There is an old adage that says “GOD LOVES CALABAR, A LAND OF BEAUTY”. Truly the serenity of Calabar will impress anyone. The soul of a city is in its people. The people of Calabar are not lacking at all. Valued historic buildings scatter Calabar. A drive around Calabar city is a wonderful experience.
Maybe, the construction of the highways is a compensation for Calabar for not having a rail system that was first constructed in 1891 between Lagos and Ibadan under the British rule. Even when the eastern line was constructed between Port Harcourt and Maiduguri by the British later, Calabar was left out. During that colonial era, Minna, Zaria, Kaura Namoda, Jos, Kuru, Kano and many cities enjoyed rail facilities but not Calabar.
It was not until the Lagos/Calabar railway line project was conceived by the regime of president Goodluck Jonathan in 2014 with approval from the Federal Executive Council. However, the project has not seen the light of the day.
The British colonial administration moved the country’s administrative headquarters from Calabar after the Chiefs of old Calabar signed the 1884 Treaty of Protection.
The territory of old Calabar served as the first colonial government centre for the Southern Protectorate and the oil Rivers Protectorate. However, this changed in the fourteenth year of the 20th century when the administrative centre was changed to Lagos.
Lagos was the first capital of Nigeria and became the country’s first administrative centre in 1914.
Calabar is a living museum of Nigeria history.
Lagos is the first national administrative centre for the West African nation. It was declared as such during the Amalgamation Proclamation of 1914 by Sir Lord Frederick Lugard, the Governor General, after the unification of the Northern and the Southern Protectorates. The nation has had two official capitals since 1914.
On 1 January 1914, the newly appointed Governor General of Nigeria, Sir Lord Frederick Lugard, announced Lagos as the first capital city. In his speech during the Amalgamation Proclamation of 1914, Lugard declared that: “For the present, the Central Headquarters will remain at Lagos, and the Governor-General will divide his time between the Headquarters Stations of the Northern and Southern Provinces”. The evolution of the nation’s capital cities began with Nigeria’s colonisation by the British Empire. This journey started with the unification of the Southern and Northern Protectorates in 1914 under Governor-General Sir Frederick Lugard.
Prior to the unification of the British Protectorate, Calabar now CROSS RIVERS STATE CAPITAL served as the central administrative centre for the Southern Protectorate. Before 1914, Kaduna City in Kaduna was the political capital of the Northern Protectorate.
After coming under English rule on 10 September 1884, Old Calabar was designated as the first principal city for the Southern Protectorate, the Oil River Protectorate, and the Niger Coast Protectorate.
Calabar, known initially as Akwa Akpa in the Efik language, is located in the Southeastern region of the country. It served as a significant precolonial trading port for the West African region.
In 1900, Sir Lord Frederick Lugard settled in Lokoja, making it the regional seat of government before moving the administration centre further up the Niger River to Jebba in 1902. In the same year, he moved the regional capital to Zungeru in Niger. In 1912, Lord Lugard’s quest for a more accessible and centrally located administrative centre led him to Kaduna. Although he declared Lagos as the seat of the government in 1914, he did not hide his preference for Kaduna.
When Portuguese explorers in the 15th century reached this part of the Guinea coast, they called the tribes of the area “Calabar”. These historic inhabitants were Quas, Efuts, and Efiks. Efik people migrated from the area of the Niger River to the shores of Calabar. They were fleeing civil war with their kindred and the Ibibio people.
Since the 16th century, Calabar has served as an international seaport, exporting such goods as palm oil. During the centuries of the Atlantic slave trade, it became a major port for shipment of African slaves to the Americas. The Spanish maintain the Calabar designation.
Tribes around that region were taken in as slaves for slave trade. Those minority tribes were subject to slave raids by more powerful tribes or ethnic groups in the region.
From 1725 until 1750, roughly 17,000 enslaved Africans were sold from Calabar to European slave traders; from 1772 to 1775, the number soared to more than 62,000. Old Calabar (Duke Town) and Creek Town, 16 kilometres (10 mi) northeast, were crucial towns in the trade of slaves in that era.
The first Army Barracks in Nigeria was built in Calabar in 1903. The first national newspaper in English published in Eastern Nigeria was called The Nigeria Eastern Mail, and it was first published in Calabar. On security, the first maximum security prison was built in Calabar in 1890.
Calabar holds a foundational place in Nigeria football history as the location of the country’s first recorded organised football match on 15 June, 1904 at the Hope Waddell Training Institution in Calabar. Students from the Hope Waddell Training Institution played against sailors from a visiting British naval ship (frequently cited as the HMS Thistle or HMS Dwarf).
Mary Mitchelle Slessor arrived Nigeria in 1878 under the auspices of United Free Church of Scotland, now the Presbyterian Church Mission. She resided in Odukpani Local Government Area, where she vehemently fought for the abolition of the ancient custom of killing twin children and their mothers. She built herself a two-bedroom mud house with a veranda, a store and a palour. She called it a Caravan while the villagers called it “Fine Pass All”.
In 1889, a missionary carpenter, Mr Owens, was made to put up a more permanent structure for her. The walls were made of iron sheets while the doors and windows were made of wood. The staircase leading to the first floor had 21 steps and was supported by two pillars and wooden railings. Cross River State continued with marking of the birthday of Mma Mary Slessor about a hundred years after her birth.
There are so many things to say about Calabar. No doubt the construction of the coastal highway between Lagos and Calabar serves to remind us about the importance of Calabar.
In the late nineteenth century, as European powers scrambled to consolidate territorial control in Africa, the British formalized their influence along the Niger Delta coast. In 1884, Queen Victoria signed a treaty of protection with the chiefs of Akwa Akpa (Old Calabar), enabling Britain to exercise control over the surrounding territory. Soon after, the Oil Rivers Protectorate was established in 1885 to manage trade and suppress inter-tribal conflicts in the coastal region. In 1893, this territory was renamed the Niger Coast Protectorate. Calabar was designated as the official capital of these protectorates.
Calabar’s location and commercial history underpinned its selection as headquarters. It had long been a thriving port for palm oil and other exports that were critical to British industrial needs. The transition from the slave trade to palm oil shifted economic power to local merchant houses, which then negotiated with European firms. British protection treaties signed with Efik chiefs in the 1880s facilitated smoother trade and strengthened British influence in the region. This commercial reach also fed into colonial objectives, enabling the British to tighten control over indigenous socio-economic networks.
Beyond administration, Calabar became a centre for early educational and religious developments in Nigeria. Scottish missionaries established schools and churches in the mid-19th century, influencing local institutions and social reforms. For example, the Hope Waddell Training Institution, founded in 1846, became one of the earliest secondary schools in the region. Such institutions shaped local elites and contributed to the cultural synthesis that characterised colonial Calabar.
In addition to education, Calabar was the site of early colonial legislative engagement. In 1922, the British established the Legislative Council with elected members from Calabar and Lagos, marking one of the first forms of representative governance in British West Africa. This council approved budgets and enacted laws, laying important groundwork for the later political evolution of Nigeria.
Calabar’s role as the headquarters of the Oil Rivers Protectorate, the Niger Coast Protectorate, and the Southern Nigeria Protectorate positioned it as a birthplace of modern nation.
On a personal note, I feel excited any time I visit Calabar. The serenity of the ancient city excites me.
