On June 29, 1954, Alexander Gregory, a European pottery officer was arraigned in a magistrate court for inciting his dog to attack an Hausa trader, named Inuwa Gombe, who had gone to his (Gregory) residence in Ikoyi in Lagos for a routine house to house offering of goods for sale. The dog attacked Gombe voraciously, biting him in his private area, as Gregory was alleged to have kicked him, while he struggled to escape from the scene. Gombe received thirteen stiches for his wounds. Magistrate Mason Begho found Gregory guilty of assault and resisting arrest and sentenced him to a year in prison or $120 fine, and three strokes of the cane.
This case appeared like a regular story of assault, but it is not. At the center of the entire politics of establishing criminal liability against Gregory was the symbolism of the dog attack in the framing of race relations. In the paper, I use the Gregory vs. Inuwa’s case to engage the intersections of animals and politics of race and nationalism. The critics of colonialism viewed European dogs as another agent in the unfair treatment of Nigerians. Hence, the case was both about the established narratives of colonial violence as well as the involvement of dog in the perpetuation of injustice. I examine how the case was appropriated by the nationalists to further highlight the ills of colonialism in the last decade of British rule in Nigeria.