important resource “provided the framework for broad economic policy” for the fledgling nation-to-be. Then a Central Bank of Nigeria, Nigerian Airways, and the Nigerian National Shipping Line, among other nation-building institutions, were founded.49 Of important note was the willingness of Balewa to ←36 | 37→accept a British study, which he commissioned, regarding implementation of a foreign policy that enabled Great Britain to “exert influence on the minds of Nigerian Ministers on foreign affairs on the eve of independence.” This included a defense agreement (later abrogated by Nigeria) that committed Nigeria to assisting Great Britain in future armed conflicts. All told, British leaders viewed the new Nigerian leadership by 1958 as “moderate” and generally receptive to inordinate British influence.50
Official U.S. interest in Nigeria had a dual character in the years immediately before and during the unraveling of European colonial empires. Trade between the two countries had slowly crept upward, demonstrating clear potential for increased economic activity under the right circumstances. The main products the United States received from Nigeria included cocoa, palm oil, and hides and skins. Nigerian crude oil in the immediate post-war years, available more in spurts than as a steady flow, was not the demand resource for the United States that it would become in later years. That would come only after the British discovery of substantial oil deposits in 1956. Oil in this region of the world easily fell within the sights of U.S. businessmen always looking for newer and inexpensive natural resources in third world nations. An example of the potential thirst for African oil by outsiders occurred when Great Britain blocked the U.S. oil firm Socony-Vacuum from access to oil deposits in Nigeria and Ghana in 1942.51
The other component of the United States’ economic affairs with Nigeria helped determine the direction of trade relations. As the changing colonial picture would have it, official U.S. policy—the combination of foreign affairs and business interests—was carefully positioned astride two contending forces: irreversible third world decolonization that included a leading role for Nigeria on its African end, and U.S. government advice to a reluctant Great Britain to disengage from its colonial possessions, even if only under favorable conditions. The task, again, was to restructure the colonial moorings in such a way that they would remain in place but would not visibly undermine the drive for Nigerian independence, particularly during the constitutional period.
The depth of this dilemma cannot be overlooked since the United States had a growing economic presence in Nigeria. Meager though ←37 | 38→it was, especially between 1890 and 1918, there had been economic exchange between the United States and colonial Nigeria that indicated some interest in tropical products. Following Germany’s defeat in World War 1, the U.S. profile grew as Britain and its colonial office in Nigeria gave the United States a first-in-line trading partner status, albeit with the understanding that British firms would receive preferential treatment.52 Cotton became an important textile imported from the United States, although demand for it was largely determined by a receptive British government. U.S. automobiles were also highly desired. One Nigerian, W. Akinola Dawodu, became wealthy providing transport services and auto parts to the Lagos market.53 It should be noted, however, that U.S. import-export figures for the 1920s remained modest, never rising above 14 percent between 1915 and 1926.54
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