £1 a
month and others earned 40 per cent more. Half of this
money was to be paid to th~ labou,rer and the remaining half
was to be· deposited at the office of the Curador cqlonial of
Fernando Po who held' the mon·ey in trust for the labourer
until the expiration or t~rmination of the contt;act; money
accruing to the labourer was then to be paid by th~ Direccion
de Hacienda or treasuzy. The're was even some provision .for
protestant and muslim !1;liSsionaries t; work with Nigerians in.
Fernando Po. Any illegal immigrants were to be repatriated at
Nigeria's expense. The most important clause in all the treaty
was clause XXVIII which stated inter alia" ... if the employer
fails to fulfil any of his afore-mentione<;l obligations in respect
of the repatriation of a worker. and/or his family, the said
obligation shall be performed by the government of Fernando
Po:"12 . .
. Under this agreement Nigerian labourers could be recruited
for ~ork in Fernando Po and Rio Muni and the other Spanish
Islands. The ~prking or' the agreement was supervised by a
labour officer at Calabar. At the request of the Spanish
government the firm of Messrs John Holt and Company was
appointed the agent for recruiting labour for t~e Spanish
chamber of commerce in Fernando Po. John Holt did not
39

only t:ecr~ljt directly; it also farmed out recruiting to Nigerian
sub-r:cruiters. 13 The Nigerian government allowed the
recnutment of a~y numbers of labourers not exceeding 250 a
month. The Spa~Ish authorities aimed at maintaining a labour
force of approxlffiately 14,000 men. As the normal duration
of a labour contract was eighteen months or two years about
6,000 or 7,000 recruits would be required each ;ear to
repla~e men whose contracts had expired. The number of
recruits usu~!ly fell below the number required, and in fact
only 1,430 men officially embarked from Calabar in
1944. ?n arri:al at Fernando Po, the recruits were usually
placed m transit camp and were distributed to their respective
~I?ployers after compliance with medical and police formal-
Ities. The papers from the police and medical authorities with
the copy of the contract would then be handed by the
_worker over to the employer for safe keeping. Without these
documents the labourer would not be able to leave the island
by orthod~x means and the milita:ry control of the. island was
such that It. was vi~tually impossible for him to leave by
canoe.
A!though immigration was controlled by the 1942 treaty
ye_t illeg~ trafficking continued: Four pounds sterling was th~
pnce prud per labourer ~legally smuggled in. The welfare of
the .~orker
. . . was. · · naturally·
. connected with th e 0 ffilCI'al
admimstratwn of the . colony .which for most of th'Is ti me was
corrupt, venal and ~nefficient. The ' chief scourge of the
labourer. was the Afncan Guardia colonial and police forc.e.
These pe~ple were the cause of much unnecessazy suffering
b~t t:he ~~ony of it all was ·that many of them were
Ntgen~s. _Any employer could have any of his labourers
place_d m pnson for· as long as he· liked. with or without
flogging. . · · . . notorious for. this operation. About sixty ocean-going canoes
. The . 1942 ~greement was .an unmitigated failure in all
res¥ects. It satisfied_nobody. The Spanish authorities rightly
. clrum~d that they did not get the adequate supply oflabour
promised them under the treaty. Members of the Fernando
P() Chamber. of Commerce had to visit Calabar in 1944 to
40
discuss what steps could be taken to i111prove the rate of
recruitment. The impression the Nigerian government got
from their visit was that while employers fully realised their
dependence on Nigeria for a more contented labour force,
there were unsatisfactory conditions for which the Spanish
government rather than the employer was responsible. The
Spanish government paid insufficient attention to complaints
made by the British labour officer and showed little interest
while repatriating labourers. No steps were ever taken to get
in touch with relations of men who fell sick or died and in
the case of labourers contracted before the treaty, the
relations of a deceased labourer could not receive his
property unless they claimed it in person. The postal service
between Femando Po and Nigeria was infrequent and very
expensive so that labourers felt very much cut off from their
homes during the period of their contract. It was matters
such as the~e, which were largely outside the control of the
employers which impeded. recruiting.
These unattractive conditions in Fernando . Po led to
scarcity of labour and consequently led to lucrativeness of ·
the smuggling trade. The long and indented coastline of
Nigeria made it physically impossible for the authorities to
prevent the clandestine smuggling of labour ac_ross to the
island by canoe. This was particularly the case in war-time
Nigeria, for although Nigeria had one patrol boat working in
the area, this was of course quite inadequate. Even this patrol
boat had to be withdrawn in 1944 following an order from
the Commissioner of Police that the practice of firing across
the bows of canoes to force them to stop was to cease.
These canoes engaged in the illicit traffic operated mostly
from the network of creeks in and around the estua:ry of the
· Cross· river. The villages of Oron and lkang were particularly
' · ·. ·~ere regcll\lrly .engaged)n 'the. traffic f~om the Nigerian side.
\ ".Tii~~e ·canoes were propell:ed 'by 'ab.out tep paddlers and '
usl.uilly' ·carried ·U,p .t9 :thirty passengers and took fifteen to
twenty hours for tlu~ Joilfliey from ~~a~~u,-.. ~o ,.·Santa
. . Isabel.
