British Colonial Rule in Nigeria Began in 1861, Not 1807

The premise that British control started in 1807 is incorrect. Formal colonization began in 1861 with the annexation of Lagos as a Crown Colony. Over the next decades, Britain expanded through treaties and conquest, establishing the Oil Rivers Protectorate (1884), later the Niger Coast Protectorate, and finally amalgamating the Northern and Southern Protectorates into the Colony and Protectorate of Nigeria in 1914.

The 1807 date marks Britain's abolition of the transatlantic slave trade—not the start of colonial rule.