FIRST REPUBLIC OF NIGERIA

Nigeria’s First Republic came into being on 1 October 1960. The first prime minister of Nigeria, Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, was a northerner and co-founder of the Northern People’s Congress. He formed an alliance with the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons party, and its popular nationalist leader Nnamdi “Zik” Azikiwe, who became Governor Generaland then President. The Yoruba-aligned Action Group, the third major party, played the opposition role.

Workers became increasingly aggrieved by low wages and bad conditions, especially when they compared their lot to the lifestyles of politicians in Lagos. Most wage earners lived in the Lagos area, and many lived in overcrowded dangerous housing. Labor activity including strikes intensified in 1963, culminating in a nationwide general strike in June 1964. Strikers disobeyed an ultimatum to return to work and at one point were dispersed by riot police. Eventually, they did win wage increases. The strike included people from all ethnic groups.Retired Brigadier General H. M. Njoku later wrote that the general strike heavily exacerbated tensions between the Army and ordinary civilians, and put pressure on the Army to take action against a government which was widely perceived as corrupt.

The 1964 elections, which involved heavy campaigning all year, brought ethnic and regional divisions into focus. Resentment of politicians ran high and many campaigners feared for their safety while touring the country. The Army repeatedly deployed to Tiv Division, killing hundreds and arresting thousands of Tiv people agitating for self determination.

Widespread reports of fraud tarnished the election’s legitimacy.Westerners especially resented the political domination of the Northern People’s Congress, many of whose candidates ran unopposed in the election. Violence spread throughout the country and some began to flee the North and West, some to Dahomey.The apparent domination of the political system by the North, and the chaos breaking out across the country, motivated elements within the military to consider decisive action.

Britain maintained its economic hold on the country, through continued alliance and reinforcement of the Northern bloc. In addition to Shell-BP, the British reaped profits from mining and commerce. The British-owned United Africa Company alone controlled 41.3% of all Nigeria’s foreign trade.At 516,000 barrels per day, Nigeria had become the tenth biggest oil exporter in the world.

Military coups

On 15 January 1966, Major Emmanuel Ifeajuna and other junior Army officers (mostly majors and captains) attempted a coup d’état. The two major political leaders of the north, the prime Minister, Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa and the Premier of the northern region, Sir Ahmadu Bello were executed by Major Nzeogwu. Also murdered was Sir Ahmadu Bello’s wife and officers of Northern extraction. Meanwhile, the President, Sir Nnamdi Azikiwe, an Igbo, was on an extended vacation in the West Indies. He did not return until days after the coup. There was widespread suspicion that the Igbo coup plotters had tipped him and other Igbo leaders off regarding the impending coup. In addition to the killings of the Northern political leaders, the Premier of the Western region, Ladoke Akintola and Yoruba senior military officers were also killed. The coup, also referred to as “The Coup of the Five Majors”, has been described in some quarters as Nigeria’s only revolutionary coup. This was the first coup in the short life of Nigeria’s nascent second democracy. Claims of electoral fraud were one of the reasons given by the coup plotters.

This coup was however seen not as a revolutionary coup by other sections of Nigerians , especially in the Northern and Western sections and latter revisioninsts of Nigerian coups, mostly from Eastern part of Nigeria have belatedly maintained to widespread disbelief amongst Western and Southern Nigerians that the majors sought to spring Action Group leaderObafemi Awolowo out of jail and make him head of the new government. From there, they would dismantle the Northern-dominated power structure. However, their efforts to take power were thwarted by Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi, an Igbo and loyalist head of the Nigerian Army, who suppressed coup operations in the South. The majors surrendered, and Aguiyi-Ironsi was declared head of state on 16 January.

Aguyi-Ironsi suspended the constitution and dissolved parliament. He then abolished the regional confederated form of government and pursued unitary like policies heithero favoured by the NCNC, having apparently been influenced by some NCNC political philosophy. He however appointed Colonel Hassan Katsina, son of Katsina emir Usman Nagogo, to govern the Northern Region, indicating some willingness to maintain cooperation with this bloc. He also preferentially released northern politicians from jail (enabling them to plan his forthcoming overthrow).Aguyi-Ironsi rejected a British offer of military support but promised to protect British interests; however … Britain participated in overthrow?

Ironsi fatally did not bring the failed plotters to trial as required by then-military law and as advised by most northern and western officers,rather, coup plotters were maintained in the military on full pay and some were even promoted while apparently awaiting trial. The coup, despite its failure and since no repercussion was meted out to coup plotters and since no significant Igbo political leaders were affected was widely perceived as having benefited mostly the Igbo. Most of the known coup plotters were Igbo and the military and political leadership of Western and Northern regions had been largely bloodily eliminated while Eastern military/political leadership was largely untouched. However Ironsi, himself an Igbo, was thought to have made numerous attempts to please Northerners. The other event that also fuelled the so-called “Igbo conspiracy” was the killing of Northern leaders, and the killing of the Colonel Shodeinde’s pregnant wife by the coup executioners. Despite the overwhelming contradictions of the coup being executed by mostly Northern soldiers (such as John Atom Kpera, later military governor of Benue State), the killing of Igbo soldier Lieutenant-Colonel Arthur Unegbe by coup executioners, and Ironsi’s termination of an Igbo-led coup, the ease by which Ironsi stopped the coup led to suspicion that the Igbo coup plotters planned all along to pave the way for Ironsi to take the reins of power in Nigeria.

Colonel Odumegwu Ojukwu became military governor of the Eastern Region at this time. On 24 May 1966, the military government issued Unification Decree #34, which would have replaced the federation with a more centralised system. The Northern bloc found this decree intolerable.

In the face of provocation from the Eastern media which repeatedly showed humiliating posters and cartoons of the slain northern politicians, on the night of 29 July 1966, northern soldiers at Abeokuta barracks mutinied, thus precipitating a counter-coup, which have already been in the planning stages. The counter-coup led to the installation of Lieutenant-Colonel Yakubu Gowon as Supreme Commander of the Nigerian Armed Forces. Gowon was chosen as a compromise candidate. He was a Northerner, a Christian, from a minority tribe, and had a good reputation within the army.

