This is an account of English Freemasonry in what is now the Masonic District Grand Lodge of Nigeria, operating under the United Grand Lodge of England.
    The District today, like most English Provinces, has grown somewhat since its inception in 1913, when the District of Nigeria was established in the then capital of Lagos. The capital is now Abuja. Before that, the first Lodge in Nigeria was established as Lagos Lodge No. 1171in 1861.
    I must acknowledge a former DGM of Nigeria, RWB Sir Lionel Brett, who in 1963 wrote the forward to a document to mark the 50th anniversary of the District, and much of what I have been able to glean of the history is due to his efforts.
    It has always been one of the problems of Lodges in Nigeria that there has never been a settled population, and although Lodges have managed in a remarkable way to preserve their own characteristic qualities, it is difficult to find anyone to give a reliable account of anything that took place any length of time ago.
    Independence came to Nigeria on 1 October 1960. Since then, the country has been split into first 12 then 19 and now 36 states.
    At the formation of the District in 1913, six Lodges were operating in Nigeria. The District today consists of 32 Lodges of which eight meet in Lagos, the remainder in the main regional towns of Kaduna, Enugu and Ibadan, the ports of Calabar, Port Harcourt and Warri, and the commercial and industrial towns of Onitsha, Kano, Zaria and Jos.
    Although the railway does link these Masonic centres, the service is both unreliable and inefficient. Air transport is fast, but expensive. Thus the main transport used to travel to Lodges is the car. Most main towns are now linked with fairly good tarred roads, although there are exceptions, and journeys can still present discomforts and difficulties.
    In 1983, some Kano brethren on their way to Jos to attend a Royal Arch Chapter meeting, found a bridge impassable through floods 150 miles out of Kano and had to turn back to Kano and take an alternative route.
    In the end they covered 678 miles in 15 hours, travelling between the two places 140 miles apart as the crow flies.
    English Constitution Masonic membership in Nigeria today exceeds 1,000, and also both Scottish and Irish Constitutions are strongly represented. The Scottish have the highest membership, which may exceed 8,000. I say may, because information of this nature is extremely difficult to obtain, especially since many Scottish Masons are members of many more than one Lodge, and some are members of both English and Scottish Lodges.
    The Scottish Constitution dominance in numbers was the main reason that the Grand Lodge approved the divisionalising of the Nigerian District Grand Lodge in 1989, when it was anticipated that a constituted United Grand Lodge of Nigeria would be formed and a split from United Grand Lodge in London occur. This did not happen, and will probably not happen in the immediate future.
    Most Lodges meet every month. It is difficult to generalise, but apart from installations or other special occasions, an attendance of 40 would be considered good in Lagos and 25 elsewhere. Meetings are usually held at 6pm and black or white dinner jackets are standard dress.
    Outside Lagos, Saturday is the most popular meeting day, as being the most convenient for brethren whose business takes them on tour during the week, or who have to travel some distance in order to attend. Some Lodges regularly have festive boards after the meeting, while others will reserve this for the occasion of installation or initiation.
    In either case, the arrangements for preparing it are invariably in the hands of the Junior Warden, who is usually assisted by the wives of Lodge members. The employment of professional caterers is rare.
    The frequency of meetings, the slowness of postal communication and the inadequacy of the telephone system, make it impracticable to require members to give advance notice of their intention to attend a meeting.
    It is not uncommon in smaller Lodges for the visitors to outnumber the members, and even be called on to take part in the ceremony. It is almost unheard of for the entire team of officers to be present at every meeting throughout the year. It is not unknown for a Fellow Craft to act as Junior Deacon for a Passing.
    Lodges are encouraged to practice Emulation working as set out in the revised edition, which has the detailed directions which were previously developed for the Nigerian Ritual book. These, while not claiming merit for rigid uniformity, do help to prevent the perpetuation of mere blunders in the constantly changing set of officers.