41
 Apart from labourers the canoes carried palm oil kernel
. ' '
rubb~r, yams, ·gari, motor-cycle tyres and drugs. The profits
. .
on. all the~e commodities were such as . to justifY the
smuggle~s' risk. On the Spanish side the whole traffic was
d~alt with in an drganised and official basis. Canoes paid
harbour dues at Santa Isabel and cargoes were customed. On
arrival in the harbour the "Captains" of these canoes were met
by officials of the Junta de Abastos who bought the cargoes
and organised the distr;ibu tion of labourers. Smuggle_rs were·
paid in Spanish currency and they had therefore to turn most
of _their earnings into Spanish goods which they thi:m
smuggled back to Nigeria. Brandy and perfumes appeared to
be the chief cargoes carried. In· view of this smuggling, the
Nigerian government considered dertol,lncing t4e 1942 agree-
ment. Bu~ it \Vas felt-that iei?udiati<?n. ofthe.agreeinent would
lead to a wJ.lolesale rever~ion to·smuggling oflabour by canoe
whi~h · alth9ugb.. st~l continuing· would greatly increase if
offi~ial te~ruitiJ1g·were to-come to an end. Repudiation of the
a~e~ni~_rit,_ mo!eqv~t, would not cause any vezy serious incon-
veniimce.. to the Spaniards who would still be able to obtain
labour illegally._ Re:pudiation would on the other hand put an
end to any immediate hope of securing the improvement in
conditions; howeyer slight that may be, which the British
claimed the ·agreement was designed to secure. The British
realised that .they could therefore not repudiate the agree-
ment and that effective patrol of the coast would also have to
wait until the end of the war; the man in charge ruefully
commented " .... i(we can ultimately obtain that control, we
shall be able to threaten the whole basis of Fernando Po's
economy and we ought then to be able to make them do
what we like. "16 . .
More galling \yas the pro-Axis sympathy of the authorities
in Fernando Po durin-g the war especially of the· Governor-
General, Don MarianoAlonso Alonso. ID-treatment of Nigerian
labourers was intimately related to pro-Axis feeling of the
.local administration. 1Jle:Union Jack was not respected and ·
the ~ritish Consul's .car flying it was stopped " ... even by a
42
native sentry at the entrance to the village of San Carlos."
British news was banned from the local newspaper Ebano
which on the other hand gave prominent publicity to German
and Italian communiques relating tci the war. There was
almost complete "social boycott" of the British_Yice-Consulate
"... There are few Spanish people in San~a Isabel who would
accept an invitation to a private party at the British consulate
"17 All British nationals wishit:J,g to leave the zone 9f
S~n~a Isabel were obliged to <?btain special permits o~ each
occasion. This included the Briti~ Vice-Consul of the Island
whereas Germans had freedom of movement evezywhen: ~n
the island. Other anti-British actions o! the autho~~es
included the arrest on 13 Februazy 1943 of th~ Bnt~sh
chaplain in his mission house in San Carlos becau~e acc?~dmg
to the Spanish authorities ~is mission house was ~n a_mihtary
zone!' The Methodist mission had a heavy ta:catwn Impose~
on them in 1943 and back-dated t9 1932. Nigerians ':"~re. also
frequently arrested for spying for the British. 'I_he ~ntish ~so
suspected that Spanish and German agents were mfll~~ting
into Nigeria under the guise that they we~e ~patn~ted
labourers. The British even claimed· that the Wife _of ~e
German Consul in Santa Isabel was once_ seen to be buymg
passages for agents posing as labourers to return to
N.Igen·a.18 The British were quite concerned about p Th'the
security aspects of the pro-Axis stance of Fernando o. . _Is
was rightly so, since there was a small number of Naz~ m
Fernando p0 including the German Consul who ~ad direct
cypher communication with Germany. The offiCials of the
administration of Fernando Po were falangists who were
unfriendly to Britain. There were resident in the island several
hundred Pro-German Africans many of them ex-German
Kamerun soldiers in the Spanish Guardia colonial. Some were
refugees and settlers from the Cameroons who had emigra!ed
there since 191619 and had been joined by others. These
people had formed a Pro-German orgai~satio~ called Kamerun
Eingebomen Deutsche Gesinnten Verem (Umon of Camero?ns
natives friendly to the Germans). The Germans were usmg
43
 these people for espionage in Nigeria and German propaganda
was actually getting into Nigeria by 1944.20 It is of course
to. ?~ expected that the British were not objective in their
cnttctsm of pro-German feelings of the local administration.
Although relations were far from cordial, they were aggrava-
ted by the fact that some of the British Vice-Consul's
communications with the Governor-General of Spanish
Guinea wer couched in hardly courteous terms.