It seems that Gowon immediately faced not only a potential standoff with the East, but secession threats from the Northern and even the Western region.The counter-coup plotters had considered using the opportunity to withdraw from the federation themselves. Ambassadors from Britain and the United States, however, urged Gowon to maintain control over the whole country. Gowon followed this plan, repealing the Unification Decree, announcing a return to the federal system.

Breakaway

On 27 May 1967, Gowon proclaimed the division of Nigeria into twelve states. This decree carved the Eastern Region in three parts: South Eastern State, Rivers State, and East Central State. Now the Igbos, concentrated in the East Central State, would lose control over most of the petroleum, located in the other two areas.

On 30 May 1967, Ojukwu declared independence of the Republic of Biafra.

The Federal Military Government immediately placed an embargo on all shipping to and from Biafra—but not on oil tankers. Biafra quickly moved to collect oil royalties from oil companies doing business within its borders.When Shell-BP acquiesced to this request at the end of June, the Federal Government extended its blockade to include oil. The blockade, which most foreign actors accepted, played a decisive role in putting Biafra at a disadvantage from the beginning of the war.

Although the very young nation had a chronic shortage of weapons to go to war, it was determined to defend itself. Although there was much sympathy in Europe and elsewhere, only five countries (Tanzania, Gabon, Côte d’Ivoire, Zambia and Haiti) officially recognised the new republic. Britain supplied amounts of heavy weapons and ammunition to the Nigerian side because of its desire to preserve the country it created. The Biafra side on the other hand found it difficult to purchase arms as the countries who supported it did not provide arms and ammunition. The heavy supply of weapons by Britain was the biggest factor in determining the outcome of the war.

Several peace accords, especially the one held at Aburi, Ghana (the Aburi Accord), collapsed and the shooting war soon followed. Ojukwu managed at Aburi to get agreement to a confederation for Nigeria, rather than a federation. He was warned by his advisers that this reflected a failure of Gowon to understand the difference and, that being the case, predicted that it would be reneged upon. When this happened, Ojukwu regarded it as both a failure by Gowon to keep to the spirit of the Aburi agreement, and lack of integrity on the side of the Nigerian Military Government in the negotiations toward a united Nigeria. Gowon’s advisers, to the contrary, felt that he had enacted as much as was politically feasible in fulfillment of the spirit of Aburi. The Eastern Region was very ill equipped for war, outmanned and outgunned by the Nigerians. Their advantages included fighting in their homeland, support of most Easterners, determination, and use of limited resources.

The UK-which still maintained the highest level of influence over Nigeria’s highly valued oil industry through Shell-BP and the Soviet Unionsupported (especially militarily) the Nigerian government.

CIVIL WAR (1967-1970)

The Nigerian Civil War, better known as the Biafran War, (6 July 1967 – 15 January 1970), was a war fought to counter the secession of Biafra fromNigeria. Biafra represented nationalist aspirations of the then Eastern Nigeria now South East and South South regions, whose leadership felt they could no longer coexist with the Northern-dominated federal government. The conflict resulted from political, economic, ethnic, cultural and religious tensions which preceded Britain’s formal decolonisation of Nigeria from 1960 to 1963. Immediate causes of the war in 1966 included a military coup,a counter-coup, and persecution of Igbo living in Northern Nigeria. Control over oil production in the Niger Delta played a vital strategic role.

Within a year, the Federal Military Government surrounded Biafra, capturing coastal oil facilities and the city of Port Harcourt. The blockade imposed during the ensuing stalemate led to severe famine—accomplished deliberately as a war strategy. Over the two and half years of the war, about two million civilians died from starvation and diseases.

This famine entered world awareness in mid-1968, when images of malnourished and starving children suddenly saturated the mass media of Western countries. The plight of the starving Biafrans became a cause célèbrein foreign countries, enabling a significant rise in the funding and prominence of international non-governmental organisations (NGOs). Britain and the Soviet Union were the main backers of the Federal Military Government in Lagos, while France and some independent elements supported Biafra. France and Israel provided weapons to both combatants.

 

THE COUP IN NIGERIA

The coup

Main article: 1966 Nigerian coup d’état

The political unrest during the mid-1960s culminated into Nigeria’s first military coup d’état. On 15 January 1966, Major Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu and his fellow rebel soldiers (most of who were of southern extraction) and were led by Major Emmanuel Ifeajuna of the Nigerian Army, executed a bloody takeover of all institutions of government. Prime Minister Tafawa Balewa, was assassinated along with the premier of Northern Nigeria, strong-man Ahmadu Bello the Sardauna of Sokoto,Samuel Akintola, premier of the West and Festus Okotie-Eboh, the Finance Minister. It is not clear whether President Azikiwe’s life was spared because he was out of the country at the time, or whether he had been informed about the impending coup and was out of the country so that his life could be spared. Major-General Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi took control as the first Head of the Federal Military Government of Nigeria on January 16, 1966.

FIRST REPUBLIC- 1960-1979

Although Nigeria gained independence from Britain on October 1st, 1960, the nation remained a Commonwealth Realm with Elizabeth II as titular head of state until the adoption of a new constitution in 1963 declaring the nation a republic.

The name “Nigeria” is derived from the word “Niger” – the name of the river that constitutes the most remarkable geographical feature of the country. Nigeria is a country of 923,768 square kilometres, bound to the west by Benin, to the north by the Niger and Chad Republic, east by the Republic of Cameroon, and south by the Gulf of Guinea. The country gained independence from the British government on Oct, 1st 1960, and became a republic in 1963. The journey to independence started with some constitutional developments in Nigeria, these constitutional developments saw the country attaining self-rule in some quarters in 1957 and total independence on Oct. 1st 1960.

