British colonialism in Nigeria

British colonialism in Nigeria lasted some six decades…First, the British sought to run Nigeria on the cheap.  This led to a fetish for indirect rule.  Much of the work of colonial governance was done in collaboration with traditional African authorities.  The British expended little effort to create a centralized rule, a coherent armed force, or a professional civil service.  The quality of the state that the British constructed and left behind in Nigeria was fairly poor…

The British depended on import taxes as the main source of revenue for running the colonial state.  Little of these minimal revenues was spent on improving agriculture (except for the exportable cash crops), and even less on the promotion of technological or industrial development.  When the British left Nigeria, the hand-hoe was still the main tool used for cultivation in the fields…

The British made do with a fairly low rate of taxation: during the interwar period tax revenue were only 2 percent to 3 percent of the GDP.  As important was that nearly 60 percent of these revenues came from taxing foreign trade, a bureaucratic task that was much easier than collecting direct taxes…

Between 1900 and 1930, Nigeria’s average per capita income grew at about half a percent per annum and then essentially stagnated until the end of the war.

That is all from Atul Kohli, Imperialism and the Developing World: How Britain and the United States Shaped the Global Periphery.  The book is quite good.

Overall, I have found that as I learn more about the history of British imperialism, the lower my opinion of it sinks.