The British consoled themselves by believingthat the anti-
British policy of the Governor-General of Spanish Guinea was
a p.ersonal o?e though certainly aided and abetted in it by his
~luef of Pohce who had spy-mania so badly that he saw a spy
m almost every disgruntled Nigerian labourer. At the same
tim~ their officials were no doubt sure of the devil they were
dealt~g with. ~e British Consul in Duala, for example, aptly
descnbed the situation when he wrote that in Fernando Po
the British Vice-Consul had to conduct business with " ... a
Governor-General who was at one time a house painter like a
certain Herr Adolph Hitler, and who has precisely the ~ount
of breeding and education one would expect from a Spanish
21
artisan . . ." Some British officials blained the spineless-
ness . of their home government for the unsatisfactory
condition in Fernando Po. They argued that Fernando Po
which relied on Nigeria not only for labour but also for food
should never have been allowed to pose a security threat to
Nigeria. One British official declared:
· · · it is only too apparent that the time has come for the mess
which is Fernando Po to be cleared up in our own interest and
those of the few decent and rational minded Spanish colonists
who remain, and it is obvious too that it is the British government
who have got to do the clearing, especially in view of the fact of
the strong position which Great Britain enjoys today ... 22
The h?stile attitude to the British, however, began to change
followmg the collapse of Mussolini's Italy, a sign which was
read as portents of things to come on the island. In fact, by
~a.rch 194.5. the administration on the island was not only
gmng publicity to British victories, but also co-operating with
44
Nigeria to stop the exportation of palm oil from the Niger
Delta to Fernando Po as well as commodity and labour
smuggling to Fernando Po. 23 In spite of the mutual
antagonism, the 1942 labour agreement remained in force
throughout the period of the war, but neither side really
enforced it, with the effect that all the aims for negotiating
and signing the agreement remained, as can be seen,
unfulfilled on both sides. Nevertheless, this agreement remain-
ed in force without any revision until 1950. The reasons for
this were quite apparent. Firstly, The tempo of nationalist
agitation after the Second World War ros~ in Nigeria. ~is ':as
characterised by strikes, such as the one m 1945, orgamsahon
of nation•wide nationalist parties and the emergence of a
politician like Nnamdi Azikiwe who possessed en~~gh
charisma to attract national following. These gave the Bnhsh
administration much to think about. Emigration to Fernando
Po was seen as a saf~ty valve. Secondly, the austerity
which was necessitated by the war had made many of
Nigeria's infrastructural needs so acute, the ~ost ~hen taken
cumulatively became so burdensome that all efforts of the
government were directed to solving these probl~ms .and they
had no time for revision of the Fernando Po-Nigena labour
agreement untill950. . · .
The revised agreement of 19 50 transferred the concessiOn
to recruit labour in Nigeria from the British firm of John Holt
and Company limited to the Anglo-Spanish employment
agency ..This agreement also contained a clause to repatriate
illegally recruited labour to Nigeria. This in fact was a clear
indication that the Spaniards whose agents use d t o "kidn ap "
people from the Cross River area of Nigeria and ship them to
Fernando Po were quite contented with the available
manpower on their island and were trying to avoid any cause
for friction with Nigerian authorities.; This 1950 agreement
was virtually the same as the imprl">perly enforced 1942
agreement. The 1950 agreement apart. from being more
generous in its monetary rewards for ~igerian labourers, also
reiterated the fact that working conditions of the labourers
45
 must .co~fonn with conventions of the international labour
orgamsahon.
. In .spite 'of this agreement, allegations of ill-treatment of
Ntgena.n workers c<;mtinued to be·made by returninglabout-
ers. Tius prompted a delegation led by the Central Minister of
Labour, Chief S. L. Akintola, to visit the island in 1953 to
make ~n on-the-spot investigation: As can be expected the
delegatiOn was shown round Fernando Po by the Spanish
authoritie& who made sure only the good plantations were
seen by the visiting Nigerians. The result of this manoeuvre
was that the delegation reported that it found no evidence of
ill-treatment. The delegation, however, achieved some measure
of success since it was able to advise that salaries of the
labourers should be raised and that social and educational
services . for the labourers and their children should be
improved. This concerned ·provision of. educational and
religious ~acilities...in English.. Finally, the delegation recom-
mended that a register ofall Nigerian workers in Fernando Po
should be properly kept. All these recommendations were
incqrporated into a- revised ·agreement in 1954 ... Another
delegation led by Chief f. S. Okotieboh went to Fernando Po
in 1956 on. the invitation of the island's authorities. The
result of this visit. was .a 25 p~r cent pay rise for Nigerian
wor~ers and the. payment of capitation fee of five pounds
sterling on each labourer to the Nigerian government 24
This money was then shared bet"ween the Federal and East~rn
re_gio~al government in lieu of the taxes payable by these
Ntgenan workers in Fernando Po. The agreement also made
provision for increased recruitment of Nigerian labour for
plantation agriculture in Fernando Po. Up to a maximum of
800 could be recruited monthly from Nigeria. It is of course
clear that Nigeria was not as wealthy as it is today when oil
revenue has made Nigeria a relatively affluent nation at least
in Africa, but the acceptance of this capitation fee by the
F~de~al and Eastern regional governments in a way made the
N~ge~an government an accomplice in the degradation of
Ntgenan labourers in Fernando Po since it was big business
46
for the government to keep Nigerian labour in Fernando Po
no matter what the situation there was .
