The principle of Rotary as an organization is that clubs be grouped into districts led by an elected officer, the Governor, for their efficient and effective administration. But a District cannot be created when certain criteria have not been met, such as regards the minimum number of clubs and Rotarians in the geographical territory under consideration.

In Rotary year 1968 – 1969 there existed in our West African region only twenty-one (21) clubs with small numbers of Rotarians in twelve countries, that is seven (7) clubs in Nigeria, four (4) clubs in Ghana, and one in each of the remaining countries. Therefore the region did not qualify to be designated as a Rotary District.  Our clubs were thus described as non-districted clubs. Non-districted clubs existed also in other parts of the Rotary world.  For instance in October 1964, there were sixty (60) non-districted clubs, and one hundred and twenty-seven (127) in April 1973.

Said Rotary International President Luthen H. Hodges (1967 -1968) in his presidential report to the 59^th Annual R.I. Convention in Mexico City, Mexico, 12 – 16 May 1968: “One of the most significant developments of the 1967 – 1968 year, had to do with non-districted clubs. These are clubs, which are not attached to a specific Rotary district and which get no official visits or supervision, and have always posed a problem in administration. Generally speaking these non-districted clubs are in distant places, not easily tied with other clubs” (Convention Proceedings – Mexico 1968). One of the glaring disadvantages was that non- districted clubs could not elect their own delegates to the Council on Legislation. Article IX of the Bye – Laws of Rotary International provides in Section 1(How constituted):

“The Council on Legislation shall be composed as follows: not more than one representative of non – districted clubs to be designated by the President”.

Before taking any action on the subject, President Luthen H. Hodges accompanied by Past Rotary International Director LeRoy William 1^st Vice President of R.I. (1965 – 1966), undertook a four-week African tour of eighteen (18) countries, in which existed non-districted clubs, among which were: Sierra Leone, Benin, Gabon, Cameroon, Niger. The hazards of travelling by air in Africa surprised the Presidential team at the Abidjan (Cote d’Ivoire) airport. There was a long delay of fifteen (15) hours! This delay though was utilized for a fruitful meeting with the members of the Rotary Club of Abidjan.  Also during the waiting time, the Charter of the Rotary Club of Niamey (Niger) was presented by the R.I. President.

As an outcome of these visits, President Hodges succeeded in persuading the R.I. Board to create administrative structures for non-districted clubs. His report at the 59^th R.I. Convention in Mexico City is partly reproduced below.

“Following my trip to certain African countries (mainly to non- districted clubs), I made certain observations and recommendations to the Board, as did my traveling companion former first Vice President Leroy William.”

The Board, at its January 19, 1968 meeting gave much attention to these non – districted clubs and authorized the General Secretary to take action to ensure that all the clubs were either (1) assigned to a regular district or (2) put in an identified group for administrative purposes”.

Hence, in our sub region, the non-districted clubs were placed under the following groups:

• Group E:  Niger, Senegal, Mali, Dahomey, Cote d’Ivoire, Togo
• Group F: Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Ghana
• Group G:  Nigeria (All 8 clubs: Aba, Enugu, Ibadan, Ikeja, Kaduna, Kano, Lagos, Port Harcourt)
• Group H: Cameroun, Central African Republic, Chad, Gabon, Republic of Congo (Congo Kinshasa)

Each group was to be administered by an Administrative Adviser appointed by the R.I. President for a period of one year, with duties similar to those of a District Governor.

Among Rotarians who were appointed to perform this function at that time were Tommy Hope of Freetown (Sierra Leone), Philip Huledey of Kumasi (Ghana), Joe Richards of Monrovia (Liberia) and Anofi Guobadia of Ikeja (Nigeria).

In the eight-year period 1978 – 1986 and particularly from 1982 and into the new millennium, a lot of growth took place in D910. New countries appeared on the West Africa Rotary map.  Rotary extension gained momentum notably in Nigeria as a result of the oil boom. A single Governor could no longer discharge his duties effectively over such a vast geographical territory as D910.  It became obvious that re-districting was the solution.  To that effect a resolution introduced by the Rotary Club of Yaoundé was debated and adopted at the District Conference in 1980. The matter was further considered by clubs as required by the Board of Rotary International. General opinion supported geographical, rather than linguistic criteria.

