When Sex Threatened the State: Illicit Sexuality, Nationalism, and Politics in Colonial Nigeria 1900-1958

"In this study, Aderinto probes the complexity of responses to prostitution amongst both British colonialists and Nigerians of various different ethnic, social, cultural backgrounds. The real strength of the book is this focus on the diversity of perspectives in Nigeria in the first half of the 20th century. One of his core arguments is that the British perceived prostitution as evidence of African primitiveness and this perception helped to justify the broader civilising mission in West Africa and Nigeria. He also pays attention to how Nigerians conceived of their own sexuality and responded to prostitution. In his analysis of Nigerian responses to prostitution, Aderinto reaches a very interesting conclusion. The anti-colonial movement, both before and after World War Two, was structured around selecting elements of African culture that were deemed progressive, while discarding what were seen as the more retrograde manifestations of modernity. Aderinto calls this practice ‘selective modernity’ and sees it as a method used in attempts to advance Nigeria towards modern statehood. One of the phenomena that is deemed incompatible with this new modern idea of Nigeria is prostitution. The conclusion that Aderinto reaches here—that prostitution became something that was seen as completely incompatible with new ideas of what it meant to be Nigerian during the march towards independence—has broader international resonances. For example, you can observe this phenomenon in Ireland and Poland during their respective struggles for independence. His unique take on this trend is one of the things that I think is so wonderful about the book. The book has a short chapter at the end reflecting on the resonances of his study in the present day. Pat Omoregie interviewed Aderinto on Notches , a blog devoted to the history of sexuality in which he discussed how the Nigerian government was keen to classify prostitution as something ‘unAfrican’ in the early 2000s. In this interview, he remarks on the resonances of the connections between conversations in the early 21st century and those occurring in early 20th-century Lagos."