Presidents during the Nigerian First Republic
President	Term	Party
Nnamdi Azikiwe	October 1, 1963 – January 16, 1966	NCNC

Prime ministers

Prime Ministers during the Nigerian First Republic
Prime Minister	Term	Party
Abubakar Tafawa Balewa	October 1, 1963 – January 16, 1966	NPC

Political parties

• Action Group (AG)
• Borno Youth Movement (BYM)
• Democratic Party of Nigeria and Cameroon (DPNC)
• Dynamic Party (DP)
• Igala Union (IU)
• Igbira Tribal Union (ITU)
• Midwest Democratic Front (MDF)
• National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons/National Council of Nigerian Citizens (NCNC)
• National Independence Party (NIP)
• Niger Delta Congress (NDC)
• Nigerian National Democratic Party (NNDP)
• Northern Elements Progressive Union (NEPU)
• Northern People’s Congress (NPC)
• Northern Progressive Front (NPF)
• Republican Party (RP)
• United Middle Belt Congress (UMBC)
• United National Independence Party (UNIP)
• Zamfara Commoners Party (ZCP)

Politics

The country was split into three geopolitical regions—Western Region,Eastern Region and Northern Region—and its political parties took on the identities and ideologies of each region. The Northern People’s Party (NPC) represented the interests of the predominantly Hausa/Fulani Northern Region, the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC)] (later renamed to “National Council of Nigerian Citizens”) represented the predominantly Igbo Eastern Region, and the Action Group (AG) dominated the Yoruba Western Region. The NPC took control of the federal parliament, and formed a coalition government with the NCNC. The National Independence Party (NIP) formed by Professor Eyo Ita became the second political party in the old Eastern Region. Ahmadu Bello, the Sardauna of Sokoto, leader of the NPC, was poised to become the Prime Minister, but instead he chose to become the Premier of the Northern Region, and supported his deputy Tafawa Balewa’s candidacy for Prime Minister. This raised suspicions amongst the southern politicians, who resented the idea of a federal government controlled by a regional leader through his designated proxy. In the end, Tafawa Balewa of NPC was named Prime Minister and Head of Government, and Nnamdi Azikiwe of NCNC was named President.

At Nigeria’s independence, the Northern Region gained more seats in parliament than both Eastern and Western regions combined—this would cement Northern dominance in Nigerian politics for years to come. Resentment amongst southern politicians precipitated into political chaos in the country. Obafemi Awolowo, Premier of Western Region, was accused of attempting to overthrow the government. This followed a period of conflict between the AG regional government and the central government. In spite of the flimsiness of the evidence presented by the government’s prosecutors, he was convicted. With incarceration of Awolowo, Samuel Akintola took over as the Premier of Western Region. Because Akintola was an ally of Ahmadu Bello, the undisputed strong man of Nigeria, Akintola was criticized as being a tool of the North.As premier of the West, Akintola presided over the most chaotic era in Western Region—one which earned it the nickname “the Wild-Wild West“. However, as late as Thursday, January 13, 1966, Balewa had announced that the federal government was not going to intervene in the West.However, the very next day, Akintola, premier of the West met with his ally Ahmadu Bello, the Sardauna of Sokoto, premier of the North and party boss of NPC party to which Balewa belonged.At the same time a top-level security conference in Lagos was taking place which was attended by most of the country’s senior army officiers. All of this activity created rumors that the Balewa government would be forced to crack down on lawlessness in the West using military might.

INDEPENDENT NIGERIA (1960)

By a British Act of Parliament, Nigeria became an independent country (as a Commonwealth realm) within the Commonwealth on October 1, 1960. Azikiwe was installed as governor-general of the federation and Balewa continued to serve as head of a democratically elected parliamentary, but now completely sovereign, government. The governor-general represented the British monarch as head of state and was appointed by the Crown on the advice of the Nigerian prime minister in consultation with the regional premiers. The governor-general, in turn, was responsible for appointing the prime minister and for choosing a candidate from among contending leaders when there was no parliamentary majority. Otherwise, the governor-general’s office was essentially ceremonial.

The government was responsible to a Parliament composed of the popularly elected 312-member House of Representatives and the 44-member Senate, chosen by the regional legislatures.

In general, the regional constitutions followed the federal model, both structurally and functionally. The most striking departure was in the Northern Region, where special provisions brought the regional constitution into consonance with Islamic law and custom. The similarity between the federal and regional constitutions was deceptive, however, and the conduct of public affairs reflected wide differences among the regions.

In February 1961, a plebiscite was conducted to determine the disposition of the Southern Cameroons and Northern Cameroons, which were administered by Britain as United Nations Trust Territories. By an overwhelming majority, voters in the Southern Cameroons opted to join formerly French-administered Cameroon over integration with Nigeria as a separate federated region. In the Northern Cameroons, however, the largely Muslim electorate chose to merge with Nigeria’s Northern Region.

References

• John M. Carland, The Colonial Office and Nigeria (1985), pp. 1–2. “Crown Colony Government in Nigeria and elsewhere in the British Empire was autocratic government. Officials at the Colonial Office and colonial governors in the field never pretended otherwise. In fact, autocratic, bureaucratic rule was the true legacy of British colonial government in Africa.”
• · Carland (1985), The Colonial Office and Nigeria, p. 48.
• · Robin Hermann, “Empire Builders and Mushroom Gentlemen: The Meaning of Money in Colonial Nigeria”, International Journal of African Historical Studies 44.3, 2011.
• · Ken Swindell, “The Commercial Development of the North: Company and Government Relations, 1900–1906”, Paideuma 40, 1994, pp. 149–162.
• · Carland, The Colonial Office and Nigeria (1985), p. 90.
• · David Richardson, “Background to annexation: Anglo-African credit relations in the Bight of Biafra, 1700–1891”; in Pétré-Grenouilleau, From Slave Trade to Empire (2004), pp. 47–68.
• · See Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations (1776), Vol. 2 p. 112. (Quoted in Richardson, 2004). “Though the Europeans possess many considerable settlements both upon the coast of Africa and in the East Indies, they have not yet established in either of those countries such numerous and thriving colonies as those in the islands and continent of America.”
• · Isichei, A History of Nigeria (1983), p. 362.
• · David Etlis, “African and European relations in the last century of the transatlantic slave trade”; in Pétré-Grenouilleau, From Slave Trade to Empire (2004), pp. 21–46.
• · Randy J. Sparks, The Two Princes of Calabar: An Eighteenth-Century Atlantic Odyssey; Harvard University Press, 2004; ISBN 0-674-01312-3; Chapter 1: “A Very Bloody Transaction: Old Calabar and the Massacre of 1767“.
• · Anietie A. Inyang & Manasseh Edidem Bassey, “Imperial Treaties and the Origins of British Colonial Rule in Southern Nigeria, 1860-1890”, Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences 5.20, September 2014.
• · Asiegbu, Nigeria and its British Invaders (1984), p. xxiii. “After the Abolition Act in 1807 making the trade in African slaves illegal for British subjects, Britain did not stop there: For the next quarter of a century successive British Governments embarked on a kind of aggressive diplomacy, bullying and bribing other European nations, especially Spain and Portugal, to toe the anti-slavery line with England. / On the West African Coast itself British anti-slavery policy became very evident not only in the establishment of the free colony or Settlement of Freetown in Sierra Leone for the recaptives or freed slaves. A detachment of the all-powerful British Navy, the West African naval squadron, was stationed in West African waters to patrol along the coastline and to intercept any slave ships or vessels equipped for the slave trade, and to bring slave vessels captured for trial before British controlled courts in Freetown. At the same time Britain embarked on securing from African rulers, in consideration of payments to these rulers, what became known as anti-slave trade treaties. By these treaties the rulers engaged to stop the traffic in slaves in their respective territories. In the process of enforcing these anti-slave trade policies on the west coast with its powerful navy Britain discovered the military weakness or inferiority of the African states in relation to its own military power.”

