Lagos and the invention of juvenile delinquency in Nigeria, 1920-60

Journal of African History

Volumn 47, Issue 1, 2006, Pages 115-137

  Fourchard, Laurent ^a  

^a Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques   (France)

Author keywords

Colonial; Crime; Gender; Nigeria; Urban; Welfare; Youth

Indexed keywords

CRIME; GENDER; HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY; PROSTITUTION; URBAN REGION; YOUNG POPULATION;

AFRICA; LAGOS [NIGERIA]; NIGERIA; SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA; WEST AFRICA;

EID: 33748528918     PISSN: 00218537     EISSN: 14695138     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0021853705001660     Document Type: Article

References (200)

1. John Iliffe, The African Poor: A History (Cambridge, 1987), 187.
2. Ibid. 185-7
3. ème siècle à nos jours (Paris, 1999), 413.
4. Daniel Poitou et René Collignon, Délinquance juvénile et marginalité des jeunes en milieu urbain d'Afrique noire. Eléments de bibliographie (1950-1984) (Paris, 1985).
5. Andrew Burton, 'Urchins, loafers and the cult of the cowboys: urbanisation and delinquency in Dar es Salam, 1919-61', Journal of African History, 42 (2001), 199-216
6. Clive Glaser, Bo Tsotsi: The Youth Gangs of Soweto, 1935-1976 (Oxford, 2001)
7. Simon Heap, 'Jaguda Boys: Pickpocketing in Ibadan, 1930-60', Urban History, 24 (1997), 324-43
8. Yves Marguerat, "'Les Smallvi ne sont pas des Gevouvi": Histoire de la marginalité juvénile à Lomé', in Y. Marguerat et D. Poitou (sous la dir.), A l'écoute des enfants de la rue en Afrique noire (Paris, 1994), 248-80
9. Ibrahima Thioub, 'Marginalité juvénile et enfermement à l'époque coloniale: Les premières écoles pénitentiaires du Sénégal, 1888-1927', in Bernault (ed.), Enfermement, 205-26.
10. For a general overview of urban crime in colonial and postcolonial West Africa see Laurent Fourchard and Isaac O. Albert (eds.), Security, Crime and Segregation in West African Cities since the Nineteenth Century (Paris, 2003).
11. The following newspapers have been consulted: Nigerian Pioneer from 1920 to 1930, West African Pilot from 1937 to 1960, Nigerian Daily Times from 1930 to 1960. Official correspondence and Social Welfare Service reports can be found in the Colonial Office (CO) files in the Public Record Office (PRO), now British National Archives, in London and in the three federal archive centres in Nigeria: The National Archives, Ibadan (NAI); the National Archives, Enugu (NAE), the National Archives, Kaduna (NAK); and in the Calabar Provincial Office (CPO). For assistance in the Nigerian archives, I thank Saheed Aderinto.
12. H. Hendrick, 'Constructions and reconstructions of British childhood: An interpretative survey, 1800 to the present', in A. James and A. Proat (eds.), Constructing and Reconstructing Childhood (Basingstoke, 1990), 40-5.
13. See for instance, the Conference on the Treatment of Offenders (Juvenile Delinquents) in Kampala, 1956, organized by the Commission of Technical Cooperation in Africa, South of the Sahara.
14. Robin Law, 'Trade and politics behind the Slave Coast: The Lagoon traffic and the rise of Lagos, 1500-1800', Journal of African History, 24 (1983), 321-48.
15. The various censuses made by the British in Lagos were based on house to house estimations that gave only rough estimates of the population.
16. Akin Mabogunje, Urbanisation in Nigeria (New York, 1968), 259.
17. In 1914 the Protectorate of Northern Nigeria was amalgamated with the Southern Protectorate to form Nigeria with Lagos as capital.
18. Pauline H. Baker, Urbanization and Political Change: The Politics of Lagos, 1917-1967 (Berkeley, 1974), 32
19. Margaret Peil, Lagos: The City Is the People (London, 1991), 19.