The Spanish authorities for reasons better known to them-
selves again invited the Nigerian government to send yet
another delegation in 1957 led by Chief J. M. Johnson. ~e
delegation reported widespread ill-treatment of Nigenan
labourers excessive hours of work, illegal deduction from
wages ~d failure to supply food rations. The delegation
visited Rio Muni for the first time. (One thing that puzzles
one is why the Nigerian authorities never thought it fit to
invite the Fernando Po authorities to Nigeria so that it did
not appear as though Nigeria was the beggar-nation.) This
visit resulted in the extension of the existing agreement, firstly,
to include payment of compensation in cases of perman~~t
or partial injury to non-treaty labourers; secondly, to prolubtt
long periods of detention without trial in cas~s where
labourers were accused of criminal offences; thudly, to
abolish the pass system for Nigerian workers. 25 The govern-
ment nevertheless agreed that the number of labourers
recruited for Fernando Po could in fact be increased. This
was in spite of the fact that some members of the delegation
had sharply criticised the inhuman conditions under which
some of the labourers worked in some of the plantations on
the island. In response the government sent a Nigerian labour
officer to the territory mainly to deal with labour problems
and to look after the welfare of the Nigerian labourers.
Throughout the 1950s the Nigerian government was always
careful to point out the official Spanish good neighbourliness
as contrasted with the constant contractual lapses of
individual planters some of who were in fact brought to book
by the Spanish authorities on the island. Furthermore, the
governments of Nigeria and Fernando Po were agreed that
the labour contracts were mutually beneficial if not to
individuals at least to the two contracting governments.
Nigerians who would have been unemployed at home were
gainfully employed in Fernando Po and both the Federal .and
East regional governments in addition derived pecumazy
47
· benefits from this. On the other hand Fernando Po which had
remained staiVed of labour for a 1ong time was able to
embark on planned agricultural development. Even when
opposition to conditions on Fernando Po was aired it was
with the purpose of amelioration and none of the crltics of
the labour conditions on the island ever suggested a complete
halt to recruitment.
With the approach of independence in Nigeria following on 1
the wake of Ghana's independence in 1957 the labour
relations between Nigeria and Fernando Po began to assume
new dimensions. The transformation from a colonial state
into full sovereignty in Nigeria was bound to affect the
relations and what used to be a colonial problem became a
diplomatic problem. The signs of the future relationship
became evident, when on the eve of independence in Nigeria,
the West African Pilot, organ of the "National Council of
Nigeria and the Cameroons" and a junior partner in the
Federal Coalition Government, carried an editorial calling on
the Federal Government to open negotiation with Spain for
the purpose of annexing Fernando Po which the paper
claimed was geographically part of Nigeria.26 With Nigeria
becoming a sovereign state in October 1960 under the leader-
ship of Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa advocates of annexation
of Fernando Po must have thought that they had a chance of
forcing their will on the Federal Government. The N.C.N.C.
which had advocated this course of action controlled the
foreign affairs department through its nominee Jaja
Wachukwu as foreign minister. But because of the nature of
the coalition government the N.C.N.C. never really enjoyed
absolute control since the Federal Prime Minister had the
ove~~ control of and responsibility for foreign policy
decisions. One can see from recent studies on Nigeria's
fon~ign policy at this time, that Nigeria followed a low profile
pohcy usually referred to as "self-effacement" or "functional
approach", in her relations with her neighbours. This policy
meant that there w~s consciously no political arm~twisting;
rather than do thts, attempts at regional cooperation
48
epitomised by the fonnation of such bodies ~ ~he Chad
Basin Commission and the Niger River CommiS.swn, ":ere
27 All attempts to instigate aggressive actwn agamst
mad e. · d
Fernando p 0 by a combined parliamentary actwn an press
campaign28 for the annexation of ":hat one of the papers
referred to as the "Goa" of Africa failed for severa! reaso~s.
Nigeria was not united enough to pursue a dynamic forei~
policy. One recognises the fac~ that fo~eign policy could ~
fact be used to foster the spint of umty at home, but this
would have been a realistic policy if Fernando Po was a
sovereign and weak African country. The fact wa~ that
Fernando Po was still protected by the might of Spam and
Spanish authorities at this time were using the bogey of
possible Nigerian territorial covetousness of Fernando Po to
persuade nationalists there that the sovereignty of Fem~do
p would be threatened whenever the islan~ remove~ tts.elf
0
from the protective security umbrella of Spam. The Ntgenan
government was apparently convinced that th~ reports of
ill-treatment were exaggerated since it was logtcally argued
that if conditions were as bad as they were made o~t to be
Nigerians would not be going to Fernando Po e.tther as
contract labourers or as illegal labourers smuggled mto the
island by the hazardous means of manually pa~dled canoes.
Finally, Nigeria was not the only interested Afncan coun~ry
that could lay claim to Fernando Po. The Ca~eroons w~tc~
was nearer the island than Nigeria, was not unmterested 1f1t
became clear that the island was up for partition, purchase or
annexation. The campaign for annexation of ~ernando Po
which began in 1961 and reached its crescendo m 1965 had
its affects on the government of the day. ~ .1.961 four
Nigerians were shot in Rio Muni by the local militia (known
as the Juventuds). This forced the Federal Govern~e~t not
only to lodge a strong protest but also to ask for pe~Is:non to
send a high-ranking delegation led by the Federal ~mtst~r of
Labour, Chief J. Modupe Johnson, to visi~ Equatonal Gumea.
