'Jaguda boys': Pickpocketing in Ibadan, 1930-60

Urban History

Volumn 24, Issue 3, 1997, Pages 324-343

  Heap, Simon ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

PICKPOCKETING; SOCIAL TRENDS; TWENTIETH CENTURY; URBAN HISTORY; URBAN SOCIETY;

NIGERIA, IBADAN;

EID: 0031404035     PISSN: 09639268     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0963926800012384     Document Type: Article

References (177)

1. 'Jagudas in Ibadan', West African Pilot, 25 November 1940, 5.
2. S.L. Humphries, Hooligans or Rebels?: An Oral History of Working-Class Childhood and Youth, 1889-1939 (Oxford, 1981), 181.
3. Yoruba people have the status of a child (o + (Combining dot below)mo + (Combining dot below)) until marriage; therefore all males are boys until they wed: E. Krapf-Askari, Yoruba Towns and Cities: An Enquiry into the Nature of Urban Social Phenomena (Oxford, 1969), 54.
4. R.A. Levine, N.H. Klein and C.R. Oven, 'Father-child relationships and changing lifestyles in Ibadan, Nigeria', in H. Miner (ed.), The City in Modern Africa (London, 1967), 216;
5. Humphries, Hooligans or Rebels?, 1, 103.
6. J. Gugler, Urbanization and Social Change in West Africa (Cambridge, 1978), 34-5.
7. For bibliographies on African urbanization, see A.M. O'Connor, Urbanization in Tropical Africa (Boston, Mass., 1981);
8. J.D. Tarver (ed.), Urbanization in Africa: A Handbook (London, 1994).
9. M.B. Clinard and D.J. Abbott, Crime in Developing Countries: A Comparative Perspective (New York, 1973), 84-9.
10. K.K. Gupta, Pickpockets: The Mysterious Species (Delhi, 1987), 36.
11. Also, C. Dickens, The Adventures of Oliver Twist (London, 1839);
12. R. Bresson, Pickpocket (black and white film, Paris, 1959);
13. D.W. Maurer, Whiz Mob: A Correlation of the Technical Argot of Pickpockets With Their Behavior Patterns (New Haven, 1964).
14. C.H. Elgee, The Evolution of Ibadan (Lagos, 1914), 11.
15. A. Mayne, The Imagined Slum: Newspaper Representation in Three Cities, 1870-1914 (Leicester, 1993), 1-13.
16. A. Bamaisaye, 'The spatial distribution of juvenile delinquency and adult crime in the city of Ibadan', International Journal of Criminology and Penology, 2 (1974), 65-83.
17. Humphries, Hooligans or Rebels?, 151, 176-8.
18. M.R. Gottfredson and T. Hirschi, A General Theory of Crime (Stanford, 1990), 30-1, 85-120;
19. J.R. Lilly, F.T. Cullen and R.A. Ball, Criminological Theory: Context and Consequences (London, 1995), 110-30;
20. D.J. Shoemaker, Theories of Delinquency (Oxford, 1996), 76-7, 192.
21. P.C. Lloyd, A.L. Mabogunje and B. Awe (eds), The City of Ibadan (Cambridge, 1967);
22. Levine et al., 'Father-child relationships', 215-55;
23. A. Cohen, Custom and Politics in Urban Africa (London, 1969);
24. Krapf-Askari, Yoruba Towns;
25. K.W.J. Post and G.D. Jenkins, The Price of Liberty (Cambridge, 1973);
26. G. Williams, 'Political consciousness among the Ibadan poor', in E. de Kadt and G. Williams, Sociology and Development (London, 1974), 109-39;
27. Lloyd, Power and Independence (London, 1974);
28. G.E. Simpson, Yoruba Religion and Medicine in Ibadan (Ibadan, 1980).
29. For a literary evocation where 'Lucky Dip' and pickpocketing are mentioned, see W. Soyinka, Ibadan: The Penkelemes Years, A Memoir: 1946-1965 (London, 1994), 242-8.
30. African Advertiser, African Mirror, Daily Service, [Nigerian] Daily Times, Nigerian Observer, West African Pilot, Southern Nigeria Defender, Western Echo, Nigerian Tribune and Yoruba News. The latter four newspapers were published in Ibadan, while the others were Lagos-based but had Ibadan desks.