20. Ayodeji Olukoju, 'Population pressure, housing and sanitation in West Africa's premier port-city: Lagos, 1900-1939', Journal of the Australian Association for Maritime History, 15 (1993), 92-3.
21. Olukoju, 'Population', 93
22. Mabogunje, Urbanisation, 264.
23. Mabogunje, Urbanisation, 261.
24. Ibid. 265.
25. Baker, Urbanization, 40
26. Peil, Lagos, 22.
27. NAI, Oyo Prof, 1352, Juvenile Delinquency and its treatment, 1948.
28. L. Fourchard, 'Urban poverty, urban crime and crime control: The Lagos and Ibadan cases, 1929-1945', in S. Salm and T. Falola (eds.), African Urban Spaces in Historical Perspective (Rochester NY, 2005), 291-319.
29. Laurent Fourchard, 'De la résidence lignagère à la rente immobilière, cours et compounds en AOF et au Nigeria', Le mouvement social, 214 (2003), 47-63.
30. Mabogunje, Urbanisation, 226
31. Peter Marris, Family and Social Change in an African City: A Study of Rehousing in Lagos (Northwestern, 1962), 20-5.
32. Marris, Family and Social Change, 12-42
33. Baker, Urbanization, 111-14
34. Sandra T. Barnes, Patrons and Power: Creating a Political Community in Metropolitan Lagos (London, 1986), 79-96.
35. Iliffe, The African Poor, 177.
36. Marris, Family, 62. It should be noted that the author was writing shortly after Independence.
37. Iliffe, The African Poor, 164.
38. Ibid. 164-7.
39. S. M. Martin, 'The long depression: West African export producers and the world economy, 1914-45', in I. Brown, The Economies of Africa and Asia in the Inter-War Depression (London, 1989), 75-94.
40. Ibid. 78.
41. NAI, Comcol 1, 69, Report by the Commissioner of Police of Lagos, 2 Sept. 1927
42. NAI, Comcol 1, 69, Letter of the Resident of the Colony to the Secretary of Southern Provinces, Lagos, 5 Sept. 1927.
43. Ayodeji Olukoju, 'The travails of migrant and wage labour in the Lagos metropolitan area in the inter-war years', Labour History Review, 61 (1996), 59.
44. NAI, Comcol 1, 894, Memorandum on trade depression, unemployment and income tax collection prepared by the NNDP, n.d.
45. Olukoju, 'The travails', 59.
46. A. Hughes and R. Cohen, 'An emerging Nigerian working class: The Lagos experience, 1897-1939', in P. C. W. Gutkind, R. Cohen and J. Copans (eds.), African Labour History (London, 1978), 49.
47. Ibid. 36.
48. Department of Labour, Annual Report, 1945 and 1946 quoted in Mabogunje, Urbanisation, 261.
49. Otto Koenigsberger et al., 'Metropolitan Lagos', Habitat International, 55 (1980), 55-83.
50. Ayodeji Olukoju, 'The segregation of Europeans and Africans in colonial Nigeria', in Fourchard and Albert (eds.), Security, 261-83.
51. Ibid. 282.
52. Olukoju, 'Population', 98-9.
53. 25,000 peoples per square mile in 1901, 125,000 people per square mile in 1963. Baker, Urbanization, 35.
54. CO 859/73/11, Treatment of juvenile offenders in the colonies, around 1930; NAI, Comcol 1, 2844, Faulkner, hawking by children in Lagos, Sept. 1942.
55. NAI, Comcol 2600, Patterson, Crime and its treatment in the Colony and Protectorate, Mar. 1944
56. CO 859/1352, Advisory committee on the treatment of offenders in the colonies, draft memorandum on the care and treatment of children and young persons, 1961.
57. Annual Reports, the Nigeria Police Force, 1945-7.
58. However, while there is little evidence of juvenile offenses in the early colonial period, further work still needs to be done.
59. 'The police magistrates', Nigerian Daily Times, 31 July 1936.
60. Police Annual Report, 1945-7
61. Alan Milner, The Nigerian Penal System (London, 1972), 352.
62. 'Pickpockets at the general post office, Lagos', Nigerian Pioneer, 3 Nov. 1923
63. 'Pickpockets again at the central post office', Nigerian Pioneer, 7 Dec. 1923
64. 'Pickpocket in Iddo railway station', Nigerian Pioneer, 7 Nov. 1924
65. 'Pickpocket in Lagos', Nigerian Pioneer, 4 Dec. 1924.
66. Heap, 'Jaguda Boys', 324
67. Fourchard, 'Urban poverty', 298.