The delegation investigated the complamts of the work~~
and recommended revision of the 1957 agreement. The VISit
49
resulted in further amelioration of labour conditions on the
tried to wriggle out of this difficult position
island. Among other accomplishments of the mission were
repudiating the agreement concluded between
the permanent abolition of the Pass Law which made it
Spanish Guinea because Francisco Macias Nguemu, the
compulsory for all Nigerians to carry passes while- ~~ing
of government in Equatorial Guinea, said that the labour
about on the island, the prohibition oflong detention without
agreement was not in line with his governm~n~'s policl.es.
trial for Nigerian offenders and finally an agreement by the Meanwhile the civil war prevented any renegotiation. Durmg
Spanish authorities in Fernando Po to payment of compensa- the civil war, when Fernando Po was still a Spanish territory
tion in cases of permanent or partial physical disability. The the island was used by the International Red Cross and the
Nigerian government warned its critics after signing this
Catholic Relief Organisation "Caritas" to ferry food and, as
agreement which was again reviewed in 1963, that further
claimed by the Nigerian authorities, arms and war materiel to
criticisms of Fernando Po were in fact counter-productive, in
"Biafra". Even when Equatorial Guinea attained sovereign
the sense that constant emphasis on the fact that Nigerians
status, international pressure by France and the Catholic .
outnumbered the indigenous Bubi five to one was alienating
World was mounted to force Fernando Po to grant concessiOn
the feelings of the indigenous people and bringing them into
to these foreign powers and organisations to enjoy extra-
physical friction with Nigerians. This agreement was due for
territorial jurisdiction on the island with the sole purpose of
r~v~sion in 1~66 but the crisis in Nigeria and the subsequent
helping the secessionist forces in Nigeria. The government of
ClVll war which broke out in Nigeria in 1967 prevented any
Equatorial, Guinea was however able to determine what was
further review as stipulated by the 1963 accord.
in her best interest and in January 1969 the government of
With the outbreak of the civil war the problem took a
Equatorial Guinea asked the Red Cross and "Caritas" to cease
dif~erent ,t~rn and assumed geo-political dimensions involving
as m the Fust and Second World Wars, the strategic location their operations on the island.30 This was followed by t?e
establishment of a telex link between Nigeria and Equatonal
of Fernando Po in relation to Nigeria. Brigadier Bassey, one
Guinea at the expense of Nigeria. A Federal Commissioner,
of the first Nigerians to be commissioned as an officer in the
Al-haj Aminu Kano later visited the island in October 19~9 on
then British-led army, was appointed Consul to Santa Isabel
behalf of the Federal Military Government and President
in November 1966, no doubt with the realisation that should
the crisis in Nigeria deteriorate to civil war, Fernando Po's Francisco Macias Nguema was given a note from the N.igerian
position would be crucial to its outcome. At this time there head of state General Yakubu Gowon, inviting the former not
to recognise 'Biafra and to pay an official visit to Nigeria. The
were about 100,000 people on Fernando Po of whom about
85,000 were Nigerians and two-thirds of them were Igbo- Nigerian envoy in Santa Isabel felt the influence of the
speaking.29 This of course meant that there was considerable Nigerian immigrant population on the island w~s so very
sympathy with the Eastern Nigerian cause not only within important in foreign policy decision at least as It affe.cted
the immigrant community but also within the official circle as Nigeria, that he urged his home government to ask either
well. Anthony Asika the Administrator of the East Central State,
With the attainment of independence by Equatorial Guinea or Dr. Nnamdi, Azikiwe, the former head of state of Nigeria
in October 1968 followed by the withdrawal of Spanish who had just deserted the "Biafran" cause to join the Federal
expe~ise and management, working conditions began to
cause to visit the island to convince the lgbo people that the
detenorate on the island. Equatorial Gurnea's government Fede~l Government was not embarking on a genocidal
campaign against them.
50
51
 President Francisco Macias Nguema cleverly waited until
August 1970 when the war was over before coming on a state
visit to Nigeria. By this time Nigerian labourers whose
contracts had expired numbered about 30,000 in Santa Isabel
which had been renamed Malabo by the nationalist govern-
ment. The Equatorial Guinea government had no boats to
repatriate them and the Federal Government of Nigeria was
compelled by the difficult situation in which the labourers
found themselves to make arrangement with the Nigerian
National Shipping Line to evacuate the stranded Nigerians.
The Nigerian government while paying part of the bill asked
the Equatorial Guinea's government to pay its share which
was put at Nl52,000,31 but this bill was never settled. While
this problem remained, Equatorial Guinea approached the
Nigerian government to review the 1963 agreement. Negotia-
tions were therefore commenced and as in 1963 representa-
tives of both governments met in Lagos in January 1971 to
discuss the details of a new agreement. This was signed on
January 1972. The new agreement raised the age of
workers from 18 to 21, eliminated corporal punishment,
increased wages and capitation fees, provided for a minimum
wage of Nl6 per month in addition to free housing, medical
care, fully paid sick leave, increased annual leave and
substantial daily food ration. The minimum age at which a
labourer could be recruited was raised from 18 to 21 years.