CONSTITUTIONAL CONFERENCES IN THE UNITED KINGDOM (1957-1958)

The preparation of a new federal constitution for an independent Nigeria was carried out at conferences held at Lancaster House in London in 1957 and 1958, which were presided over by The Rt. Hon. Alan Lennox-Boyd,M.P., the British Secretary of State for the Colonies. Nigerian delegates were selected to represent each region and to reflect various shades of opinion. The delegation was led by Balewa of the NPC and included party leaders Awolowo of the Action Group, Azikiwe of the NCNC, and Bello of the NPC; they were also the premiers of the Western, Eastern, and Northern regions, respectively. Independence was achieved on October 1, 1960.

Elections were held for a new and greatly enlarged House of Representatives in December 1959; 174 of the 312 seats were allocated to the Northern Region on the basis of its larger population. The NPC, entering candidates only in the Northern Region, confined campaigning largely to local issues but opposed the addition of new regimes. The NCNC backed creation of a midwest state and proposed federal control of education and health services.

The Action Group, which staged a lively campaign, favored stronger government and the establishment of three new states, while advocating creation of a West Africa Federation that would unite Nigeria with Ghana and Sierra Leone. The NPC captured 142 seats in the new legislature. Balewa was called on to head a NPC-NCNC coalition government, and Awolowo became official leader of the opposition.

SELF GOVERNING REGIONS IN NIGERIA (1957)

In 1957 the Western and the Eastern regions became formally self-governing under the parliamentary system. Similar status was acquired by the Northern Region two years later. There were numerous differences of detail among the regional systems, but all adhered to parliamentary forms and were equally autonomous in relation to the federal government at Lagos. The federal government retained specified powers, including responsibility for banking, currency, external affairs, defense, shipping and navigation, and communications, but real political power was centered in the regions. Significantly, the regional governments controlled public expenditures derived from revenues raised within each region.

Ethnic cleavages intensified in the 1950s. Political activists in the southern areas spoke of self-government in terms of educational opportunities and economic development. Because of the spread of mission schools and wealth derived from export crops, the southern parties were committed to policies that would benefit the south of the country. In the north, the emirs intended to maintain firm control on economic and political change.

Any activity in the north that might include participation by the federal government (and consequently by southern civil servants) was regarded as a challenge to the primacy of the emirates. Broadening political participation and expanding educational opportunities and other social services also were viewed as threats to the status quo. An extensive immigrant population of southerners, especially Igbo, already were living in the north; they dominated clerical positions and were active in many trades.

The cleavage between the Yoruba and the Igbo was accentuated by their competition for control of the political machinery. The receding British presence enabled local officials and politicians to gain access to patronage over government jobs, funds for local development, market permits, trade licenses, government contracts, and even scholarships for higher education. In an economy with many qualified applicants for every post, great resentment was generated by any favoritism that authorities showed to members of their own ethnic group.

In the immediate post-World War II period, Nigeria benefited from a favourable trade balance. Although per capita income in the country as a whole remained low by international standards, rising incomes among salaried personnel and burgeoning urbanization expanded consumer demand for imported goods.

In the meantime, public sector spending increased even more dramatically than export earnings. It was supported not only by the income from huge agricultural surpluses but also by a new range of direct and indirect taxes imposed during the 1950s. The transfer of responsibility for budgetary management from the central to the regional governments in 1954 accelerated the pace of public spending on services and on development projects. Total revenues of central and regional governments nearly doubled in relation to the gross domestic product (GDP—see Glossary) during the decade.

The most dramatic event having a long-term effect on Nigeria’s economic development, was the discovery and exploitation of petroleum deposits. The search for oil, begun in 1908 and abandoned a few years later, was revived in 1937 by Shell and British Petroleum. Exploration was intensified in 1946, but the first commercial discovery did not occur until 1956, at Olobiri in the Niger Delta. In 1958 exportation of Nigerian oil was initiated at facilities constructed at Port Harcourt. Oil income was still marginal, but the prospects for continued economic expansion appeared bright and accentuated political rivalries on the eve of independence.

The election of the House of Representatives after the adoption of the 1954 constitution gave the NPC a total of seventy-nine seats, all from the Northern Region. Among the other major parties, the NCNC took fifty-six seats, winning a majority in both the Eastern and the Western regions, while the Action Group captured only twenty-seven seats. The NPC was called on to form a government, but the NCNC received six of the ten ministerial posts. Three of these posts were assigned to representatives from each region, and one was reserved for a delegate from the Northern Cameroons.

As a further step toward independence, the governor’s Executive Council was merged with the Council of Ministers in 1957 to form the all-Nigerian Federal Executive Council. The NPC federal parliamentary leader, Balewa, was appointed prime minister. Balewa formed a coalition government that included the Action Group as well as the NCNC to prepare the country for the final British withdrawal. His government guided the country for the next three years, operating with almost complete autonomy in internal affairs.