31. Elgee, Evolution of Ibadan, 13;
32. S. Johnson, The History of the Yorubas (London, 1921);
33. I.B. Akinyele, The Outlines of Ibadan History (Lagos, 1946);
34. J.F.A. Ajayi and R. Smith, Yoruba Warfare in the Nineteenth Century (Cambridge, 1964);
35. B. Awe, 'Ibadan, its early beginning', in Lloyd et al., City of Ibadan, 11-25;
36. S.A. Akintoye, Revolution and Power Politics in Yorubaland, 1840-1893 (London, 1971);
37. T. Falola, The Political Economy of a Pre-Colonial African State: Ibadan, 1830-1900 (Ife, 1984).
38. W. Bascom, 'Urbanization among the Yoruba', American Journal of Sociology, 60, 5 (1955), 448;
39. W. Bascom, idem, 'Some aspects of Yoruba urbanism', American Anthropologist, 64, 4 (1962), 699-709;
40. P. Bairoch, Cities and Economic Development (Chicago, 1988), 412-13.
41. Elgee, Evolution of Ibadan, 13.
42. A.L. Mabogunje, 'The morphology of Ibadan', in Lloyd et al., City of Ibadan, 45;
43. Mabogunje, Urbanization in Nigeria (London, 1968), 194;
44. A. Onibokun, 'Forces shaping the physical environment of cities in developing countries: the Ibadan case', Land Economics, 49, 4 (1973), 424-31;
45. O.A. Olayemi, 'Movements of population from urban to rural areas of Yoruba towns, Nigeria: case study of Ibadan', Geneve-Afrique, 17, 2 (1979), 65-81;
46. D.R. Aronson, The City is Our Farm (Cambridge, Mass., 1981), 27;
47. B.A. Choker, 'External European influences and indigenous social values in urban development and planning in the Third World: the case of Ibadan, Nigeria', Planning Perspectives, 83, 3 (1993), 283-306.
48. H.L. Ward-Price, Dark Subjects (London, 1939), 263-7;
49. R. Firth, 'Social problems and research in British West Africa: Part I', Africa, 17, 2 (1947), opp. 89;
50. F.W. Schwerdtfeger, Traditional Housing in African Cities (Chichester, 1982), 101-82;
51. Z.R. Dmochowski, An Introduction to Nigerian Traditional Architecture, Volume Two (Lagos, 1990), ch. 2.
52. Missionaries introduced corrugated roofing to Ibadan in 1854. Poet John Pepper Clark described the city as a 'running splash of rust and gold - flung and scattered among seven hills like broken china in the sun', while Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka called Ibadan a 'hastily welded scrap-iron hive': J.P. Clark, A Reed in the Tide (London, 1965), 11;
53. Soyinka, Ibadan, 87.
54. Mabogunje, 'Morphology of Ibadan', 49;
55. J.D.Y. Peel, Ijeshas and Nigerians: The Incorporation of a Yoruba Kingdom, 1890s-1970s (Cambridge, 1983), 147. Oke means 'hill'.
56. Rhodes House Library, Oxford [hereafter RH], MSS.Afr.s.656, Papers of Ward-Price, 'Lebanon Street [photographs 1A and 1B]', Photograph Album, May 1935.
57. Mabogunje, 'Morphology of Ibadan', 49-50;
58. B.W. Hodder, 'The markets of Ibadan', in B.W. Hodder and U.I. Ukwu, Markets of West Africa (Ibadan, 1969), 100.
59. Ekotedo means 'the settlement of people from Lagos': Mabogunje, 'Morphology of Ibadan', 49.
60. Mabogunje, Morphology of Ibadan Ibid., 49-50;
61. Aronson, City is Our Farm, 27.
62. Mabogunje, Urbanization in Nigeria, 195;
63. Post and Jenkins, Price of Liberty, 13.
64. Krapf-Askari, Yoruba Towns, 59.
65. Mabogunje, 'Morphology of Ibadan', 43;
66. Mabogunje, idem, Urbanization in Nigeria, 229.
67. Schwerdtfeger, Traditional Housing, 124-9.
68. Population pressure led to encroachments on to these floodplains with disastrous consequences for lives and property in the floods of 1963 and the 1980s: Schwerdtfeger, Traditional Housing, 169.
69. 'Over the hills and dales, by "Man-About-Town"', Western Echo, 10 November 1945, 3.
70. Later, when contrasting the quiet life of native Ibadans, the noted geographer of Nigerian urbanization described Ekotedo as 'very much alive, [with] most of the facilities for social relaxation: beer parlours, dance places, social clubs': Mabogunje, 'Ibadan: black metropolis', Nigeria Magazine, 68 (1961), 25.
71. National Archives, Ibadan [hereafter NAI], Ibadan Divisional Office [hereafter IBADIV] 1/1/167, M. Akande, Ekotedo, to Olubadan Abasi and L.R.C. Sumner, Divisional Officer, Ibadan, 9 May 1939.
