NIGERIAN ENTERPRISE 
Government, establishing a system of courts, prohibiting 
the sale of liquors and firearms, and forbidding the enslave- 
ment of any person after April 1, 1901. 
The Royal Niger Company had directed its affairs from 
Lokoja and Jebba; but a suitable site for an administrative 
capital was now selected at Zungeru, ten miles from the 
Kaduna branch of the Niger, and in a fairly central location 
for all northern Nigeria. It also had the advantage of being 
in one of the disaffected districts; and the High Commis- 
sioner was thus enabled to keep a close personal watch upon 
one of the least trustworthy native rulers. Within three 
years several comfortable and serviceable administrative 
buildings had been erected and a light railway built down 
to the river, the headquarters of the Government being 
permanently moved to Zungeru in September, 1902. 
The British authorities desired to establish a strictly 
civil administration as rapidly as possible throughout the 
country. The Residents were instructed to get in touch with 
the people, win their confidence, and aid them as far as 
practicable to rule themselves. In a number of instances, 
however, military officials and garrisons had to be main- 
tained in the provinces, owing to the restlessness of the na- 
tives and unsettled conditions. In some of the outlying 
states, prominent and corrupt native rulers, who had defied 
the officials of the company, continued to ignore the over- 
tures and demands of the administrators of the new Pro- 
tectorate. Their lands lay for the most part either along 
the main trade routes or in the vicinity of the chief markets 
of the North; and they were a constant menace to the peace 
and security of the country on account of their slave-raiding 
expeditions and attacks upon the caravans. It was, there- 
fore, imperative, not only to insure the abolition of the slave 
trade, but also to protect life and property and to establish 
respect for British authority, that these refractory chieftains