‘A people without knowledge of their past history is like a tree without roots,’ said Marcus Garvey, the legendary black-emancipation activist. Nigerian society today resembles the kind of tree Garvey spoke of. Not because Nigerians are allergic to learning history, but because their leaders are averse to teaching it.
After finishing a (good)secondary school in Nigeria, my knowledge of our history was limited to a few calendar events we were made to cram; 1914 -amalgamation of Northern and Southern Nigeria, 1954 – introduction of Lyttleton Constitution,1960– Independence. No critical analysis, however basic, of these major events; just remember the dates and move on. This is no coincidence. Those who run Nigeria often genuinely believe the country’s history is so painful and divisive it is best recalled as briefly and superficially as possible. Deeper discussions only re-open old wounds. January 1966. July 1966. Biafra. Starving children. Slaughtered citizens. Who caused it? You people caused it. No, you people caused it. No, no, let’s just forget the past and focus on the future.
This rationale cannot be so easily dismissed. I understand the fear and logic behind it. In fact, this approach can be plausibly defended as the most responsible one in a polarized society with a traumatic history. The problem, however, is that if a state does not meaningfully educate its citizenry on their history, others, often of an opportunistic bent, will step in to fill that void. After all, anyone with a basic knowledge of propaganda knows that controlling perceptions of the past is the first step to shaping interpretations of the present.
The neglect of in-depth history in Nigeria’s curriculum enables all sorts of conspiratorial gibberish find easy prey on Nigerian social media, age-old Fulani plans for this, Igbo agendas for that, Yoruba desires for what-not. I won’t even talk about the articles I’ve read in major Nigerian newspapers by well-known figures citing ‘quotes’ from Awolowo, Azikiwe or Bello that I cannot for the love of me locate in any credible historical source even though I spent four years gathering every available utterance these men ever made! Over 70 years ago, George Orwell said ‘the very concept of objective truth is fading out of the world. Lies will pass into history.’ The internet has only made things worse in this respect.
However, rather than merely complain, I am hoping a column series based on my doctoral research into Nigeria’s political history leading up till the civil war might prove useful here. Recalling the roots of past ethnic strife, can, at the very least, suggest errors to forgo. It might also help us better understand why the foundations of post-colonial Nigeria have always been so shaky. So, let us start with 1930s Nigeria.
Nationalist beginnings
Although nationalist-minded political movements such as Herbert Macauley’s Nigerian National Democratic Party (NNDP) had been active from the 1920s, the Nigerian Youth Movement (NYM), formally established in 1936, was the first organization to successfully recruit politically-conscious nationalists from various parts of Nigeria. NYM wanted to foster ‘a sense of common nationalism’ among ‘the conglomerate of peoples who inhabit Nigeria.’ Obafemi Awolowo was an early member while Nnamdi Azikiwe joined in 1937. Zik helped broaden NYM’s appeal by popularizing it amongst Igbos through his newspaper, the West African Pilot.
However, while some emphasize NYM’s ‘national’ outlook, it was, in actuality, a predominantly Southern Nigerian movement whose pan-Nigerian message never gained much traction in Northern Nigeria. Historians offer a number of reasons, ranging from low education levels in the region to the combined hostility of its powerful emirs and the British to NYM operating there. Nevertheless, while it is a stretch to characterize NYM as a ‘national’ movement, it did offer promising beginnings, especially as World War II provided favourable conditions for Nigerian nationalism.
Prior to WWII, regular Nigerians were isolated from the outside world. Only a small group had experienced life outside Nigeria, mostly those who had studied in the West. Regular Nigerians, whose contacts with Brits were limited to colonial officials, considered all white people powerful. This changed as Nigerians recruited into Western Allied Forces encountered regular white soldiers who were farmers, traders or even servants back in their countries. Also, Nigerians back home observed regular white soldiers passing through Nigeria, looking quite ordinary and bereft of special privileges. These experiences helped demystify white people, which in turn made the nationalists’ claims that the white man could be chased away from Nigeria more believable to the average Nigerian. Many subsequently joined the independence cause.
However, while NYM agitated for increased rights for Nigerians, personal rivalries intensified within the organization, most consequentially between Azikiwe and Ernest Ikoli, another NYM leader. In 1938, Ikoli had founded the Daily Service, a nationalist newspaper which became direct competition for Azikiwe’s West African Pilot, a fact Zik is said to have strongly resented, especially considering the small reading public back then.
Internal squabbles eventually led to Azikiwe quitting NYM in 1941. In a sign of things to come, Zik accused his rivals of ethnic chauvinism and vice versa. Igbo NYM members stood firmly behind Zik during the conflict and when he left, they went with him. Despite efforts by Awo and others to keep NYM alive and ethnically-diverse, after Zik’s departure, it essentially became a Yoruba-dominated movement that lost any claim to a ‘national’ character.
In 1944, Azikiwe co-founded the National Council for Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC), a new organization uniting various ethnic and trade unions into a political party vowing to achieve independence. Meanwhile, the NYM saga had left a lasting impression on Yorubas in the movement, including Awolowo who suggested the loyalty Igbo NYM members showed Azikiwe in his rivalry with Ikoli (who was from a minority group) stemmed not from ideological, but ethnic, affiliation.
Awo would later use the NYM experience as a justificatory argument for his postulation that Nigeria be a federal rather than centralized unitary state. In his autobiography, he argued federalism was necessary to avoid the country being ‘dominated’ by one ethnic group from the centre. Awo’s other main argument for federalism was that Nigeria’s various groups which he considered nations in of themselves were civilizationally incompatible and should be allowed develop as independently of each other as possible within Nigeria. Zik’s position wavered from initially supporting federalism in the early 1940s to later backing a unitary solution before eventually reverting back to federalism. As for Ahmadu Bello, his views will surface when we arrive in the 1950s which is when he became a prominent voice.
The debate on how Nigeria should be structured has thus been ongoing since the colonial era and is a de-facto discussion on identity by proxy. Who truly belongs where in Nigeria? Who do we consider the most important we? What kind of collectives inhabit Nigeria and how compatible are they? Nearly 60 years after independence, these questions around identity and structuring remain unresolved. It would seem high time some consensus is reached one way or the other. In our next series, we discuss the 1947 Richards’ Constitution and political events following it. Till then, take care folks!
Remi Adekoya
