In the first episode of our history series, we discussed how ethnic cleavages had begun to emerge in early 1940s Nigeria. However, these divisions were by no means insurmountable or inevitable as demonstrated by one of the most successful examples of organized resistance in Nigerian history: the 1945 general strike.
Following World War II, the British faced an upsurge in organized resistance from Nigerians unhappy with the steep rise in living costs that accompanied the wartime economy. Widespread dissatisfaction culminated in a coordinated 37-day general strike in 1945, organized by seventeen labour unions with ethnically-diverse memberships. The strike effectively shut down the colonial economy. It was called-off only after the British agreed to address demands for higher wages. The success of the strike shook the colonial government and made Nnamdi Azikiwe, who had actively supported the workers, a national hero overnight.
One can easily imagine the psychological boost this successful collective action provided not just the unionists, but all those agitating for a greater say in their country’s affairs. Nigerians of various ethnicities had self-organized, collectively stared down their British overlords and emerged triumphant. Faced with such increasingly-coordinated Nigerian resistance and fearing a rise in Soviet-inspired communism within the unions, the British launched a far-reaching programme of socio-economic and constitutional development to pre-empt further radicalization.
Such was the background for the emergence of the Richards’ Constitution of 1947. Named after then Governor-General of Nigeria, Arthur Richards, the constitution was a landmark development, ushering in political regionalism by establishing semi-legislative bodies in each of the three regions – North, East and West. The regional legislatures would then choose from among their members’ representatives to a central legislative council which would, for the first time, see northern and southern Nigerians sitting together in a national political body.
Two aspects of the constitution annoyed all of Nigeria’s nationalist leaders. First, Governor Richards had not sought their opinion in the crafting process, rendering it a completely foreign-imposed constitution. Second, the regional assemblies created were toothless, mere ‘advisory’ bodies with no real legislative powers. While they gave Nigerians little more of an influence in administering their country than previously, southern leaders, however, were divided on other aspects of the constitution.
While Zik criticized it for regionalizing politics in a colonialist effort to prevent the emergence of a pan-Nigerian consciousness, Awolowo, on the contrary, felt it had not gone far enough in acknowledging Nigeria’s ethnic diversity. The Richards’ Constitution was drafted ‘without regard to ethnological factors,’ Awo argued. He wanted a federal constitution, saying each ethnic group ‘no matter how small must be given the opportunity to evolve its own peculiar political institutions and must be autonomous with regard to its own internal affairs.’ Igbos had no business in Yoruba or Fulani affairs and vice versa, was his general position.
In his 1947 book, Path to Nigerian Freedom, Awo declared ‘even as many as 30 to 40 regional Houses of Assembly would not be too many in the future United States of Nigeria.’ Remarkably, this 1947 vision is today’s reality with Nigeria divided into 36 federating units, each with its own House of Assembly. Whether what is in place constitutes a genuinely federalized system is another matter altogether.
While both critical of the Richards’ Constitution, Awo and Zik thus differed on the optimal structuring for Nigeria. While Awo was consistent in his federalist vision, Zik wavered between unitarianism and federalism. In 1943, he advocated dividing Nigeria into eight largely autonomous regions reflecting the ethnic diversity of the country, a federalist stance par excellence. In 1949, Zik went even further, demanding ‘self-determination for the Igbos’ in an ‘Igbo state based on linguistic and ethnic factors’ during a speech often cited by pro-Biafrans today. However, by 1951, Zik had switched to supporting a unitary Nigeria, only to return to federalism by 1954.
While Ahmadu Bello had not yet emerged the dominant voice in northern Nigeria during the Richards’ Constitution era, northern elites supported regionalization with the fallout from the new constitution only strengthening this tendency. As mentioned earlier, the constitution incorporated the North into the central legislature for the first time. Northern elites came face-to-face with the reality their region’s future was linked to the South. Yet they knew northerners lagged behind southerners education-wise as the latter had embraced Western education in contrast to the former.
The Richards’ Constitution was a stark reminder of this reality when it emerged there were not enough qualified northerners to properly represent the region in the national legislature just as there were not enough qualified northerners to run the region’s civil service, staffed mostly by southerners. Believing a centralized system would seal southern domination of their region, northern elites favoured allocating as much power as possible to the regions and as little as possible to a central authority.
At a meeting of the Nigerian Legislative Council in March 1948, Tafawa Balewa, Nigeria’s future first prime minister, expressed northern sentiments at the time in no uncertain terms: ‘Many [Nigerians] deceive themselves by thinking that Nigeria is one, particularly some of the press people…this is wrong. I am sorry to say that this presence of unity is artificial, and it ends outside this chamber…the Southern tribes who are now pouring into the North in ever increasing numbers and are more or less domiciled here do not mix with the Northern people…and we in the North look upon them as invaders.’
Despite the success of Pan-Nigerian resistance efforts like the 1945 general strike, ethno-regional identities solidified and became politically relevant during the 1940s, evidenced by the expansion of ethnic unions. In 1945, Awo co-founded Egbe Omo Odùduwà, an organization fostering Yoruba nationalism. The Igbo Federal Union established a year earlier, had the same objective for Igbos. In the North, the Bauchi General Improvement Union, established in 1943, later morphed into the Northern People’s Congress (NPC) in 1949. However, unlike the strongly pro-independence southern parties, NPC was conservative and not driven by a desire to challenge colonial structures. For most northern leaders, the main enemy was the better-educated condescending southern Nigerian who they felt wished to dominate them, not the British colonialists they considered generally trustworthy.
The major ethnic-group unions all liked the Richards’ Constitution’s regionalism. For starters, the newly-created regional houses of assembly gave them something tangible to fight for in the ‘homeland.’ Moreover, it entrenched the idea of ethnicity as the organizing principle of society, an advantageous development for any ethno-cultural movement.
The atmosphere of the period was perhaps best captured by the ‘Lagos press war’ of 1948 between the Egbe Omo Odùduwà’s mouthpiece, the Daily Service, and Azikiwe’s West African Pilot. At one point, things got so heated, all the cutlasses in Lagos were being bought up and the prospect of Yorubas and Igbos taking it to the streets appeared real. However, this, my dear friends, we shall discuss in the next column. Till then, all the very best!
