'I BEG TO TELL', everyday agency in colonial Lagos, 1940-1960

229pp., paperback, African Humanities Association, First South African Edition, Makhanda, 2025

ISBN: 9781991458179

This study foregrounds everyday life as a major component of colonial Lagos history, and examines petitions written by ordinary people to the colonial establishment as cultural creations that reveal the selfhood, consciousness and agency of those who lived on the fringes of society.

"This is a strikingly original book ... [It] will open the door to new kinds of historical interpretation of West African colonial archives. It will help shift the historical point of view from the agency of prominent historical actors who effected social and political change to the agency (and lack of agency) of people who were not in command of resources, discourses, social capital or colonial protocol ... an adventurous foray into theories of self, identity and consciousness." Karin Barber, University of Birmingham

Tunde Decker is Professor of African Social History and Everyday Life and Dean, Faculty of Humanities at Osun State University, Osogbo, Nigeria. He also teaches African and Nigerian History courses at Osun State University, Nigeria. He has been a Visiting Scholar and Guest Lecturer at the African Studies Centre, Oxford University; Department of African Studies and Anthropology, University of Birmingham; the Centre for African Studies, SOAS University of London; the African Studies Centre, Cambridge University, the University of Ibadan, Nigeria and the University of Ghana, Legon. He teaches African and Nigerian History courses at Osun State University, Nigeria.