72. 'Ekotedo, Ibadan', West African Pilot, 12 November 1940, 2.
73. NAI, Ministry of Home Affairs, Ibadan [hereafter IBMINHOME] 1/26, A.V.D. Ince, Commissioner of Police, Oyo-Ondo Province, to Ward-Price, Resident, Oyo Province, 19 January 1937. Also, S. Heap, '"Those that are cooking the gins": the distillation of ogogoro in Nigeria', forthcoming.
74. G. Parrinder, Religion in an African City (London, 1953);
75. Mabogunje, 'Morphology of Ibadan', 20.
76. R. Galletti, K.D.S. Baldwin and I.O. Dina, Nigerian Cocoa Farmers (Oxford, 1956), 253-6.
77. 'This jaguda menace'. West African Pilot, 25 November 1940, 4.
78. NAI, IBADIV 1/1/167, Minute by T.M. Shankland, Assistant Divisional Officer, Ibadan, 31 March 1939; NAI, IBADIV 1/1/167, Akande to Abasi and Sumner, 9 May 1939.
79. NAI, IBADIV 1/1/167, Minute by Shankland, 31 March 1939.
80. G.O. Olusanya, The Second World War and Politics in Nigeria, 1939-1953 (London, 1973), 44-71;
81. T. Falola, Politics and Economy in Ibadan, 1893-1945 (Lagos, 1989), 332.
82. '32 "Undesirables" are rounded up by police', Southern Nigeria Defender, 20 September 1949, 1;
83. '32 "Undesirables": 27 homeless!', Southern Nigeria Defender, 21 September 1949, 2.
84. NAI, Oyo Provincial Office [hereafter OYOPROF] 1/1352/vol.II, Minute by A.F. Abell, District Officer, Ibadan, 29 September 1943.
85. 'To + (Combining dot below)wo + (Combining dot below)bapo, o + (Combining dot below)mo + (Combining dot below) jaguda (Gang of pickpockets)', Yoruba News, 19 May 1936, 4. Thanks to Olatunji Ojo and Gladys Effa-Heap, University of Ibadan, for help with translation.
86. NAI, OYOPROF 1/1608, D. Lynton-Hill, Commissioner of Police, Oyo-Ondo Province, to Ward-Price, 5 October 1935; 'Questions in the Legislative Council', African Advertiser, 2 October 1936, 7; NAI, IBADIV 1/1/167, O. Oduyoye, UAC, Ibadan, to Sumner, 27 March 1939.
87. 'Crime wave in disrepute', Southern Nigeria Defender, 7 July 1949, 2.
88. 'Letter to the editor, Undergraduates of theft, from Bola Ige, Ibadan', Daily Times, 3 October 1952, 2. Roga means 'rogue and vagabond'.
89. NAI, IBADIV 1/1/167, N.A. Akinjobi, Secretary, Band of Unity, Ibadan, to Sumner, 13 April 1939.
90. NAI, IBADIV 1/1/167, J.N. Odunsi, President, Traders and Storekeepers Union, Ogunpa Street, Ibadan, to Abasi and G.B. Williams, Acting Resident, Oyo Province, 3 April 1939; NAI, OYOPROF 1/1608, Odunsi, 'Without Prejudice' Petition, to Abasi, 3 January 1944.
91. NAI, IBADIV 1/1/167, Odunsi, 'Collective Sufferers' Petition, to Sumner, 4 March 1939.
92. 'To + (Combining dot below)wo + (Combining dot below)bapo, o + (Combining dot below)mo + (Combining dot below) jaguda', 4.
93. 'As + (Combining dot below)iri o + (Combining dot below)mo + (Combining dot below) jaguda (Secrets of pickpockets)', Yoruba News, 19-26 March 1940, 4; NAI, IBADIV 1/1/167, Abasi to E.N.C. Dickinson, District Officer, Ibadan, 5 June 1940.
94. 'Won tun de! (They are back!)', Yoruba News, 13-27 December 1938, 2;
95. 'As + (Combining dot below)iri o + (Combining dot below)mo + (Combining dot below) jaguda', 4.
96. 'Won tun de!: jaguda ni ìlú Ibadan (They are back!: pickpockets in Ibadan town)', Yoruba News, 31 October 1939, 5.
97. NAI, IBADIV 1/1/167, Odunsi to Abasi and Williams, 3 April 1939.
98. NAI, IBADIV 1/1/167, Abadi to Dickinson, 5 June 1940.
99. NAI, IBADIV 1/1/167, Odunsi to Abasi and Williams, 3 April 1939.
100. NAI, OYOPROF 1/1608, Odunsi to Abasi, 3 January 1944.
101. NAI, IBASIV 1/1/167, C.A. Oshunse, Amunigun Street, Ibadan, to Ward-Price, 18 December 1936.
102. '"Jaguda Boys" at Ibadan employ "Hands Up" system', West African Pilot, 13 January 1941, 1.
