Fisheries Development in Nigeria: The Example of Apese Experimentation Station in the 1940s

On June 21, 1940, Nigeria's Governor, Sir Bernard Boudillon, assigned W.B. Dowson, a senior agricultural officer in Nigeria on leave in the United Kingdom, to investigate the issues surrounding the development of Nigeria's fishing industry and the establishment of a small experimental station. Dowson returned to Nigeria in December 1940 and established a small temporary experimental station at Apese, a fishing community in Lagos. It marked the commencement of an 'ecological survey', particularly the waters of what was known as Southern Nigeria. This survey was one of several ‘ecological investigations' conducted by British colonialists in Nigeria as a whole to understand the indigenous fishing techniques, methods of fish preservation, and the quality and quantity of fish species in Nigeria’s waters. Although historians have examined fish's socioeconomic and dietary impact on human civilization, they have overlooked 'why' British colonial investment to expand the artisanal fishery industry only began with the new 'Colonial Development Scheme' of the 1940s. I explore the significance of Apese station to show that transforming the artisanal fishing sector has a broader implication for ‘colonial modernity’, ‘scientific racism’ and 'ecological imperialism' in late-colonial Nigeria. In addition, the Apese experimental station acted as a springboard for a much more ambitious colonial development project, the 1950s 'British Fisheries Missions' (BFMs). Drawing on archival sources and extant literature, I demonstrate how the Apese experimental station contributes to a broader discourse about colonial animal exploitation in Nigeria. Following the paucity of beef and the public anxiety it caused in metropolitan areas in the 1940s, colonialists turned to fish to feed their growing population.