The labourers were not to be subjected to arbitrary arrest, or
detention for more than one month without trial. It was also
stated that when a Nigerian was sentenced to a term of
imprisonment for an offence under Equatorial Guinea law
not recognised by Nigerian law, the worker involved shall
immediately be repatriated to Nigeria at his own expense. 32
The new agreement provided for the setting up of a mixed
commission of four, two from each country, to deal with
breaches of the labour agreement. The Federal Government
also stated that the government of Equatorial Guinea should
accept the fact that they were not doing Nigeria a favour by
employing a large number of Nigerians as workers in their
52
country and that the government of Equatorial Guinea must
accept and it was accepted by them that they would bear full
responsibility for any contravention of the agreement reached
in Lagos on 29 April 1971. But the existence of these clauses
did not eliminate abuses, and the recruitment of labourers
was in fact suspended in 1973 because of breaches of the
1971 agreement. 33 .
The Federal Government sent a ministerial delegatwn to
Equatorial Guinea to carry out an on-the-spot investigation
of the problem facing Nigerians recruited for labou~ ~nd ~11
those resident in the country. The report of the mm1stenal
delegation was no more than " ... a catalogue of b~tal and
inhuman treatment meted out to Nigerians by offict~s and
people of Equatorial Guinea ... " 34 The result o~ th1~ war
a review of the agreement in 1974, but the sad thmg IS the
fact that starting from 194 2 to 19 74 agreements between
these two countries have not been more than Chiffo~ ~e
Papier only to be signed and broken at will by the authontles
at Santa Isabel (Malabo). By 1974 when the agreement was
reviewed wages of labourers remained unpaid for long
periods ~p to six months or more on some occasions, contrary
to article XVI of the agreement which stipulated monthly
payments, military intervention on purely labour matters was
a constant occurrence contrary to Article XXXIX, Oause 2 of
the agreement. One such military intervention led to the death
of a Nigerian in Aprill974 and when the Nigerian amba~sador
demanded to see his corpse he was prevented from domg so.
The authorities in Fernando Po seemed to have been ~gere~
by what they regarded as Nigeria's meddlesomeness m their
internal affairs and they seemed determined to put an end to
this. The Nigerian community was subjected to all kinds of
abuses climaxing in the humiliation of the Labour Attache,
35
Mr. 0. Arnbah, and his family on 27 February 197 5.
The Labour Attache was ordered at gun point and without
previous notice to leave his house. On hearing this the
ambassador sent two of his senior members of staff, Mr.
Anjorin, the Principal Labour Officer, and Mr. Odumosu,
53
 Head of Chancery, to investigate the cause of eviction and
arrest of the Labour Attache. The response of the Malabo
government was the arrest ofboth men and detention by the
police, although they were later released. A Nigerian embassy
car was seized on 23 March 1975 and the car was never found
in spite of strong protests by the ambassador.
What one can make of these events is that law and order
seemed to have broken down in Fernando Po. But in fairness
one must point out that the plight of Nigerians as well as that
of the Bubi has become worse since independence. It is one
of the ironies of history that Africans, both native and
expatriate, received relatively more humane treatment at the
hands of Spanish authorities than at the hands of fellow
Africans. The regime of Francisco Macias Nguema has been
characterised by brutality and police terror of which Nigerians
have been among the victims. With a deteriorating economy
it is clear that even the normal administrative functions of
government are becoming difficult to carry out and the law
enforcing agencies have become laws unto themselves. It is
obvious therefore that Nigerians are no longer safe in
Fernando Po. With the planned withdrawal of Nigerians from
Fernando Po which ended early in February 197 6 Nigeria
decided to cut economic ties with Equatorial Guinea. During
the evacuation the government used not only her merchant
navy but also gun-boats and air force planes apparently to
demonstrate that any overt act of brutality against departing
Nigerians would not be tolerated. The combined air and sea
operation to evacuate abour 25,000 Nigerians remaining on
the island and the amount invovled in resettlement cost the
government about three hundred million Naira. 36
The reaction of the Nigerian Press was predictable. One
newspaper commentator advocated military action or
economic strangulation or both. It went on that all Nigerians
in prison must be released along with others for the purpose
of evacuation and that all the entitlements of Nigerians must
be calculated and paid at once and their movable property
released and that the exodus must be supetvised by highly
54
placed Nigerian diplomatic officers sent from Laaoa and
if Equatorial Guinea Gendarmes molested those
". . . then the exodus should be supetvised by """'-""'..
teams of Nigerian army ... " The paper also called for public
apology by Equatorial Guinea and the payment of adequate
compensation to the families of those who had been
murdered in Equatorial Guinea. Other editorial opinions said
the time for reprisals had at last come, and that " ... no
government would allow its citizenry or part thereof to be
subjected for too long to a situation which borders on
slavery. It is therefore time for drastic reprisals. " 38
While most of the Nigerian dailies called for military action
against "this Hitler of Equatorial Guinea",39 other news-
papers put the whole question of Nigerian migrant labour in
wider perspective. They referred to the series of humiliations
meted to Nigerians in Ghana, Zaire, Gabon, Cameroon,
Dahomey, Sudan and Saudi Arabia, and called on the govern-
ment to repatriate these people back to Nigeria, as one of the
editorials put it, " ... In these countries they constitute l!
potential target for possible future abuse . . ." 4 0 The
government was quick to point out that the position of
Nigerians in each of the countries cited above was different
from that of Equatorial Guinea, that there was no cause for
alarm, that many of the so-called Nigerians in these countries
had acquired foreign citizenship and that should they want or
be forced to come home normal consular setvices would be
provided; but that in the case of Equatorial Guinea Nigerians
were faced with possible physical liquidation which the
government was not going to allow.
