A revised version of my doctoral dissertation, this monograph project investigates the evolution and impact of electricity generation, supply, and consumption in Southern Nigerian cities from its inception in 1898, through independence (1960), the Civil War (1967-1970), and to the eve of the OPEC-led international oil boom in the early 1970s.

A revised version of my doctoral dissertation, this monograph project investigates the evolution and impact of electricity generation, supply, and consumption in Southern Nigerian cities from its inception in 1898, through independence (1960), the Civil War (1967-1970), and to the eve of the OPEC-led international oil boom in the early 1970s. It adds to the growing corpus of literature on the socioeconomic past that bridges what used to be the “divide” between the respective territories of historians of Africa (up to the 1960s, the decade of independence) and social scientists, especially economists and political scientists (post-1960s). In the research, I analyze a variety of largely new qualitative and quantitative sources including correspondence and reports from archives in the United Kingdom, Nigeria, and the World Bank in Washington DC. The sources also include statistical abstracts, newspapers, historical fiction, music lyrics, and memoirs.

The monograph makes three main contributions to the history of colonial infrastructure and the global historiography of electrification. First, it argues that the desire to improve the efficiency of resource extraction, as well as the need to promote socioeconomic development and colonial modernity in Southern Nigerian cities were simultaneous motives of investments in electrification since the 1890s. Second, it contributes to the global historiography by showing that the social processes initiated by the consumption of electricity in Western societies (which resulted in a new “techno-culture” ) had parallels in Nigeria.

Third, the monograph argues that the combination of motives and the social processes initiated by electricity consumption were the result of Southern Nigerians’ participation in electricity production and consumption since the 1890s. Nigerians’ participation in production was achieved through their influence in the legislative processes, their activities in the colonial service, and, most importantly, through direct investments by Native Authorities. Regarding consumption, the desire of everyday urban dwellers for electricity can be explained through the lens of Ọ̀làjú, a Yoruba idea of “modernity”, while their capacity to afford electricity (dating back to the 1930s, which is as far as data is available) can be explained through government’s energy tariff policies and rising wages.