    There are few formal Lodges of Instruction in Nigeria, but it is common for Lodge members to rehearse the entire ceremony twice or three times on weekday evenings in the weeks between the Saturday meetings.
    English Freemasonry knows no distinctions of colour or creed, and while it was introduced into Nigeria by Europeans – including in that term persons of European decent – it has never been an exclusively European preserve.
    The records show that the first African candidate was initiated into Lagos Lodge No. 1171 – Nigeria's senior Lodge – in the year of its formation 1861. Since then brethren of every race and colour have met freely and harmoniously in Lodge.
    However, the circumstances affecting European brethren have been different from those affecting African masons. In the past most lodges have been predominantly of one race or the other.
    Expatriates of European decent did, until comparatively recently, form the majority of subscribing members of the English Lodges in the District. For some reason this was not the case in the Scottish Constitution Lodges. For a variety of reasons Nigeria has never been a country of European settlement – unlike South Africa or Zimbabwe.
    Although British expatriate numbers have declined, the expatriate element of the population has probably never exceeded the proportion it possibly is today. An accurate census is a difficult task in Nigeria, but my estimate is in the region of 50,000 in 100 million or 1 in 2,000.
    For health reasons, tours of service have never exceeded 18 months, and today a ten-month tour or even five months is becoming the norm, while home leave has always been on the generous scale: a week’s leave for each month of service is the general rule.
    Distances between centres of population are considerable, particularly in the North, and a man may find himself serving in a place too far from any Masonic centre to allow him to attend his own or any other Lodge.
    In private Lodges, even such offices as that of secretary or director of ceremonies change hands much more frequently than would be usual in England. This may take place during the course of a year with literally no advance notice.
    In such a case, the relieving secretary is put in an impossible position. In addition, a brother’s path to the Master’s chair is rarely a steady progression from one junior office to another.
    It is the exception rather than the rule for a brother to fill the offices of Junior Warden, Senior Warden and Master in three consecutive years, and many a Warden has been disappointed of his hopes of the Master’s chair by an inconvenient posting or having to leave Nigeria altogether.
    A large proportion of subscribing members are now of African decent, and their position is different. However, until relatively recently, the education to give sufficient command of English to understand the ceremonies was the privilege of a small minority. This did not always apply, some Nigerians having been operating their own businesses, or in private practice as lawyers or doctors since the 19th century, and have risen to the highest rank in the District.
    Nevertheless, they did remain in the minority until recently, and it is only since the 1960s that their numbers have shown a rapid rate of growth. Masonicly, this will make for stability in the future.
    Regrettable, although Northern Nigeria contains some 60% of the total population, hardly any members come from this region. This is partly because, until recently, educational policy was such that the necessary command of English was infinitely more common among southerners than northerners, but there is a further reason.
    The mistaken belief that Freemasonry is a specifically Christian institution exists even among its own members. This misconception has tended to discourage northerners, who are predominantly Moslem, from showing any interest in Freemasonry.
    This problem of misconception of the basics of Freemasonry was the cause of the Kano State Government, in 1991, revoking the Certificate of Occupancy and subsequently destroying the Kano Masonic Hall – the hall owned by the Lodge since its foundation in 1927.
    For the future, changes are unavoidable, and Lodges will have to adapt or go under. The number of Europeans making their careers in Nigeria has been declining as Nigeria has assumed command of its own destinies, with qualified Nigerians becoming available for posts of all kinds.
    This trend will continue, and the number of Europeans active in Freemasonry will inevitably decline.
    As for Nigerian brethren, the traditional Nigerian culture is perfectly in harmony with the principles of Freemasonry. As more Nigerians come onto the scene, there will be no lack of potential candidates.
    There will always be enough Nigerians who value this cultural and fraternal association with England to ensure the Order continues, as brethren both Nigerian and expatriate have known in the past.

Chris Hill is a Staffordshire freemason who spent 26 years in Nigeria. He is a Past District Junior Grand Deacon (Nigeria)