68. 'Pickpocket in Lagos', Nigerian Pioneer, 4 Dec. 1924.
69. 'Assault on a girl', Nigerian Pioneer, 29 Jan. 1926.
70. 'Local hooliganism', Lagos Daily News, 21 June 1929.
71. 'Pickpocketing pestilence: Violent practice on Carter bridge', Lagos Daily Times, 2 May 1929.
72. Fourchard, 'Urban poverty', 298.
73. Abubakar Momoh, 'The political dimension of urban youth crisis: The case of the Area Boys in Lagos', in Fourchard and Albert (eds.), Security, 186-7.
74. 'Boma Boys', West African Pilot, 16 Nov. 1940.
75. NAI Comcol 1, 2600, A Report on social welfare on the Colony and Protectorate by Alexander Patterson, Mar. 1944.
76. NAI Comcol 1, 2471, Juvenile delinquency in Lagos by Donald Faulkner, 1941
77. Ibid.
78. The term Jaguda and Boma Boys disappeared from newspapers both in Ibadan and Lagos.
79. Heap, 'Jaguda Boys', 341
80. Kemi Rotimi, The Police in a Federal State: The Nigerian Experience (Ibadan, 2001), 140
81. Remi Anifowose, Violence and Politics in Nigeria: The Tiv and Yoruba Experience (Enugu, 1982), 230-4.
82. NAI Comcol 1, 2844, Child Welfare, Prostitution and Child Marriage, n.d.
83. F. Ekechi, 'Pawnship in Igbo society', in P. Lovejoy and T. Falola (eds.), Pawnship, Slavery and Colonialism in Africa (Trenton, 2003), 179.
84. NAI, Comcol 1, 2844, Child Welfare.
85. Benedict B. Naanen, 'Itinerant gold mines: Prostitution in the Cross River basin of Nigeria, 1930-1950', African Studies Review, 34 (1991), 59.
86. Ibid. 60.
87. NAI Comcol 1, 2844, Calabar Council Office, Child prostitution in Lagos, 17 Jan. 1943.
88. Luise White, The Comforts of Home: Prostitution in Colonial Nairobi (Chicago, 1990), 147-84
89. Denise Laketch, The Commoditization of Female Sexuality: Prostitution and Socio-Economic Relations in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (New York, 1991), 21-42.
90. NAI, Comcol 1, 2844, A. Izzett, Child Prostitution in Lagos, 15 May 1946.
91. Ibid.
92. F. Bernault, 'De l'Afrique ouverte à l'Afrique fermée: Comprendre l'histoire des réclusions continentales', in Bernault (ed.), Enfermement, 33
93. D. Killingray, 'Punishment to fit the crime? Penal policy and practice in British colonial Africa', in Bernault (ed.), Enfermement, 202.
94. Between 15 and 20 inmates in the pénitencer agricole of Bombey (Senegal) or Kindia (Guinea) in the 1920s. Thioub, 'Marginalité', 216-17.
95. Florence Bernault (ed.), A History of Prison and Confinement in Africa (Portsmouth NH 2003), 26.
96. Glaser, Bo-Tsotsi, 21.
97. In Dares Salaam, the 'problem of urban youth' became a serious concern by the late 1930s. Burton, 'Urchins', 200. In French West Africa, it was not considered an important issue before the 1950s.
98. NAK, Ministry of Social Welfare and Community (MSWC), 1226, Report by Mr Chinn, social welfare adviser to the Secretary of State, Feb. 1950.
99. CO 859/73/13, Juvenile delinquency sub-committee, Draft report, n.d. (around 1942).
100. CPO, 1681, 1, Governor-General to the Secretary of State, 26 Feb. 1931.
101. Respectively, 1854 Youthful Offenders and 1857 Industrial Schools Acts; John Muncie, Youth and Crime: A Critical Introduction (London, 1999), 61.
102. Ibid. 66.
103. CPO, 1681, 1, Senior Resident to the Secretary Southern Provinces, 15 Apr. 1931
104. CPO, 1681, 1, Secretary Southern Provinces to Chief Secretary to the government, 19 Jan. 1932.
105. CPO, 1681, 1, Governor-General to the Secretary of State, 3 July 1931.
106. CPO, 1681, 1 Director of Prisons Southern Provinces to Secretary Southern Provinces, 9 Jan. 1931.
107. NAI, Comcol 2600, Patterson, Crime and its treatment in the Colony and Protectorate, Mar. 1944.
108. Iliffe, The African Poor, 196.
109. CPO, 1681, 1 Director of Prisons, 1931, Senior Resident, 1931.
110. NAI Comcol 2600, Patterson, Crime, 1944.
111. In 1932, industrial schools and reformatories were amalgamated as Approved Schools in Britain.