103. Also, 'Jaguda-pali, baba bilisi! (Pickpocket driven to desperation!)', Yoruba News, 3 March 1936, 4.
104. For American 'ladies' who shoplifted, see E.S. Abelson, When Ladies Go A-Thieving: Middle-Class Shoplifters in the Victorian Department Store (Oxford, 1989), 148-72.
105. 'Jaguda tun de! (Pickpockets are back!)', Yoruba News, 27 February 1940, 4.
106. 'As + (Combining dot below)iri o + (Combining dot below)mo + (Combining dot below) jaguda', 4.
107. NAI, IBADIV 1/1/167, Odunsi to Abasi and Williams, 3 April 1939.
108. 'Ibadan', West African Pilot, 29 March 1941, 3.
109. 'Thieves invade market', Daily Times, 26 August 1949, 1.
110. 'Ibadan', 3.
111. '"Jaguda Boys" at Ibadan employ "Hands Up" system', 1.
112. Falola, Politics and Economy in Ibadan, 270, 332.
113. J.A. Atanda, The New Oyo Empire, 1894-1934 (London, 1973), 249-85.
114. Ibadan Division Annual Report, 1938, 6; RH, MSS.Afr.s.1907, Papers of Sumner, 6-9;
115. O.A. Ojo, 'The changing status of the Olubadan of Ibadan, 1893-1983' (Department of History, University of Ibadan M.A. thesis, 1990);
116. R.I. Watson, 'Chieftaincy politics and the development of civic consciousness in Colonial Ibadan' (University of Oxford D.Phil. thesis, forthcoming).
117. NAI, IBADIV 1/1/167, Abasi to E.R. Ward, District Officer, Ibadan, 28 December 1936. For a cross-cultural, inter-temporal comparison showing the time-depth of tackling crime, see James VI of Scotland/James I of England suppressing the crime in the Anglo-Scottish border in the early seventeenth century: G. Donaldson, Scotland: James V to James VII (Edinburgh, 1965), 227;
118. J. Wormald, Court, Kirk and Community: Scotland, 1470-1625 (Edinburgh, 1991), 162-3.
119. Nigeria Ordinance no. 43 of 1933 to Prescribe the Powers and Duties of Native Authorities, clause 12 (1) .
120. Powers of repatriation were on the statute books of other colonies; for example, colonial officers could use the Township Rules of Tanganyika to banish any native considered an undesirable inhabitant from Dar es Salaam (a town only a tenth the size of Ibadan in 1931): A. Burton, 'Crime and colonial order in Dar es Salaam, 1919-39', in Africa's Urban Past, SOAS, University of London, 19-21 June 1996, 3. It can be no coincidence that both of these cases formed part of the modernization of Native Authorities presided over by Sir Donald Cameron who was successively Governor of Tanganyika and Nigeria in the 1930s.
121. NAI, IBADIV 1/1/167, Ince to Sumner, Acting Divisional Officer, Ibadan, 5 February 1937; NAI, IBADIV 1/1/167, Ince to Sumner, 25 February 1937.
122. NAI, IBADIV 1/1/167, Minute by Shankland, 31 March 1939.
123. NAI, IBADIV 1/1/167, Akande to Abasi and Sumner, 9 May 1939.
124. NAI, IBADIV 1/1/167, Akande to Abasi and Sumner, 9 May 1939.
125. 'Pickpockets to be expelled from Ibadan', Nigerian Daily Times, 20 June 1940, 3.
126. 'Jagudas', West African Pilot, 4 June 1949, 2.
127. 'Gang of pickpockets menace Ugep market', African Advertiser, 26 August 1940, 4;
128. 'Three thieves waylay holder of 101 pounds and rub his eyes with pepper', Southern Nigeria Defender, 6 July 1949, 1.
129. 'Pickpockets fleece wealthy trader', Nigerian Observer, 13 January 1940, 1;
130. 'Police begin campaign to rid pickpockets', Southern Nigeria Defender, 6 September 1949, 1;
131. 'Undergraduates of theft', 2.
132. 'Ibosi o + (Combining dot below)mo + (Combining dot below)-jaguda (Pickpocket alarm)', Yoruba News, 3 March 1936, 3; NAI, IBADIV 1/1/167, Abasi to Dickinson, 5 June 1940.
133. 'A recurrent menace', African Mirror, 11 July 1940, 2.
