Last series, we discussed the controversial 1953 self-government motion which almost led to northern secession from Nigeria. Today, we’ll look at what drove the politics of the late 1950s.
For most of 1955 and 1956, Nigeria’s leaders focused on preparing for the upcoming 1957 constitutional conference scheduled to discuss the hows and whens of independence. However, ethnic animosities were never far below the surface. In a 1955 memo to Alan Lennox-Boyd, secretary of state for the colonies, Bryan Sharwood-Smith, the British governor-general of Northern Nigeria, stated:
“It is appropriate to record the increasing tendency of many ministers, and particularly Premier Ahmadu Bello to indulge in anti-Southern diatribes on the one hand and to evidence a narrowing and more militant Islamic outlook on the other. This despite repeated reminders that a Southern exodus would result in total collapse and that one sure way of ensuring this is rabid racialism, particularly when this is combined with acute religious intolerance.”
The “anti-Southern diatribes” were particularly vicious towards Igbos. Reporting on sentiments in Bello’s Northern People’s Congress (NPC) party towards southerners later that year, Sharwood-Smith stated that, “while there is deep dislike and suspicion for the Action Group and all its works, the Yorubas, as a race, are not unpopular. On the other hand, the northerner’s feeling for the Ibo borders on detestation….it is a situation which must always contain the seeds of violence.”
In a 1955 memo sent to London, James Robertson, the governor-general of Nigeria, also noted northern anti-Igbo sentiments:
“My brief tour of the Northern Region left me in little doubt that Northerners are bitterly opposed to the Ibo in general and [Azikiwe’s] NCNC in particular. Every Northern minister with whom I discussed the North versus South issue has emphasized his fear of Ibo infiltration. They have much less fear of the West and seem to think that they can easily come to terms with the Action Group and the Yoruba. Possibly this feeling is based partly upon the fact that many Yorubas are Moslems.”
Read Also: The 1951 elections: How Awolowo forced Azikiwe out of western Nigeria
However, while Yorubas per se were not disliked by NPC members the way Igbos were, their attitudes towards Awolowo’s Action Group would soon become increasingly hostile. This was due to Awo’s aggressive agitation for the half-a-million Yorubas living in areas like Ilorin to be incorporated into the western region, in a bid to reduce the north’s numerical and territorial advantage.
A 1956 Times editorial noted Awo touring Ilorin “advocating its secession from the North so Yorubas could join their ‘kith and kin’ in the West.” The editorial noted Awo “was enthusiastically applauded. He has gained considerable personal ascendancy through addressing the Ilorin masses, who understand only Yoruba, whereas the normal language of NPC leaders is Hausa.”
Awo’s party devoted significant resources persuading not just Ilorin Yorubas but other minorities in the lower north as well to agitate for secession from the region, vexing Bello and subsequently rendering Action Group his main political enemy.
While Bello and many of his party colleagues personally despised Igbos, they considered Awo and his Yoruba-dominated party to be the bigger political threat to their interests. By 1956, Nigeria’s regional governments were “hopelessly at odds” and treated each other “with a mutual aloofness reminiscent of Russia and the United States at the height of the Cold War,” wrote Observer. “Bello makes no bones about the contempt he feels for both his adversaries – Awolowo and Azikiwe – in the South,” it added.
The 1957 constitutional conference granted both the east and west full regional self-government, while the north opted to wait till 1959. Again, population numbers played the deciding role in structuring the political centre. It was agreed, seats to the House of Representatives would be allocated per capita: approximately 1 representative per 100,000 people. This meant the north would be entitled to 174 of 312 seats in the House of Representatives.
However, as independence approached, minority groups in all three regions intensified separatist agitations. In their eyes, the major parties were all controlled by the dominant ethnic groups in their region; they feared independence from colonial rule would amount to the replacement of British overlords with Yoruba, Igbo and Hausa-Fulani overlords. The growing ethnic nationalism within these major groups, visible in organisations like the Egbe Omo Odùduwà and Igbo State Union, hardly served to reassure them.
Bello was categorical on the issue of separatism in his region, saying he would not part with “an inch” of northern territory. Southern politicians were more ambiguous. In principle, they supported the reorganisation of Nigeria into a larger number of states based on ethnic criteria. However, once their parties captured control of their regions, NCNC and AG leaders were reluctant for new states to emerge from territory under their control. Instead, they actively supported separatism in their rivals’ regions.
In response to agitations, a Minorities Commission was established in 1957 to address minority fears and demands for state creation. The commission eventually recommended against creating new states, arguing this would trigger the fragmentation of Nigeria along ethnic lines. Bello’s NPC welcomed the decision. It left the north intact, larger and more populated than both southern regions combined.
Awo was predictably critical, stating “the fundamental cause of minority fears which the commission had missed was the dictatorial and totalitarian tendencies inherent in the characteristics of certain majority ethnic groups in the country.”
Read Also: Why Ahmadu Bello called Nigeria a “mistake”
To be clear, by “certain groups”, Awo was referring to Hausa-Fulanis. Meanwhile, Zik and his NCNC party argued independence was the overriding goal and everything else could wait. “Let us get our independence first, we’ll sort out our differences later,” was their general stance.
Bello’s NPC was now well-positioned to capture power at the centre after independence. Based on the north’s 174 share of 312 constituencies, NPC could end up controlling a majority in Nigeria’s national assembly without having to win a single constituency in the south! The British were not oblivious to the risks involved in such a scenario. In 1958, Governor-General Robertson wrote London, stating:
“Perhaps the single biggest drawback to a strong Nigeria is the fact that the Sardauna – Bello – is the undisputed head of the NPC and because of this is probably the most powerful political figure in Nigeria. But his interest very much lies where his own office lies – in the Northern Region – and he tends to think of the federal government, in so far as he thinks of it at all, as a rather distasteful agency in Lagos which fortunately is run by a Northerner, but which must be kept in its place for the benefit of the North.”
But by now, the divided Nigerian ship had set sail. An independence date had been agreed, and Bello’s NPC was in prime position to politically dominate once that happened. Perhaps we shall stop there for today.
Next series, we’ll discuss Awo’s increasingly desperate last-minute warnings against the British leaving with the north in such a dominant position and his argument that “there is more in common between a Greek man and a British man than there is between a Sokoto man and an Ijaw man.”
We shall also discuss the 1959 elections which decided Nigeria’s first independent government. Till then, take care folks!
REMI ADEKOYA
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