THE SECOND WORLD WAR AND AFTER...THE NIGERIAN STORY

During World War II, three battalions of the Nigeria Regiment fought in the Ethiopian campaign. Nigerian units also contributed to two divisions serving with British forces in Palestine, Morocco, Sicily, and Burma, where they won many honors. Wartime experiences provided a new frame of reference for many soldiers, who interacted across ethnic boundaries in ways that were unusual in Nigeria. The war also made the British reappraise Nigeria’s political future. The war years, brought a polarization between the older, more parochial leaders inclined toward gradualism and the younger intellectuals, who thought in more immediate terms.

The rapid growth of organized labour in the 1940s also brought new political forces into play. During the war, union membership increased sixfold to 30,000. The proliferation of labor organizations fragmented the movement, and potential leaders lacked the experience and skill to draw workers together.

The Action Group was largely the creation of Awolowo, general secretary of Egbe Omo Oduduwa and leader of the Nigerian Produce Traders’ Association. The Action Group was thus the heir of a generation of flourishing cultural consciousness among the Yoruba and also had valuable connections with commercial interests that were representative of the comparative economic advancement of the Western Region. Awolowo had little difficulty in appealing to broad segments of the Yoruba population, but he worked to avoid the Action Group from being stigmatized as a “tribal” group. Despite his somewhat successful efforts to enlist non-Yoruba support, the regionalist sentiment that had stimulated the party initially continued.

Segments of the Yoruba community had their own animosities and new rivalries arose. For example, many people in Ibadan opposed Awolowo on personal grounds because of his identification with the Ijebu Yoruba. Despite these difficulties, the Action Group rapidly built an effective organization. Its program reflected greater planning and was more ideologically oriented than that of the NCNC. Although lacking Azikiwe’s compelling personality, Awolowo was a formidable debater as well as a vigorous and tenacious political campaigner. He used for the first time in Nigeria modern, sometimes flamboyant, electioneering techniques. Among his leading lieutenants were Samuel Akintola of Ibadan and the Oni of Ife.

The Action Group consistently supported minority-group demands for autonomous states within a federal structure, as well as the severance of a midwest state from the Western Region. It assumed that comparable alterations would be made elsewhere, an attitude that won the party minority voting support in the other regions. It backed Yoruba irredentism in the Fulani-ruled emirate of Ilorin in the Northern Region, and separatist movements among non-Igbo in the Eastern Region.

The Northern People’s Congress (NPC) was organized in the late 1940s by a small group of Western-educated Northern Nigerians. They had obtained the assent of the emirs to form a political party to counterbalance the activities of the southern-based parties. It represented a substantial element of reformism in the North. The most powerful figure in the party wasAhmadu Bello, the sardauna (war leader) of Sokoto.

Bello wanted to protect northern social and political institutions from southern influence. He insisted on maintaining the territorial integrity of the Northern Region. He was prepared to introduce educational and economic changes to strengthen the north. Although his own ambitions were limited to the Northern Region, Bello backed the NPC’s successful efforts to mobilize the north’s large voting strength so as to win control of the national government.

The NPC platform emphasized the integrity of the north, its traditions, religion, and social order. Support for broad Nigerian concerns occupied a clear second place. A lack of interest in extending the NPC beyond the Northern Region corresponded to this strictly regional orientation. Its activist membership was drawn from local government and emirate officials who had access to means of communication and to repressive traditional authority that could keep the opposition in line.

The small contingent of northerners who had been educated abroad—a group that included Abubakar Tafawa Balewa and Aminu Kano—was allied with British-backed efforts to introduce gradual change to the emirates. The emirs gave support to limited modernization largely from fears of the unsettling presence of southerners in the north, and by observing the improvements in living conditions in the South. Northern leaders committed to modernization were also firmly connected to the traditional power structure. Most internal problems were concealed, and open opposition to the domination of the Muslim aristocracy was not tolerated. Critics, including representatives of the middle belt who resented Muslim domination, were relegated to small, peripheral parties or to inconsequential separatist movements.^[69]

In 1950 Aminu Kano, who had been instrumental in founding the NPC, broke away to form the Northern Elements Progressive Union (NEPU), in protest against the NPC’s limited objectives and what he regarded as a vain hope that traditional rulers would accept modernization. NEPU formed a parliamentary alliance with the NCNC.

The NPC continued to represent the interests of the traditional order in the pre-independence deliberations. After the defection of Kano, the only significant disagreement within the NPC was related to moderates. Men such as Balewa believed that only by overcoming political and economic backwardness could the NPC protect the foundations of traditional northern authority against the influence of the more advanced south.

In all three regions, minority parties represented the special interests of ethnic groups, especially as they were affected by the majority. They never were able to elect sizeable legislative delegations, but they served as a means of public expression for minority concerns. They received attention from major parties before elections, at which time either a dominant party from another region or the opposition party in their region sought their alliance.

The political parties jockeyed for positions of power in anticipation of the independence of Nigeria. Three constitutions were enacted from 1946 to 1954. While each generated considerable political controversy, they moved the country toward greater internal autonomy, with an increasing role for the political parties. The trend was toward the establishment of a parliamentary system of government, with regional assemblies and a federal House of Representatives.

In 1946 a new constitution was approved by the British Parliament atWestminster and promulgated in Nigeria. Although it reserved effective power in the hands of the Governor-General and his appointed Executive Council, the so-called Richards Constitution (after Governor-General Sir Arthur Richards, who was responsible for its formulation) provided for an expanded Legislative Council empowered to deliberate on matters affecting the whole country. Separate legislative bodies, the houses of assembly, were established in each of the three regions to consider local questions and to advise the lieutenant governors. The introduction of the federal principle, with deliberative authority devolved on the regions, signaled recognition of the country’s diversity. Although realistic in its assessment of the situation in Nigeria, the Richards Constitution undoubtedly intensified regionalism as an alternative to political unification.

