The Second World War and Resource Mobilization in Southeastern Nigeria

The people of southeastern Nigeria participated in the Second World War as British subjects. As the Allied powers lost some of their key territories to the Axis in the first few years of the war, which adversely affected maritime security, manpower and important tropical produce supplies, Britain and France increasingly depended on their African colonies for resource mobilization. Britain’s West African colonies of the Gold Coast, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone became strategic axes through which the Allied launched military campaigns in the Mediterranean and Far East. In addition, Nigeria in particular assumed a new important status as a major source of raw materials, military personnel and labor to Britain and her allies. To ensure adequate labor mobilization and expedite massive wartime production, the British colonial government in Nigeria adopted a wide range of measures.
The proposed paper will examine these measures taken by the British colonial government in southeastern Nigeria to mobilize human and material resources for the war, as well as how the people contributed to the win-the-war effort. Specifically, attention will be paid to such wartime measures as the recruitment and conscription of able-bodied men for military and paramilitary services, and for labor in different construction projects and the mining industry; mobilization of peasant farmers especially women for export production; export restriction and price control; import restriction through import licenses and banning of certain imports; control on food production, marketing and prices; transport restriction; and increased taxation and imposition of levies. The use of press releases, dispatches, legislature, propaganda, quota system as well as different control and marketing boards by the colonial government to achieve its win-the-war goals will also be examined. The paper will rely on a wide range of primary and secondary sources to address the above wartime measures.