, the 1st Amanyanaboh of
Opobo.
Muhammadu Sanusi II, the
14th and 16th Emir of Kano. , the Ugo of
Ngwaland. , an
Oloye of the
Western House of Chiefs. , an Oloye of Lagos. Nigerian pre-colonial states tended to be organized as
city-states. The empires that did exist, like the
Kanem-Borno empire, the
Oyo empire, the
Benin empire and the
Sokoto caliphate, were essentially coalitions of these individual city-states. Due to this, a great deal of local power was concentrated in the hands of rulers that remained almost permanently in their capitals. These rulers had sacred functions - a number of them were even considered to be sacred themselves - and therefore often lived in seclusion as a result. Their nobles, both hereditary and otherwise, typically also had functions that were tied to the religious traditions of the kingdoms that they served. In the South, the nobles ruled the states on a day-to-day basis on behalf of their monarchs by way of a series of initiatory
secret societies. These bodies combined the aforementioned priestly functions with judicial ones, and also traditionally provided advisers to the monarchs in question. Some of these societies, like
Ogboni and
Nze na Ozo, have survived to the present day as aristocratic social clubs within their respective tribes. Meanwhile, in the
North, the emirates of the old caliphate were usually divided into districts, and these districts were in turn ruled by nobles known as
Hakimi (pl.
Hakimai) that were subject to the monarchs. As a general rule titles did not always pass from father to son; many royal and noble families did however provide a number of titleholders over several generations. In the south, the titles held by nobles were often not the same ones as those that had been held by others in their lineages. Some chiefs had even been untitled slaves, and therefore had had no titled forebears prior to their eventual ascension to the ranks of the aristocracy. Although dominated by the titled men mentioned above, several kingdoms also had parallel traditions of exclusively-female title societies that operated in partnership with their male counterparts. Others would reserve specially created titles, such as the
Yoruba Iyalode, for their womenfolk. During the early European forays into Africa, Nigerian chiefs - both monarchs and nobles - came to be divided into two opposing camps: the anti-European chiefs on the one end (who wanted nothing to do with the Europeans and wanted them to leave, by war if necessary) and the pro-European chiefs (who favoured maintaining friendly relations with the Europeans, even if it meant sacrificing certain amounts of political power). At the point of the increase in
British influence in Nigeria during the 19th century, the anti-European chiefs used a variety of tactics to work against foreign influence, utilizing both direct and indirect forms. The colonial government responded by favouring the pro-European chiefs and supporting more amenable claimants to the Nigerian titles in an attempt to frustrate the anti-European chiefs. Minor wars were fought with the anti-European chiefs, while pro-European chiefs prospered through trade with Britain and so were politically safe as a result. During the
Scramble for Africa, anti-European chiefs were slowly replaced with pro-European ones, and
Colonial Nigeria came to be governed by a system known as
indirect rule, which involved native chiefs becoming part of the administrative structure to ease administrative costs. Through this method, the colonial government was able to avoid any rebellions against its authority. Following Nigeria's independence in 1960, each federated unit of the country had a
House of Chiefs, which was part of its lawmaking system. These houses have since been replaced by the largely ceremonial
Councils of Traditional Rulers. In addition, many of the founding fathers and mothers of the
First Republic - including the leading troika of Chief
Nnamdi Azikiwe, Chief
Obafemi Awolowo and Alhaji Sir
Ahmadu Bello - were all royals or nobles in the Nigerian chieftaincy system. This has continued to operate since their time as a locally controlled honours system alongside its
nationally controlled counterpart, which is itself within the gift of the Federal Government. ==Today==