ABSTRACT
Boundaries and conflicts Taxation was one major aspect of the political changes of the early years of colonial rule that generated a number of crises. But the more lingering cause of conflicts was the attempt to reshape politics and its attendant consequences for established indigenous authorities and their control over land and resources as well as the collection of tribute. Colonial economic and political changes also affected the boundary and land tenure system. The conflicts and violence generated by disputes over boundaries and competition over land are too numerous to be discussed in any single chapter or even in a monograph. The disputes and attendant conflicts affected individuals and tore many families apart. Claims, counterclaims, and their resolution had far-reaching consequences. Boundary disputes and adjustments led to the loss of land, the main source of livelihood and identity. They led to the loss of citizenship in a community defined on the basis of ethnicity and land. An owner of land could become a tenant if a community lost a portion of its land to its neighbors. An entire community could suffer dispossession because of government acquisition or a policy of creating reservations. A community always wanted to reject any proposal or action that excluded its people from any territory they occupied, or that attempted to transfer part of the community’s land to its neighbors. Such a proposal or action was seen as justification for the use of violence to resolve disputes relating to land and boundaries. Related to cases of land violence was the issue of boundaries between communities and groups, which have provoked conflicts all over the country up to this day. Legal and administrative papers on such conflicts abound. Various administrative procedures have been set in place to resolve them. Many boundary settlement commissions were set up by the British colonial government. A list of the documentation on boundary disputes shows that all parts of Nigeria were affected. These disputes have always been hard to resolve, which explains why many have degenerated into violence. Some have now acquired national significance, as in the case of Modakeke and Ife or the Itsekiri and Urhobo, both in the southwest, and the Kataf and Hausa in the Middle Belt. Lines drawn up by the colonial government, based on contested historical claims
and counterclaims, have led to violence and pools of blood that have taken a long time to dry. Boundary disputes became a main feature of colonial rule. What triggered them was the need, as formulated by the colonial government, to delimit boundaries, which, in turn, led to various territorial claims. In some cases, boundary delimitation was connected with the desire to benefit from new commercial possibilities based on export cash crops such as cocoa and peanuts, which necessitated the use of suitable land. The competition for such land, especially in frontier zones, led to conflicts and violence. This chapter will be focused on the examination of violence involving communities in disputes over land and boundaries.1 This issue deserves our focus in part to show how colonialism generated ruptures in local communities and unleashed rival claims over territories leading to territorial disputes and violence. Boundaries of power (between individuals) and of authority (between communities) were not always easy to delineate, and resulted in the use violence to resolve them. Issues around locations of lines and objects were sources of troubles, generating conflicts. The creation of reservations led to annexation disputes. The establishment of political units that involved the fragmentation of communities might lead to conflicts. Communal clashes revolved around boundaries; these were mainly serious fights over land or boundaries as two villages or towns contested space and territory. As to the number of conflicts and riots, a real count is difficult. Not all cases entered the official record. Boundaries that separated two communities, based on contested claims with regard to historical evidence, could become a source of trouble. The colonial government added its own dimension: in creating new districts, divisions, and provinces, the government drew lines to separate people and places into various units. The creation of separate administrative units and the separation of communities could become sources of grave danger where the people did not accept the lines as fair or factual. Issues of land, space, and units became subsumed into a competition for power or economic advantage. Situations became politically more volatile where the ownership of land was contested, and then interprovincial boundaries were imposed. Two big fights became one: the fight over land, and the fight over administrative units. This was the case, for example, between the Ijebu and Ife in the late 1920s.2 Indeed, government officials were always eager to delink land issues from those of the boundaries of political units. The creation of units, officers said many times, was just a means to ensure the exercise of power without one officer stepping on another. Such declarations were made in the early years of colonial rule when chiefs and kings were told that boundaries should not be confused with the determination of land ownership.3 Chiefs and kings could visit and send messengers on errands to various farmlands under their jurisdictions, so that a divisional boundary would not be confused with their farmland boundaries. Thus, farmland boundaries were to be kept within the traditional definition of communal lands, while administrative units were to remain a separate matter. But reconciling farmland boundaries, based on established land tenure principles, and administrative boundaries, based on the creation of new political units, was not always easy.