Many people in Nigeria were dissatisfied with the failure of
the military government to deal with Fernando Po militarily.
But it seems the government was using the economic weapon
to achieve the same end. The government was aware of the
fact that with the last plane or ship-load of Nigerians le!lving
Fernando Po, begins the process of economic decline and
imminent backruptcy. Shortage oflabour is bound to lead to
the cocoa, coffee and banana plantations reverting back to
55
bush. This would put Fernando Po back into the stagnant
situation of 1900s when all developmental schemes were
hampered by lack of labour. The prospects are even worse
now for with prosperity at home in Nigeria arising from the
oil boom and the massive development and reconstruction
schemes at home the incentive to seek employment in
Fernando Po or elsewhere is no longer there. In fact rather
than be a source of emigration, other West Africans have been
coming to Nigeria in large numbers these days; the pull is now
from us and the push factor is from other impoverished
neighbours including Fernando Po itself. Fernando Po is going
to find it difficult to attract labour from other West African
countries especially since the brutality against Nigerians was
widely published; and also, Nigeria is now strong enough to
use her influence to prevent labourers from West African
countries from going to work in Fernando Po. The result of
this would be decline in Fernando Po and the revenue
accruing to her from the plantations would no longer be
available to meet the day-to-day requirements of government.
This eventuality is bound to lead to political upheaval on the
island. There is already growing opposition to the sadistic
Francisco Macias Nguema regime and the remnants of the
indigenous Bubi population of the island are demanding
dissolution of the Union with Rio Muni where the President
comes from. The Fang from the Mainland seem to have
taken over power and the Fernandinos are not likely to
accept this indefinitely. If they did, they would be the first in
histozy to accept permanent subjection to an alien elite ruling
group. If the Fernandinos succeed in dissolving the Union,
then a scramble for Equatorial Guinea might ensue. The
Mainland is ethnically related to the Cameroons and Gabon,
with which Macias Nguema has been conducting a running
propaganda campaign. It would be in the interest of Nigeria
to be in touch with these two governments in case this
unnatural union called Equatorial Guinea dissolves into its
natural and separate geographical entities. In this case Nigeria,
knowing fully well that Fernando Po would need her labour,
56
technical know-how and. above all economic aid, should be in
a strong position to edge Fernando Po into union with
Nigeria. The force of strategy demands no less an action. if
Nigeria must play a role in this sub-region commensurate wtth
her size, population, economic resources and power. One
thing that is certain is that Nigeria cannot for long allow this
floating dock of an island, strategically positioned, to fall
into the hands of enemies of Africa. The recent transfer of
the Voice of America transmitters from Kaduna from where
they were expelled by the Murtala Muhammed/Obasanjo
government to Fernando Po raises the question about the
potential danger this island poses to Nigeria. There is also
evidence of increasing Chinese presence 41 on the island, but
it is not going to be difficult for Nigeria to deal with either
China the Soviet Union or the United States firmly over
Ferna~do Po. There might come a time when America's
dependence on oil exports from Nigeria might be used as
quid pro quo to their withdrawing from Fernando Po. ~e
Chinese and the Soviets are quite aware of the potential
influence of Nigeria in Africa and they are not going to forfeit
their friendship with Nigeria in order to win that of a transient
state like Equatorial Guinea. What is clear is that Nigeria has
a role to play in the future of Fernando Po, but the question
to ask is whether Nigeria has the will, the skill and the men to
make sure that the fate of Fernando Po is not decided in
Washington, Mosco or Peking, but in Lagos.
REFERENCES
1 For full discu~sion of this see Samir Amin: Modem Migration in
West Africa o.v.p·. Lon. 1974, pp. 68-69.
F.O. 371/26908. C.W. Michie Op. cit. out of 10,000 Nigerians
2
Owerri province contributed 50%
Calabar 38%
Ogoja 10%
Cameroons (British) 1%
1%
Onitsha
57
 3 Ibid. The Spanish labour officer pays £1 sterling and 150 Pesetas. 13: , - ' Name ofRecruiter.: ' Area of Recruiting
In addition the employer contributes another 150 to 450 j '.••'''
.,_;.,

Pesetas for a labourer safely delivered at Fernando Po (The · ; ·. }-~~Rtibert'dji- 30

Pound sterling's official rate was £1 = 45 Pesetas). Uyo Division 20
2. Bassey Okon Udo ".--:
Eket/Etinan · -' '30 -.
4 Section 14 of Nigerian Labour Ordinance of 1929 No. 1 specifi- 3:A. I; William ;
4. B. A. Efiom Eyamba Abak Division 50
cally prohibits labour recruiting into Femando Po from
5. Bryson Ufot Etukudo Oppb() I)ivision- AO .•.:
Nigeria.
. Opobo))ivision .. , . 40
6. J. S. Uranta ;_:,;,:.
5 Nigerian Sessional Paper No. 38 of 1939. See also Budget Address ·_,·..,.
~ikot~Ekpene/ ARO/
7. G:'i1.
. .. ' .
