British-Nigeria Banks, Merchants, Multilateral Payment Input and the Legislative/Executive Councils, 1912-1960

This study is driven by three central questions. The first is, how did the corresponding Banking partnership between the Agbonmagbe Bank and the British Bank of West Africa (BBWA), that between the National Bank and National d’ Escompte de Paris, London, and that between the Bank of the North and Barclay’s Bank DCO emerge, evolve and end in British-Nigeria. The second is, what roles did indigenous merchants and Nigerian Legislative/Executive Council members play in this and how did these affect the trajectory of the commerce between colonial Nigeria and the outside world? Third is how did the forging of transnational payment cooperation ensure the survival of these colonial Nigerian banks and the liquidation of others like: Afroseas Credit Bank Ltd; Cosmopolitan Credit Bank Ltd; Nigerian Trust Bank Ltd, Nigerian Farmers and Commercial Bank Ltd, Onward Bank Ltd, Pan Nigeria Bank Ltd, Premier Bank Ltd, Provincial Bank of Nigeria Ltd, Standard Bank of Nigeria Ltd, United Commercial (Credit) Bank Ltd, Union Bank of British Africa Ltd, West African Bank Ltd?

In effect, drawing from records collected from archives in Nigeria, the National Archive Richmond (UK)- potentially including files in the “CLC/B/207…”- and informal interviews, this paper studies how colonial Nigeria’s indigenous and foreign bank branches built and managed their international payments systems particularly in reaction to the Executive and Legislative councils’ regulation of the financial sector in British-Nigeria (1912-1960). Extending Gareth Austin and Chibuike Uche’s seminal essays on banks in British West Africa, the study contends that the evolution and fortunes of the banks in colonial Nigeria primarily rose, rotated, and fell on the interplay of metropolitan paternalism and the bank executives’ dexterity in negotiating multilateral payments inputs.

To achieve its objectives, this study imminently applies the thematic analytical framework to the earlier identified records and oral data. The resultant write-up from this process will be organized into five evolving sections. The first section will focus on the British-Nigerian Banking Landscape by 1912. The second section will examine the formation of Banking alliances(indigenous and alien collaborations) in colonial Nigeria, including the role of the world wars, 1912-1950. The third section will assess the Legislative and Executive Councils in Banking Regulation in relation to Metropolitan interests, metropolitan paternalism and indigenous responses 1912-1960. Section four will address British Nigeria Bank's Transnational/Multilateral Payment Strategies/Systems/Protocols, Methods of international financial transactions, Structural challenges and innovations, as well as Survival and Collapse of Indigenous Banks 1920-1960. This will be followed by the epilogue that discusses the implication of the study for Nigeria’s place in the current global cross-border payment system and the existing literature.

Olatunde Taiwo is a Lisa Maskell PhD Fellow at the Department of History, University of Ghana (https://lisa.gerda-henkel-stiftung.de/lms_taiwo). His primary research area is Deportations involving Nigeria, 1900-2020. Olatunde’s broad research interests include: American Studies, Diaspora Studies, Economic History, Qualitative Inquiry, Migration Studies, and African History. Olatunde is also currently a junior Faculty at the Department of History and Diplomatic Studies, Olabisi Onabanjo University, Nigeria. Olatunde successfully submitted/completed his doctoral thesis/course work in September 2024. In April, October, and November 2019, Olatunde separately conducted archival investigations at the Gerald Ford Presidential Library/University of Michigan, the Friends Library Swarthmore College (Philadelphia), and the Robert Dole Institute of Politics /University of Kansas. Olatunde has been awarded grants/fellowships from Yale University (2022); Harvard University (2023), University of Minnesota (2023/2024), the German Historical Institute, Washington D.C (2024), the Gerda Henkel Siftung (2020-2024); Gerald R. Ford Presidential Foundation; Swarthmore College; University of Kansas; University of Birmingham (2019); the British Academy/Leverhulme Trust through Professor Richard Cleminson of the University of Leeds (2019); Michigan State University; and the Tertiary Education Trust Fund of Nigeria. Taiwo has presented papers at conferences in Birmingham, Munich, and the University of Southern California. Taiwo’s latest short article features in the ensuing: Olatunde Taiwo(2023), “Tropes Of Asylum And Refuge: Deportations Across Nigerian Lands, 1800-1852”, Age of Revolutions https://ageofrevolutions.com/2023/06/26/tropes-of-asylum-and-refuge-deportations-across-nigerian-lands-1800-1852/. He is also the author of, Olatunde Taiwo (2023), “Some Thoughts on the Archive on Nigeria’s First Female Professor: Adetowun Ogunsheye”, Les Etudes Sociales Vol.178, Issue 2, 223-230. Another of Taiwo’s article-Knights of A Global Countryside-appears in 'Nigeria Studies' series (2020), authored by the combination of Professor Chima Korie and Goldline and Jacobs Publishing, USA.