On 18 November 1949, colonial police under Superintendent F.S. Philip opened fire on striking coal miners at the Iva Valley mine, Enugu. Twenty-one miners were killed and 51 wounded. The killings provoked the Bristol Hotel riots in Lagos and the formation of the National Emergency Committee. The Foster Commission of Inquiry (1950) found the use of force unjustified but recommended no prosecutions.
Colonial1949· 21 deaths· Chapter IV · Record
Iva Valley Massacre
18 November 1949. 21 coal miners shot dead at Enugu Colliery by colonial police. Bristol Hotel riots follow. Foster Commission of Inquiry, 1950.
Sources
- · Foster Commission of Inquiry Report (1950)
- · Carolyn Brown, We Were All Slaves (2003)
What it cost — political & economic reality
The political and economic reality
Nigeria in 1949: who was in charge, the cabinet of the day, the GDP, and the crises that defined the period.
British colonial administration
Sir Frederick Lugard → Sir James Robertson
1900–1960
National reality
Amalgamation of the Northern and Southern Protectorates (1914) under indirect rule. Marketing boards extracted cocoa, palm oil and groundnut surpluses; political agitation built through the press and the trade union movement.
Crises of the period
- Aba Women's War (1929)
- Iva Valley shooting of striking miners (1949)
- Kano riots (1953)
GDP (World Bank)
Pre-independence; no national accounts series
Cabinet (selected portfolios)
Full ministerial roster being compiled.
Government administered by Governors-General and Residents. The first indigenous federal ministers were appointed under the 1954 Lyttelton Constitution.
Source: Toyin Falola, A History of Nigeria (CUP, 2008)
Methodology
Tier 1 · primary
Courts. Gazettes. National archives.
Tier 2 · corroborating
OCCRP. HRW. BudgIT. TheCable.
Redline
Wikipedia is never a source.