134. Also, 'Letter to the editor, Ibadan pickpockets, from "Worried"', Daily Times, 26 November 1951, 2.
135. 'O + (Combining dot below)mo + (Combining dot below) jaguda l'Eko (Pickpockets in Lagos)', Yoruba News, 20-27 September 1938, 2-3;
136. 'Rogues and vagabonds', Nigerian Daily Times, 21 June 1940, 4;
137. 'Letter to the editor, Those jaguda boys!, from "Citizen"', African Mirror, 11 July 1940, 2;
138. 'Pickpockets in Lagos', West African Pilot, 13 August 1940, 4;
139. 'About jaguda boys, from Evans Otusanya', Daily Times, 2 March 1949, 5;
140. S. Heap, 'From alikali boys to area boys: male juvenile delinquents on Lagos Island, 1920s-90s', forthcoming.
141. 'Lawlessness at Ereko market', Daily Service, 26 August 1941, 2;
142. 'Jaguda boys', African Advertiser, 22 June 1942, 2.
143. 'Robbers increase in number, by "Big Man"', Daily Service, 30 May 1950, 4.
144. 'Jaguda boys', West African Pilot, 29 November 1940, 2.
145. 'Hooliganism and worse', Nigerian Daily Times, 6 November 1940, 4.
146. 'Letter to the editor, Pickpockets at bus stops, from E.A. Jacobs, Lagos', Daily Times, 14 August 1952, 2.
147. 'Pocket picking in Supreme Court', Nigerian Daily Times, 13 September 1940, 7.
148. 'Won tun de!', 2.
149. R.D. Pearce, 'Morale in the colonial service in Nigeria during the Second World War', Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 11, 2 (1983), 175-96;
150. Post and Jenkins, Price of Liberty, 25-6.
151. 'Affairs in Ibadan', Nigerian Daily Times, 28 June 1944, 3.
152. NAI, IBADIV 1/1/167, Odunsi to Sumner, 4 March 1939; NAI, OYOPROF 1/1608, Odunsi to Abasi, 21 October 1943.
153. NAI, OYOPROF 1/1608, J.A. MacKenzie, Secretary, Western Provinces, to H.F.M. White, Senior Resident, Oyo Province, 1 April 1941; 'Crime wave in disrepute', Southern Nigeria Defender, 7 July 1949, 2;
154. T.N. Tamuno, The Police in Modern Nigeria (Ibadan, 1970), 106;
155. K. Rotimi, 'The native administration police forces of Western Nigeria, 1905-51', Odu, 30 (1986), 110-28.
156. NAI, OYOPROF 1/1608, Odunsi to Abasi, 3 January 1944.
157. 'Burglars and jagudas', Southern Nigeria Defender, 7 October 1949, 2.
158. RH, MSS.Afr.s.1907, Papers of H.B. Cox, Divisional Officer, Ibadan, 'Draft of democratisation proposals', 5 August 1943, 19.
159. J. Labinjoh, Modernity and Tradition in the Politics of Ibadan: 1900-1975 (Ibadan, 1991), 24, 26. Thanks to Ruth Watson for the correct founding dates.
160. Krapf-Askari, Yoruba Towns, 26, 28.
161. 'Delinquents increase in Ibadan', Daily Times, 16 November 1949, 7.
162. NAI, IBADIV 1/1/167, Sumner to Abasi, 21 April 1939.
163. NAI, OYOPROF 1/1352/vol. II, Minute by Abell, 29 September 1943. Also, J. Iliffe, The African Poor (Cambridge, 1987), 193-213.
164. J.S. Coleman, Nigeria: Background to Nationalism (Berkeley, 1958);
165. R.L. Sklar, Nigerian Political Parties: Power in an Emergent African Nation (New York, 1963);
166. B. Ige, People, Politics and Politicians of Nigeria (1940-1979) (Ibadan, 1995).
167. A.B. Fafunwa, The History of Education in Nigeria (London, 1974), 167-70.
168. S.S. Ekpo, Juvenile Delinquency in Nigeria (Uyo, 1996);
169. 'Nigeria's image today', West Africa, 16-22 December 1996, 1963-4;
170. 'Crime, prostitution reign supreme', Post Express [Lagos], 4 January 1997, 1-2;
171. 'The reign of pickpockets', Sunday Champion [Lagos], 12 January 1997, M1-2;
172. 'The extortion albatross', Daily Champion, 24 January 1997, 9;
173. Heap, 'From alikali boys to area boys'.
174. Iliffe, African Poor, 185.
175. Shoemaker, Theories of Delinquency, 192.
176. 'A recurrent menace', 2.
177. Humphries, Hooligans or Rebels?, 156.