Between November and December 1929, tens of thousands of Igbo and Ibibio women organised across markets and lineage networks in the Oil Rivers province to resist a rumoured tax on women and the abuses of British-appointed warrant chiefs. They used the customary practice of "sitting on a man" — coordinated public shaming — at colossal scale. At Opobo, Utu Etim Ekpo and Abak, colonial police fired on demonstrators. At least 55 women were killed. The British were forced to abolish the warrant chief system in the affected provinces and reorganise the native authority structure.
Resistance1929· Chapter 3
The Women's War
Aba, 1929. Igbo and Ibibio women organise across markets and clans against the warrant chiefs and the threat of taxation on women. At least 55 dead.
Source: Aba Commission of Inquiry Report (1930); Judith Van Allen, "Sitting on a Man" (1972)
Era context
The political and economic reality
The government(s), economy and national reality across the period 1929–1929.
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.