112. NAE, Civil Secretary's Office (CSO), 1395, Report on Industrial School of Enugu, 29 Oct. 1938
113. Report on Industrial School of Enugu, 6 Apr. 1939.
114. NAE, CSO, 1449, 1, Victor Mabb, Director of Prisons to the Chief Secretary to the government, Lagos, 21 July 1941.
115. James S. Coleman, Background to Nationalism (Berkeley, 1985), 185, 192, 221.
116. 'Assault on a Girl', Nigerian Pioneer, 29 Jan. 1926
117. 'Pickpocketing pestilence', Lagos Daily Times, 2 May 1929
118. 'Boma Boys', West African Pilot, 16 Nov. 1940
119. 'This Jaguda menace', West African Pilot, 22 Nov. 1940
120. 'The Boma boy menace', Nigerian Daily Times, 30 Dec. 1940
121. 'Menace of pickpockets', Nigerian Daily Times, 27 Oct. 1941
122. 'Pickpockets at large', Nigerian Daily Times, 10 Apr. 1942
123. 'The Jaguda menace', Nigerian Daily Times, 2 Apr. 1942
124. 'A case for action', Nigerian Daily Times, 12 June 1943.
125. Fred I. A. Omu, Press and Politics in Nigeria, 1880-1937 (Ibadan, 1978), 227-40.
126. 'Hooliganism in Lagos streets', Nigerian Daily Times, 18 May 1946.
127. Fourchard, 'Urban poverty', 310.
128. 'Boma Boys', West African Pilot, 16 Nov. 1940.
129. Faulkner observed in 1943 that 'sailors are being pestered by Boma Boys all around the town'. NAI Comcol 1, 2600, Colony Welfare Officer, Children welfare, general question, 18 May 1943.
130. CO, 859/73/13, Juvenile delinquency sub-committee, draft report, n.d. (around 1942).
131. Iliffe, The African Poor, 200.
132. CO, 859/73/13, Colonial Penal Administration Committee, minutes of the 19th meeting of 12 Feb. 1942.
133. CO 859/73/13, Juvenile delinquency sub-committee.
134. NAI, Comcol 2600, Patterson, Crime, 1944.
135. NAI, Comcol 1, 2471, Juvenile delinquency, 1941
136. NAI, Comcol 1, 2844, Hawking by children in Lagos by Donald Faulkner, Sept. 1942
137. NAI, Comcol 1, 2600, Donald Faulkner, Report on the scheme for dealing with juvenile delinquency in Lagos from Feb. 1942 to Aug. 1943, 23 Aug. 1943,
138. Donald Faulkner, Report on Juvenile Welfare in the Colonies, 15 July 1943.
139. NAI, Comcol 1, 2600, Faulkner, Report on the scheme, 1943.
140. Ibid.
141. NAI, Comcol 1, 2844, Faulkner to the President of Lagos Town Council, Hawking by children in Lagos, Sept. 1942.
142. Muncie, Youth, 60, 74.
143. 'Free education and street hawking in Lagos debates', Nigerian Daily Times, 25 Sept. 1942.
144. NAI, Comcol 1, 2600, A report on social welfare on the Colony and Protectorate by Alexander Patterson, Mar. 1944.
145. Iliffe, The African Poor, 202-4, 207.
146. NAI, Comcol 1, 2796, Commissioner of the Colony to the Superintendent of Police, 3 July 1946.
147. NAK, MSCW, 1226, Report by Mr Chinn, Social Welfare Adviser to the Secretary of State, Feb. 1950.
148. Ibid.
149. NAI, Comcol 1, 2844, Izzett, Child Prostitution, 1946.
150. NAI, Comcol 1, 2844, Acting Commissioner of the Colony to the Chief Secretary to the government, 21 May 1946.
151. NAI, Comcol 1, 2844, Regulations to prevent children trading in the street, n.d.
152. Nathaniel A. Fadipe, The Sociology of the Yoruba (Ibadan, 1970), 149-55
153. T. Falola, 'Gender, business and space control: Yoruba market women and power', in B. H. Midamba and F. K. Ekechi (eds.), African Market Women and Economic Power: The Role of Women in African Economic Development (London, 1995), 26-7
154. B. A. Lawal, 'Markets and street trading in Lagos', in S. Salm and T. Falola (eds.), Nigerian Cities (Trenton, 2003), 243.
155. Marris, Family, 62-3.
156. G. O. Olusanya, 'Charlotte Olajumoke Obasa', in B. Awe, Nigerian Women: A Historical Perspective (Ibadan, 1992), 123-39.
157. Nina Emma Mba, Nigerian Women Mobilized: Women's Political Activity in Southern Nigeria, 1900-1965 (Berkeley, 1982), 214.
158. Ibid. 218.
159. NAI, Comcol 1, 2844, Faulkner, Child Prostitution, 1943.