The pace of constitutional change accelerated after the promulgation of the Richards Constitution. It was suspended in 1950 against a call for greater autonomy, which resulted in an inter-parliamentary conference at Ibadan in 1950. The conference drafted the terms of a new constitution. The so-called Macpherson Constitution, after the incumbent governor-general, went into effect the following year.

The most important innovations in the new charter reinforced the dual course of constitutional evolution, allowing for both regional autonomy and federal union. By extending the elective principle and by providing for a central government with a Council of Ministers, the Macpherson Constitution gave renewed impetus to party activity and to political participation at the national level. But by providing for comparable regional governments exercising broad legislative powers, which could not be overridden by the newly established 185-seat federal House of Representatives, the Macpherson Constitution also gave a significant boost to regionalism. Subsequent revisions contained in the Lyttleton Constitution, enacted in 1954, firmly established the federal principle and paved the way for independence.

COLONIAL LAGOS CIRCA 1910...

In the 1920s, Nigerians began to form a variety of associations, such as professional and business associations, such as the Nigerian Union of Teachers; the Nigerian Law Association, which brought together lawyers, many of whom had been educated in Britain; and the Nigerian Produce Traders’ Association, led by Obafemi Awolowo. While initially organized for professional and fraternal reasons, these were centers of educated people who had chances to develop their leadership skills in the organizations, as well as form broad social networks.

Ethnic and kinship organizations that often took the form of a tribal union also emerged in the 1920s. These organizations were primarily urban phenomena that arose after numerous rural migrants moved to the cities. Alienated by the anonymity of the urban environment and drawn together by ties to their ethnic homelands—as well as by the need for mutual aid—the new city dwellers formed local clubs that later expanded into federations covering whole regions. By the mid-1940s, the major ethnic groups had formed such associations as the Igbo Federal Union and the Egbe Omo Oduduwa (Society of the Descendants of Oduduwa), a Yoruba cultural movement, in which Awolowo played a leading role. In some cases, British assignment of people to ethnic groups, and treatment based along ethnic lines, led to identification with ethnicity where none had existed before.

A third type of organization that was more pointedly political was the youth or student group, which became the vehicle of intellectuals and professionals. They were the most politically conscious segment of the population and created the vanguard of the nationalist movement. Newspapers, some of which were published before World War I, provided coverage of nationalist views.

The 1922 constitution provided Nigerians the chance to elect a handful of representatives to the Legislative Council. The principal figure in the political activity that ensued was Herbert Macauley, often referred to as the father of Nigerian nationalism. He aroused political awareness through his newspaper, the Lagos Daily News. He also led the Nigerian National Democratic Party (NNDP), which dominated elections in Lagos from its founding in 1922 until the ascendancy of the National Youth Movement (NYM) in 1938. His political platform called for economic and educational development, Africanization of the civil service, and self-government for Lagos. Significantly, Macauley’s NNDP remained almost entirely a Lagos party, popular only in the area whose people already had experience in elective politics.

The National Youth Movement (NYM) used nationalist rhetoric to agitate for improvements in education. The movement brought to public notice a long list of future leaders, including H.O. Davies and Nnamdi Azikiwe. Although Azikiwe later came to be recognized as the leading spokesman for national unity, when he first returned from university training in the United States, his outlook was pan-African rather than nationalist, and emphasized the common African struggle against European colonialism. (This was also reflective of growing pan-Africanism among American activists of the time.) Azikiwe had less interest in purely Nigerian goals than did Davies, a student of Harold Laski at the London School of Economics, whose political orientation was considered left-wing.

By 1938 the NYM was agitating for dominion status within the British Commonwealth of Nations, so that Nigeria would have the same status as Canada and Australia. In elections that year, the NYM ended the domination of the NNDP in the Legislative Council and worked to establish a national network of affiliates. Three years later internal divisions arose that were dominated by major ethnic loyalties. The departure of Azikiwe and other Igbo members of the NYM left the organization in Yoruba hands. During World War II, Awolowo reorganized it as a predominantly Yoruba political party, the Action Group. Yoruba-Igbo rivalry became increasingly important in Nigerian politics

EMERGENCE OF SOUTHERN NIGERIAN NATIONALISM

British colonialism created Nigeria, joining diverse peoples and regions in an artificial political entity along the Niger River. The nationalism that became a political factor in Nigeria during the interwar period derived both from an older political particularism and broad pan-Africanism, rather than from any sense among the people of a common Nigerian nationality. The goal of activists initially was not self-determination, but increased participation on a regional level in the governmental process.

Inconsistencies in British policy reinforced existing cleavages based on regional animosities, as the British tried both to preserve the indigenous cultures of each area and to introduce modern technology, and Western political and social concepts. In the north, appeals to Islamic legitimacy upheld the rule of the emirs, so that nationalist sentiments were related to Islamic ideals. Modern nationalists in the south, whose thinking was shaped by European ideas, opposed indirect rule, as they believed that it had strengthened what they considered an anachronistic ruling class and shut out the emerging Westernised elite.

The southern nationalists were inspired by a variety of sources, including such prominent American-based activists as Marcus Garvey and W.E.B. Du Bois. Nigerian students abroad, particularly at British schools, joined those from other colonies in pan-African groups, such as the West African Students Union, founded in London in 1925. Early nationalists tended to ignore Nigeria as the focus of patriotism. Their common denominators tended to be based on newly assertive ethnic consciousness, particularly that of the Yoruba and Igbo. Despite acceptance of European and North American influences, the nationalists were critical of colonialism for its failure to appreciate the antiquity, richness and complexity of indigenous cultures. They wanted self-government, charging that only colonial rule prevented the unshackling of progressive forces in Nigeria and other states.

Political opposition to colonial rule often assumed religious dimensions. Independent Christian churches had emerged at the end of the nineteenth century. European interpretations of Christian orthodoxy in some cases refused to allow the incorporation of local customs and practices, although the various mission denominations interpreted Christianity in different ways. Most Europeans tended to overlook their own differences and were surprised and shocked that Nigerians wanted to develop new denominations independent of European control. Protestant sects had flourished in Christianity since the Reformation; the emergence of independent Christian churches in Nigeria (as of black denominations in the United States) was another phase of this history. The pulpits of the independent congregations became avenues for the free expression of critics of colonial rule.