Allige_'
.. . .
.-
by B. H. Bourdillon 4th March, 1940. (Government Printers ' ' .
-'· ITV llivi~ion 50
Lagos).
8. Jo~'M"E~ Et~ wai~er, ' Ikot-Ekpene/ ' ,'
30
6 C.O. 583/240 W.A.F.F. intelligence report for half year ending . ··Bnyohg·_
31 Dec., 1938. ':;;;·

</' T'. ;o. Ngawu~hu .. Aha Division~· 30

16. Emmanueldno Oji_ ~erriThv'isio,n 30
7 F.O. 371/24510. Viscount Halifax, Secretary of State for Foreign Owerri Division 30
11. J. C. Sosoo -.-._ 25
Affairs. to Sir M. Peterson, British ambassador to Mad'rid · Betide bivisiori
:12. Mi.chael .Ailyanwu '
7 Feb., 1940. Be'nde Division 25
· iJ.'Uka'OgbuUka'
·Okigwi Division :· 50
8 14. Peter Obonnaya ·
F.O. 371/24526. Cypher telegram from Governor of Nigeria to Qrlu Th,strict of,_ .
J·~. Ef.iong Nko.p. Nruk ·
Secretary of State for the Colonies, 9 July, 1940. Okigwi 25
.~ .' . Division_. ',

9 F.O. 371/34771. R Pleven (Cornite National Francais to F.O. sedC.O. 657/53: Op: Cit.
22 Jan., 1943.
14_. lb(d~ . . . . •'• . .,_,·_-<·
10 C.O. 657/53: Annual Report of the Dept. of Labour for the year
15 C.O. 657/53. Labour Report for 1944.
1944.
J6 F.0.·3!1/34772~C.O.toEO,JOA,ugust,.1943<:-- . • ' -•·--
11 Total population of the Island in 1942 was 23,000 composed as
17 - F.O. 371/34771. British Consul-Gehi:m:il m:Dualato _F.O. 30 June,
follows:
.•: 1943. ';-- . ,-
European African 18 Ibid.
Spanish 1,000 Nigerian 17,000 19 See Jide Osuntokun. 'Anglo-Spanish relati?ns_ d.u~i~gt~~. First
Portuguese 500 French Cameroonians 2,000 World War' op
Cit: See also Jide Osuntokti~- Nzgena zn the
Germans 25 Bubi (indigenous Africans) 2,500 First World War Longman (irtPress) forth~ommg.
English 4
20 •·- •F.O. 371/39.601. Governor of Nigeria to -F.Q,17 May; 1944. ·.
1,529 21,500 21 F.O. 371/34771. British Consul-General in Duala to F;O. 30 Ju~e,
1943. -' '
see F.O. 371/34771. British Consul-General in Duala to F.O.
30 June, 1943. 22 F;O, ..371/3.4772; Resident mi_nister in .Accr_a to F.?. 12' July'
1943.
12 Anglo-Spanish Labour agreement concerning Nigeria and
• 23 - . F.O: 371/49598. British Vice-Consul'in Fernartdo Po to F.O.
Equatorial Guinea. Dec. 1942. Clause XXVIII.
31 March, 194S; ·. · · · .

58 .~9
24 Bolaji Akinyemi "Nigeria and Femando Po 1958-1966: The
Politics of Irredentism: African Affairs: the Quarterly Journal
of the Royal African Society Vol. 69, No. 276, July 1970
p. 238.
25 Federal Ministry of Information News Release No. 180, Feb.6,
1976.
26 West African Pilot, 7 Jan, 1958.
27 Supo Ojedokun: 'The Anglo-Nigerian entente and its demise
1960-1962' Staff Seminar Papers School of African and Asian
studies 1970-71, at Lagos University library, see also
Mahmud Tukur: Nigeria's External Relations: The U.N. as a
forum and policy medium in the conduct of foreign policy
Oct. 1960-Dec. 1965. A.B.U. Zaria. Institute of Administra-
tion publication.
28 See Daily Telegraph 28 Jan. 1963 and 7 Aug. 1963. West African
Pilot 9 Feb. 1962, Sunday Times 18 Feb. 1962 and 25 Feb.
1962 Sunday Post 1 April 1962 and 11 March 1962.
29 Nigerian Observer. Brigadier Bassey's interview: 24 Nov. 1969.
30 New Nigerian 24 Jan. 1969 also Nigerian Morning Post 14 Oct.
1969.
31 Federal Ministry of Information News Release No. 142. Lagos
31, 1976.
32 Text of agreement: Federal Ministry of Information Release
No. 94, Jan. 28, 1971.
33 Federal Ministry of Information Release No. 80, Feb. 6, 1976.
34 Ibid.
35 Ibid.
36 Federal government statement on 21 Jan. 1976.
37 Business Times Jan. 13, 1976 p. 3.
38 Nigerian Chronicle 12 Jan. 1976, see also Daily Sketch 14 Jan.
1976
39 Nigerian Standard 14 Jan. 1976.
40 See New Nigerian Jan. 24, 1976 also Nigerian Standard 14 Jan.
1976.
41 Information supplied by Mr. A. Anjorin, former Principal Labour
0fficer in Femando Po's Nigerian Embassy.

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