When Nigerians speak of armed robbery today, it is often imagined as a problem that emerged in the years after independence. Yet the roots of violent and organised crime in Nigeria reach back to the colonial era. British rule disrupted traditional systems of justice, fostered economic changes that displaced many young men, and created policing structures that lacked legitimacy. Although the form of armed robbery that shook Nigeria in the 1970s was new, many of its enabling conditions were laid decades earlier.
Traditional Systems of Order
Before colonial conquest, Nigerian societies maintained elaborate methods of justice and social control. Among the Yoruba, the Ogboni council exercised judicial functions, while age‑grade associations in Igboland ensured discipline and social responsibility. In the Hausa emirates, Islamic law and emirate courts provided enforcement mechanisms respected within their societies. These systems rested on consensus and community belonging, making serious crime relatively rare. Theft against one’s community was strongly discouraged through cultural and spiritual sanctions.
Colonial Disruption and Its Consequences
The arrival of British rule in the late 19th and early 20th centuries altered these structures. Indirect rule subordinated traditional authorities to colonial officials, undermining their legitimacy. Legal pluralism, with customary courts alongside colonial courts, caused confusion and weakened social enforcement. Many young men, once integrated into community roles, now found themselves under foreign systems that neither understood nor respected their traditions.
The economy too was reshaped. Cash crop policies forced peasants into export production, while taxation in cash compelled participation in the colonial market. Fluctuations in global prices, such as the cocoa price collapse in the 1930s, left many without secure livelihoods. Railways and roads redirected commerce and displaced traditional trade networks. Migration to towns grew rapidly, especially Lagos and Ibadan, producing overcrowding, poverty, and unemployment.
Emergence of Urban Youth Crime
It was within this colonial urban context that youth gangs and petty criminal groups became visible. The best documented were the jaguda boys of Ibadan from the 1930s to the 1950s. They were pickpockets and street thieves, preying on people in markets, bus parks, and other crowded public spaces. According to historian Simon Heap, their tactics included distraction, group coordination, and swift mobility, and their activities reflected both economic desperation and youthful bravado. While not armed robbery in the modern sense, these patterns of urban theft foreshadowed later developments.
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Colonial responses were harsh but often ineffective. The authorities sometimes resorted to banishment of suspected jaguda, a practice of expelling youths from the city without trial. Arrests and police patrols disrupted but did not eradicate the phenomenon. Instead, resentment towards police, seen as serving colonial interests rather than public welfare, deepened mistrust between authorities and communities.
The Impact of World War II
World War II further altered Nigeria’s social landscape. Tens of thousands of Nigerians were recruited as soldiers, exposed to military discipline and global conflict. While some veterans returned with skills that helped them reintegrate, others struggled with unemployment. Scholarly evidence does not confirm that the war directly “flooded” Nigeria with weapons, but the broader wartime economic changes intensified black‑market trading and illicit practices. These conditions normalised small‑scale law‑breaking, which later fed into more violent forms of crime.
Policing and Weak Institutions
The colonial police were not designed as community services. Their mission was to protect government installations, collect taxes, and maintain order favourable to British interests. This orientation meant they lacked popular legitimacy. Police forces were concentrated in administrative centres, leaving rural areas under‑policed. Courts were under‑resourced and slow. These institutional weaknesses created space for crime to grow and for communities to seek alternative means of justice.
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From Petty Theft to Armed Robbery
While colonial Nigeria experienced crime, large‑scale violent armed robbery did not become prominent until after independence. In the late 1960s and especially the 1970s, with political instability and the aftermath of the civil war, Nigeria witnessed a surge in armed robbery. Firearms became more available, inequalities more pronounced, and institutions more strained. Yet the colonial legacy was clear: the breakdown of traditional authority, the alienation of unemployed youth in cities, and a police force mistrusted by the public all created a fertile environment in which violent robbery could flourish.
The Colonial Legacy
The significance of the colonial period lies not in producing armed robbery directly, but in establishing long‑lasting vulnerabilities. Patterns of urban concentration of wealth, cycles of youth unemployment, and adversarial relations between citizens and police were all features of colonial Nigeria that persisted. By independence in 1960, these weaknesses were deeply embedded, making Nigeria ill‑prepared to confront the violent criminal networks that emerged later.
Conclusion
The story of armed robbery in Nigeria cannot be told without reference to the colonial period. While tales of named gang leaders and sudden “births” of organised robbery in the 1920s or 1930s are unsubstantiated, the structural conditions created under colonial rule, social disruption, economic displacement, and weak institutions, were real. They explain why Nigeria was especially vulnerable to violent robbery after independence. Understanding this history is essential to grasping the roots of today’s insecurity and the long shadow of colonialism over Nigerian society.
Author’s Note
This article traced the roots of Nigeria’s armed robbery crisis back to the colonial era. British rule disrupted traditional justice systems, reshaped the economy, and created alienation in rapidly growing urban centres. Though armed robbery in its modern form emerged after independence, its enabling conditions, unemployment, weak policing, and urban poverty, were deeply rooted in colonial structures.
Nigeria’s insecurity challenges cannot be solved by short-term policing alone. They require addressing long-standing structural issues inherited from colonialism, building trust in institutions, tackling youth unemployment, and restoring inclusive systems of justice.
References
- Simon Heap, “Jaguda Boys: Pickpocketing in Ibadan, 1930–60,” Urban History, 2001.
- Tekena Tamuno, The Police in Modern Nigeria: 1861–1965, 1970.
- Toyin Falola, History of Nigeria, 1999.