In 1982 R.I. ceded territory from D910 to form two new Districts – D911 and D915.  District 911 covered the whole of Nigeria, while the clubs in Cameroun and Chad in Group G joined clubs in Administrative Groups H, I, and K to form the new District, D915. Our District 910 was as a result reduced to clubs in countries west of Nigeria. Meanwhile the clubs in Mauritania elected to join the Magrebean District 9010. Happily this loss was compensated by the addition of three countries occasioned by the birth of clubs in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso (1984); Praia, Cape Verde Islands (1992); and Bissau, Guinea Bissau (1992).  There was also intra-country growth in the number of clubs, notably in Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire.

As things turned out in 1982, if Nigeria had not been taken off D910 to be designated D911, Rotarian Prince Julius Adelusi Adeluyi of Nigeria who had already been nominated as candidate Governor for D910 would have become the District Governor of D910 in the Rotary year 1982 -83. The problem was quickly resolved by nominating Emil Carr of the Rotary Club Freetown (Sierra Leone) the District Governor for the 1982 – 1983 Rotary year

With the continuing growth of Rotary in the new District 9100, the same reasons for the creation of Districts 910, 911 and 915 out of D910 in 1973, re-emerged. The District is still too vast for its effective administration by one Governor, because of the perennial difficulties encountered by the succeeding Governors: geographical size, language barriers, communication and transport difficulties, to name a few.  The introduction of the District Leadership Plan by R.I. resulting in the appointment of Assistant Governors to support District Governors does not appear to provide a permanent solution. The need for re-districting therefore once again became an important item on the district agenda.    This issue was debated at the 15^th and 17^th annual District Assemblies and Conferences in Dakar (April 1988) and in Yamoussoukro (April 1990).  A committee was set up headed by PDG Rito Alcantara to study the field and propose solutions.

Three options were eventually suggested to the clubs:

Option 1 – Re-districting by linguistic demarcation: Anglophone and Francophone/Lusophone

Option 2 – Re-districting by geographical demarcation into three (3) multilingual districts.

Option 3 – Re-districting by dividing the district into two halves:

1. 1. Ghana and the countries to its north and east:  Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, and Togo
   2. Cote d’Ivoire and the countries to the west: Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Senegal, Cape Verde.

There, the matter rested until resurrected seven years later at the meeting of Past District Governors (PDG) held on the sidelines of the District Assembly and Conference in Praia, Cape Verde in 2007. The PDGs unanimously agreed to the division of the district as recommended in option 3 of the Rito Alcantara committee’s report, subject to the following changes:

• • Addition of Mali to the Cote d’Ivoire group
  • Decision by all clubs on which of the two groups Burkina Faso would join

The District Governor and subsequent Governors were accordingly assigned responsibility of taking steps to move the re-districting forward by addressing the following specific issues:

• • Organisation of a ballot by all clubs
  • Dissemination of the procedures laid down by RI for re-districting.
  • Early submission of an application to R.I.

It would take another two years before the clubs of the district would formally pass a resolution at the DAC in Lome, Togo on 17 April 2009 to request R.I. to redistrict D9100. Finally, the Board of Directors of Rotary International, at its meeting on 23-28 January 2011 “agreed to reorganize the clubs in District 9100 into two new districts, effective 1 July 2013, as follows:

• • District 9101: Cape Verde, Senegal, Gambia, Mali, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Burkina Faso, and Côte d’Ivoire
  • District 9102: Ghana, Togo, Benin, and Niger

and requested the General Secretary to notify the clubs”

As at 31^st December 2012, the number of Rotary Clubs in the countries of the upcoming District 9101 were 65, while District 9102 had 62. These fall short of the R.I. condition which encourages each district to have at least 75 clubs with a minimum of 2,700 Rotarians. Being well aware of this requirement, clubs have mounted major extension efforts since August 2011, when a Rotary Zone Institute was held in Accra, Ghana, at which the then R.I. President Kalyan Banerjee called for concerted action to grow Rotary membership in Africa.

Today, Rotary District 9102 has ninety (95) clubs in all four  (4) countries with two thousand and four hundred eighty-five (2485) members – five hundred (500) females representing 33.67% and nine hundred and eighty-four males representing 66.26%. Rotarians in Rotary District 9102 continue to increase efforts in eradicating polio; promoting peace; fighting disease providing clean water; saving mothers and children; supporting education and growing local economies.