Before British domination, the territory that became Nigeria was home to diverse civilisations, each with distinctive systems of belief, governance, and art. The Yoruba kingdoms of the southwest, the Igbo republican communities of the southeast, the Hausa-Fulani emirates of the north, and the numerous minority societies of the Niger Delta and Middle Belt possessed complex traditions rooted in religion, kinship, and communal ownership of land.
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Social life revolved around extended families and age grades. Education was moral and practical, transmitted through oral instruction, apprenticeship, and religious learning. Islam, firmly established in the north since the 14th century, provided literacy through Arabic, while indigenous religions maintained social cohesion through rituals, festivals, and ancestral reverence.
Music, sculpture, and oral literature flourished as collective art forms that celebrated life and history. These systems were internally dynamic and adaptive until European intrusion in the 19th century introduced alien ideas of civilisation, Christianity, and commerce. Colonialism would soon become a cultural as well as political revolution.
Missionary Contact and the Dawn of Cultural Change (1840s–1900)
Christian missionaries were the earliest agents of cultural transformation. From the 1840s, the Church Missionary Society (CMS), Wesleyan, Baptist, and Roman Catholic missions established schools and churches in Lagos, Abeokuta, Calabar, and Onitsha. They equated Christianity and Western education with moral progress.
Mission schools introduced English literacy, arithmetic, and Christian ethics, while African oral education was portrayed as unscientific. A new elite emerged: Western-educated Africans who worked as clerks, teachers, and translators for the colonial government. This group gradually adopted European lifestyles: monogamy replaced polygamy, and Western dress, hymnals, and church ceremonies gained prestige.
However, the missionaries also enabled empowerment. Education and literacy allowed Africans to engage colonial authority critically. Bishop Samuel Ajayi Crowther, the first African Anglican bishop, exemplified this synthesis, translating the Bible into Yoruba and promoting an African form of Christianity. Missionary education, though disruptive, laid the groundwork for political consciousness.
Colonial Consolidation and Institutionalised Westernisation (1900–1930)
At the dawn of the 20th century, Britain formalised its control over Nigeria. The Northern Protectorate was proclaimed in 1900 under Sir Frederick Lugard, followed by the amalgamation of the Northern and Southern Protectorates in 1914. Cultural transformation now became a deliberate instrument of administration.
In the north, indirect rule preserved the emirate structure but altered its autonomy. Emirs remained rulers but operated under the oversight of British residents. Sharia and customary law were reinterpreted within colonial frameworks, and taxation eroded local authority.
In the south, where governance was more fragmented, missionaries and colonial schools became the main agents of cultural change. English replaced indigenous languages as the language of government and progress. Fluency in English became a gateway to employment and prestige, marginalising traditional forms of knowledge.
Urban centres such as Lagos, Ibadan, and Port Harcourt grew into symbols of Western modernity. Colonial architecture, imported textiles, and European etiquette redefined public life. Yet this Westernisation also produced tension and a cultural duality in which Nigerians navigated both indigenous and foreign identities.
Religion and the Reordering of Belief Systems
Colonialism accelerated religious transformation. Christianity spread rapidly in the south and parts of the Middle Belt, while Islam strengthened its influence in the north. Missionary institutions provided schools and clinics that promoted new gender norms, encouraging women’s literacy but within conservative moral boundaries.
Traditional religion, however, was increasingly suppressed or marginalised. Shrines were discouraged, festivals restricted, and traditional priests stigmatised as relics of superstition. Yet African spirituality endured through adaptation. In Yoruba regions, independent Aladura (Prayer) churches arose Christian in form but African in spirit, fusing biblical faith with prophecy, healing, and drumming. These movements symbolised cultural resilience and rejection of total European domination.
Education and the Rise of a New Elite
Education became the most enduring cultural legacy of colonial rule. Missionary and government schools produced a class of educated Nigerians who would later lead nationalist movements. Western schooling cultivated literacy and new worldviews, enabling figures such as Herbert Macaulay, Nnamdi Azikiwe, Obafemi Awolowo, and Ahmadu Bello to challenge colonial hegemony through newspapers, associations, and political parties.
The press became a platform for asserting African dignity. Papers like The Lagos Weekly Record and The West African Pilot exposed the injustices of colonialism while promoting cultural pride. For women, education fostered activism: Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti mobilised the Abeokuta Women’s Union to demand political and economic reforms, demonstrating how colonial tools could be repurposed for resistance.
Cultural Adaptation and Hybrid Identity (1930s–1950s)
By the mid-20th century, Nigeria’s cultural life reflected both continuity and change. Western culture dominated urban spaces, but traditional customs persisted in rural areas. New leisure activities cinema, football, and ballroom music, blended with masquerades and indigenous festivals. Nigerians appropriated foreign styles creatively, combining agbada robes with Western suits and mixing English with local languages.
This period also witnessed a flowering of literature and art. Writers such as Amos Tutuola and Chinua Achebe reclaimed African narratives, presenting the clash of worlds between tradition and modernity. Achebe’s Things Fall Apart (1958) captured the cultural dislocation caused by colonialism. In music, Highlife blended African rhythms with brass instruments, symbolising optimism and cultural fusion in the approach to independence.
Cultural organisations like the Egbe Omo Oduduwa and the Nigerian Youth Movement campaigned to preserve languages and customs, reflecting a growing awareness that cultural identity was vital to national unity.
Language and Knowledge: The Subtle Transformation
Perhaps the most enduring colonial influence was linguistic. English became Nigeria’s lingua franca and language of power, linking diverse groups but marginalising local tongues. Oral traditions, proverbs, and folklore lost status in formal education. The colonial curriculum privileged clerical and literary training over indigenous crafts and sciences, causing a decline in local industries such as blacksmithing and weaving.
Nevertheless, post-war institutions like University College Ibadan (founded in 1948) initiated a renaissance of African studies. Nigerian scholars began documenting oral histories and reviving traditional knowledge within modern academia, restoring intellectual balance to a colonial legacy.
Why It Matters Today
Colonial cultural change continues to shape Nigeria’s identity. English unites the nation but distances many from their linguistic heritage. Western education remains central to progress, yet it often weakens communal ethics that once guided social life. Religious pluralism, another colonial legacy, defines public discourse, sometimes fostering harmony, sometimes division.
Contemporary Nigerian art, literature, and music globally celebrated reflect the same hybridity that colonialism created. Understanding these transformations is vital to reclaiming cultural confidence and designing education that honours indigenous wisdom.
British colonialism in Nigeria was more than political domination; it was a reordering of values, language, and belief. It disrupted traditional systems but also inspired adaptation and creativity. Out of the encounter emerged a hybrid culture neither wholly Western nor purely indigenous, but distinctly Nigerian. The resilience of local traditions ensured that, even under foreign rule, the Nigerian spirit endured.
Author’s Note
This article examines how British colonialism reshaped Nigeria’s cultural landscape through religion, education, language, and identity, while emphasising the persistence and creativity of indigenous traditions that continue to define modern Nigeria.
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References
Falola, Toyin & Heaton, Matthew M. A History of Nigeria. Cambridge University Press, 2008.
Crowder, Michael. The Story of Nigeria. Faber and Faber, 1978.
Ajayi, J. F. Ade & Espie, Ian. A Thousand Years of West African History. Ibadan University Press, 1965.
