Introduction

Late summer 1945, in the twilight of empire, an incident occurred in the Enugu Government Colliery, southeastern Nigeria, which was emblematic of the new ways that the changing political context of the war encouraged African workers to contest imperial power. Thomas Yates, one of the British underground managers, twice slapped Isaiah Ojiyi, general secretary of the Colliery Workers Union (CWU), for refusing his orders and laughing at him. From Yates' description, it appears that Ojiyi goaded him into this performance to provide an opportunity for him to demonstrate his defiance of white managerial power. What followed, however, was unusual. Rather than fight back, Ojiyi took Yates to court and won. The slap itself was not unusual, as such assaults were customary in the colonial workplace, but Ojiyi was manipulating the situation to display his defiance and heroism in challenging a figure of white power who exerted such extreme control over the miners.

Ojiyi, a rather flamboyant orator and iconoclastic leader, was the type of Nigerian trade unionist who relished the opportunity to “display defiance” against racial insult and draw upon the “heroic honor” traditions of his people, the Igbo, by his willingness to push the boundaries of the state's timid attempts to eliminate racial insults.