DEVELOPMENTS IN COLONIAL POLICY UNDER CLIFFORD IN NIGERIA

Flag of British Colonial Nigeria

Lugard’s immediate successor, Sir Hugh Clifford, was an aristocratic professional administrator with liberal instincts who had won recognition for his enlightened governorship of the Gold Coast. The approaches of the two governors to colonial development were diametrically opposed. In contrast to Lugard, Clifford argued that colonial government had the responsibility to introduce as quickly as practical the benefits of Western experience. He was aware that the Muslim north would present problems, but he had hopes for progress along the lines which he laid down in the south, where he anticipated “general emancipation” leading to a more representative form of government. Clifford emphasized economic development, encouraging enterprises by immigrant southerners in the north while restricting European participation to capital intensive activity.

Uneasy with the amount of latitude allowed traditional leaders under indirect rule, Clifford opposed further extension of the judicial authority held by the northern emirs. He said that he did “not consider that their past traditions and their present backward cultural conditions afford to any such experiment a reasonable chance of success.”In the south, he saw the possibility of building an elite educated in schools modeled on a European method (and numerous elite children attended high-ranking colleges in Britain during the colonial years). These schools would teach “the basic principles that would and should regulate character and conduct.” In line with this attitude, he rejected Lugard’s proposal for moving the capital from Lagos, the stronghold of the elite in whom he placed so much confidence for the future.

Clifford also believed that indirect rule encouraged centripetal tendencies. He argued that the division into two separate colonies was advisable unless a stronger central government could bind Nigeria into more than just an administrative convenience for the three regions. Whereas Lugard had applied lessons learned in the north to the administration of the south, Clifford was prepared to extend to the north practices that had been successful in the south. Sir Richmond Palmer, acting as lieutenant-governor in the North, disagreed with Clifford and advocated the principles of Lugard and further decentralisation.

The Colonial Office, where Lugard was still held in high regard, accepted that changes might be due in the south, but it forbade fundamental alteration of procedures in the north. A.J. Harding, director of Nigerian affairs at the Colonial Office, defined the official position of the British government in support of indirect rule when he said that “direct government by impartial and honest men of alien race . . . never yet satisfied a nation long and . . . under such a form of government, as wealth and education increase, so do political discontent and sedition.”

Economics and finance

The British treasury initially supported the landlocked Northern Nigeria Protectorate with grants, totaling £250,000 or more each year.Its revenue quickly increased, from £4,424 in 1901 to £274,989 in 1910. The Southern Protectorate financed itself from the outset, with revenue increasing from £361,815 to £1,933,235 over the same period.

After establishing political control of the country, the British implemented a system of taxation in order to force the indigenous Africans to shift from subsistence farming to wage labor. Sometimes forced labor was used directly for public works projects. These policies met with ongoing resistance

Much of the colony’s budget went to payments of its military, the Royal West African Frontier Force (RWAFF).In 1936, of £6,259,547 income for the Nigerian state, £1,156,000 went back to England as home pay for British officials in the Nigerian civil service.

Oil exploration began in 1906 under John Simon Bergheim’s Nigeria Bitumen Corporation, to which the Colonial Office granted exclusive rights. In 1907, the Corporation received a loan of £25,000, repayable upon discovery of oil. Other firms applying for licenses were rejected. In November 1908, Bergheim reported striking oil; in September 1909, he reported extracting 2,000 barrels per day. However, development of the Nigerian oilfields slowed when Bergheim died in a car crash in September 1912. Lugard, replacing Egerton as governor, aborted the project in May 1913. The British turned to Persia for oil. European traders in Nigeria initially made widespread use of cowrie, which was already valued locally. The influx of cowrie lead to inflation.

INDIRECT RULE IN NIGERIA

Aliyu Babba, the Last Emir of Kano while at exile at Lokoja

The Protectorate was centrally administered by the Colonial Civil Service, staffed by Britishers and Africans called the British Native Staff—many of whom originated from outside the territory. Under the Political Department of the Civil Service were Residents and District Officers, responsible for overseeing operations in each region. The Resident also oversaw a Provincial Court at the region’s capital.

Each region also had a Native Administration, staffed by locals, and possessing a Native Treasury. The Native Administration was headed by the traditional rulers—emirs in the north—and his District Heads, who oversaw a larger number of Village Heads. Native Administration was responsible for police, hospitals, public works, and local courts. The Colonial Civil Service used intermediaries, as the Royal Niger Company had, in an expanded role which included diplomacy, propaganda, and espionage.

Half of all taxes went to the colonial government and half went to the Native Treasury. The Treasury used a planned budget for payment of staff and development of public works projects, and therefore could not be spent at the discretion of the local emir. Herbert Richmond Palmer developed details of this model from 1906–1911 as the governor of Northern Nigeria after Lugard.

In 1916 Lugard formed the Nigerian Council, a consultative body that brought together six traditional leaders—including the Sultan of Sokoto, theEmir of Kano, and the King of Benin—to represent all parts of the colony. The council was promoted as a device for allowing the expression of opinions that could instruct the governor-general. In practice, Lugard used the annual sessions to inform the traditional leaders of British policy, leaving them with no functions at the council’s meetings except to listen and to assent.

Unification meant only the loose affiliation of three distinct regional administrations into which Nigeria was subdivided—northern, western, and eastern regions (see fig. 6). Each was under a lieutenant governor and provided independent government services. The governor was, in effect, the coordinator for virtually autonomous entities that had overlapping economic interests but little in common politically or socially. In the Northern Region,the colonial government took careful account of Islam and avoided any appearance of a challenge to traditional values that might incite resistance to British rule.

This system, in which the structure of authority focused on the emir to whom obedience was a mark of religious devotion, did not welcome change. As the emirs settled more and more into their role as reliable agents of indirect rule, colonial authorities were content to maintain the status quo, particularly in religious matters. Christian missionaries were barred, and the limited government efforts in education were harmonized with Islamic institutions.

