Emmanuel Oladipo Ojo, Sabi Joshua Bio

Abstract

Like elsewhere in Nigeria and Africa, the ‘pacification’ and imposition of colonial rule on Batombuland and the incursion of western ideas produced profound sociocultural, economic,and political changes in Batombu society. However, unlike several Nigerian and African peoples whose histories have received extensive scholarly attention, the history of the Batombu has attracted very little such attention. Thus virtually neglected, the Batombu occupies a mere footnotein the extant historiography of Nigeria. This is the gap this article seeks to fill. It examines the impact of colonialism and western civilisation on Batombu’s political, social, economic,and cultural institutions and concludes that, as profound and far-reaching as these changes were,some important aspects of the indigenous institutions and traditional practices of the people survived.

Keywords: Batombu, Nigeria, Africa, colonialism, institutions, change, continuity