160. NAI, Comcol 1, 2844, Memorandum from the Colony Welfare Officer, 7 Aug. 1943.
161. NAI, Comcol 1, 2844, Calabar Council Office to District Officer Calabar, 17 Jan. 1944.
162. NAI, Comcol 1, 2844, Acting Commissioner of the Colony to the Chief Secretary to the government, Lagos, 21 May 1946.
163. NAI, Comcol 1, 2786, Letter from A. Izzett on the petition of the women's party, 23 Oct. 1946.
164. Mba, Nigerian Women, 200.
165. 'Social welfare service', Nigerian Daily Times, 26 Feb. 1948
166. West African Pilot, 13 Apr. 1948,
167. quoted by Mba, Nigerian Women, 224.
168. Milner, The Nigerian, 352.
169. Muncie, Youth, 257.
170. NAK, MSWC, 1226, Report by Mr Chinn, Social Welfare Adviser to the Secretary of State, Feb. 1950.
171. Marris, Family, 64.
172. 'Activities of Jaguda Boys', Nigerian Daily Times, 22 Mar. 1946
173. 'Hooliganism in Lagos Streets', Nigerian Daily Times, 18 May 1946
174. 'Undesirables in Ikeja Area', Nigerian Daily Times, 4 June 1946
175. 'Incidence of crime in Lagos', Nigerian Daily Times, 21 Aug. 1946
176. 'Pickpocket activities in buses', Nigerian Daily Times, 3 Sept. 1946
177. 'Police protection on the wane', Nigerian Daily Times, 16 July 1947
178. 'Curb this menace please', West African Pilot, 24 July 1947
179. 'Lagos and hooligans', Daily Comet, 11 Dec. 1947.
180. Fourchard, 'Urban poverty', 298-9.
181. Momoh, 'The political dimension', 186.
182. NAK, MSCW, 1226, Report by Mr Chinn, 1950.
183. CO 554/2004, Annual Report on the Federal Prison Department, 1956-7.
184. NAI, Comcol 1, 2796, Commissioner of the Colony to the Superintendent of Police, 3 July 1946.
185. NAE, PR/X2, Social Welfare Services in the Western Region, Nigeria, July 1952.
186. Helen Judd, 'The human factor in Nigerian progress. The Oliver Twists of the towns', West Africa, 24 May 1952.
187. NAK, MSCW, Joint Memorandum by the Ministry of Social Welfare and Ministry of Finance, control of beggars, 8 Apr. 1959.
188. By 1952, there were only seven Young Farmers' Clubs in the Western Province organized by the Welfare Office and they were all based in the Ikeja Division. NAI, Comcol 1, 248, Agriculture Officer to the Department of Agriculture, Western Region, 7 Apr. 1952.
189. 'Activities of Jaguda Boys', Nigerian Daily Times, 22 Mar. 1946.
190. See also 'Expulsion of thieves', Nigerian Daily Times, 15 Aug. 1945.
191. NAK, MSWC, 1226, Report by Mr Chinn, 1950.
192. NAE, X 245, Council of social service report, Aba Zone, 1965
193. Progress report on Onitsha Council of Social Service, 1965. Offences against street trading regulations remained the most common cases dealt with by the Juvenile Court of Ibadan between 1960 and 1970 (39 per cent). Simple thefts accounted for only 28 per cent of cases. O. Oloruntimehin, 'Ibadan Juvenile Court Record Study (1960-1969)', University of Ibadan: Behavioural Science Unit, 1971.
194. Danièle Poitou, 'Délinquance juvénile et urbanisation au Niger et au Nigerie', Cahiers d'Etudes Africaines (1981), 81-3, 111-27
195. Achille Mbembe, Les jeunes et l'ordre politique en Afrique noire (Paris, 1985).
196. Mamadou Dia Issa, L'exode rural ruine la campagne et fait affluer à la ville toute une population inadaptée (Dakar, ENAES, 1976)
197. Seydou Diaw, Inadaptation sociale des jeunes au Sénégal, une problématique du développement économique (Marly Le Roy, 1978)
198. Nessim Hazoref, Rapport sur la protection et la rééducation des jeunes inadaptés sociaux au Togo: Méthodes et programmes d'action (Lomé, Ministère de la fonction publique du travail et des affaires sociales, 1971)
199. Latif Fassassi, Approche sur l'inadaptation sociale des jeunes au Bénin et proposition pour une action de prévention (Marly le Roi, 1971)
200. Sanogho Adama, 'Inadaptation sociale et traitement des délinquants au Mali' (Université de Paris 2, 1976).