In the south, by contrast, traditional leaders were employed as vehicles of indirect rule in EdoLand & Yorubaland, but Christianity and Western education undermined their sacerdotal functions. In some instances, however, a double allegiance—to the idea of sacred monarchy for its symbolic value and to modern concepts of law and administration—was maintained. Out of reverence for traditional kingship, for instance, the Oba of Benin, whose office was closely identified with Edo religion, was accepted as the sponsor of a Yoruba political movement. In the Eastern Region, appointed officials who were given “warrants” and hence called warrant chiefs, were strongly resisted by the people because they lacked traditional claims.

In the early stages of British rule, it is desirable to retain the native authority and to work through and by the native emirs. At the same time it is feasible by degrees to bring them gradually into approximation with our ideas of justice and humanity. . . . In pursuance of the above general principles the chief civil officers of the provinces are to be called Residents which implies one who carries on diplomatic relations rather than Commissioners or Administrators.

 In practice, British administrative procedures under indirect rule entailed constant interaction between colonial authorities and local rulers—the system was modified to fit the needs of each region. In the north, for instance, legislation took the form of a decree cosigned by the governor and the emir, while in the south, the governor sought the approval of the Legislative Council. Hausa was recognized as an official language in the north, and knowledge of it was expected of colonial officers serving there. In the South, only English had official status. Regional administrations also varied widely in the quality of local personnel and in the scope of the operations they were willing to undertake. British staffs in each region continued to operate according to procedures developed before unification. Economic links among the regions increased, but indirect rule tended to discourage political interchange. There was virtually no pressure for greater unity among the regions until after the end of World War II.

Public works, such as harbour dredging and road and railway construction, opened Nigeria to economic development. British soap and cosmetics manufacturers tried to obtain land concessions for growing oil palms, but these were refused. Instead, the companies had to be content with a monopoly of the export trade in these products. Other commercial crops, such as cocoa and rubber, were encouraged, and tin was mined on the Jos Plateau.

The only significant interruption in economic development arose from natural disaster—the great drought of 1913-14. Recovery came quickly and improvements in port facilities and the transportation infrastructure during World War I furthered economic development. Nigerian recruits participated in the war effort as laborers and soldiers. The Nigeria Regiment of the RWAFF, integrating troops from the north and south, saw action against German colonial forces in Cameroon and in German East Africa.

During the war, the colonial government earmarked a large portion of the Nigerian budget as a contribution to imperial defense. To raise additional revenues, Lugard took steps to institute a uniform tax structure patterned on the traditional system that he had adopted in the north during his tenure there. Taxes became a source of discontent in the south, however, and contributed to disturbances protesting British policy. In 1920 portions of former German Cameroon were mandated to Britain by the League of Nations and were administered as part of Nigeria.

Until he stepped down as governor-general in 1918, Lugard primarily was concerned with consolidating British sovereignty and with assuring local administration through traditional leaders. He was contemptuous of the educated and Westernised African elite found more in the South, and he recommended transferring the capital from Lagos, the cosmopolitan city where the influence of these people was most pronounced, to Kaduna in the north. Although the capital was not moved, Lugard’s bias in favor of the Muslim north was clear at the time. Lugard bequeathed to his successor a prosperous colony when his term as governor-general expired.The policy of indirect rule used in Northern Nigeria became a model for British colonies elsewhere in Africa.

 

AMALGAMATION OF SOUTHERN AND NORTHERN NIGERIA, 1914

Amalgamation of Nigeria was envisioned from early on in its governance, as is made clear by the report of the Niger Committee in 1898. Combining the three jurisdictions would reduce administrative expenses and facilitate deployment of resources and money between the areas. (Specifically it would enable direct subsidy of the less profitable Northern jurisdiction.) Antrobus, Fiddes, and Strachey in the Colonial Office promoted amalgamation, along with Lugard.

Following the order recommended by the Niger Committee, the Colonial Office merged Lagos Colony and the Southern Nigeria Protectorate on May 1, 1906, forming a larger protectorate (still called the Southern Nigeria Protectorate) which spanned the coastline between Dahomey and Cameroon.

Lugard advocated constantly for unification of the whole territory, and in August 1911 the Colonial Office asked Lugard to lead the amalgamated colony.

In 1912, Lugard returned to Nigeria from his six-year term as Governor of Hong Kong, to oversee the merger of the northern and southern protectorates. On May 9, 1913, Lugard submitted a formal proposal to the Colonial Office in which Northern and Southern provinces would have separate administrations, under the control of a “strongly authoritarian” governor-general. The Colonial Office approved most of Lugard’s plan, but balked at authorizing him to pass laws without their approval. John Anderson diplomatically suggested:

If it is the necessity for formally submitting the drafts that hurts Sir F. Lugard, I should be quite prepared to omit that provision provided that the period of publication of the draft prior to enactment is extended from one month to two. If an eye is kept on the Gazettes as they come in this will enable us to warn him of any objections we may entertain to legislative proposals, and also give Liverpool and Manchester an opportunity of voicing their objections.

The task of unification was achieved on the eve of World War I. From January 1914 onwards, the newly united colony and protectorate was presided over by a proconsul, who was entitled the Governor-General of Nigeria. The militias and RWAFF battalions were reorganized into the RWAFF Nigeria Regiment.

Lugard’s governmental model for Nigeria was unique and there was apparently not much planning for its future development. Colonial official A. J. Harding commented in 1913:

Sir F. Lugard’s proposal contemplates a state which it is impossible to classify. It is not a unitary state with local government areas but with one Central Executive and one Legislature. It is not a federal state with federal Executive, Legislature and finances, like the Leewards. It is not a personal union of separate colonies under the same Governor like the Windwards, it is not a Confederation of States. If adopted, his proposals can hardly be a permanent solution and I gather that Sir F. Lugard only regards them as temporary—at any rate in part. With one man in practical control of the Executive and Legislative organs of all the parts, the machine may work passably for sufficient time to enable the transition period to be left behind, by which time the answer to the problem—Unitary v. Federal State—will probably have become clear.

The Colonial Office accepted Lugard’s proposal that the governor not be required to stay in-country full-time; consequently, as governor, Lugard spent four months out of the year in London. This scheme proved unpopular and confusing to many involved parties and was phased out.