Category: Thursday

Politics in Nigeria since independence has largely been devoid of ideology. When the Action Group party in opposition after independence claimed rather unconvincingly that it has embraced the political philosophy of democratic socialism, the NCNC, junior partner in the federal coalition government replied comically that its own philosophy was “pragmatic socialism”. Chief 04Remi Fani-Kayode, former leader of the NCNC in Western Nigeria after forming a new party with Chief S.L Akintola following the break-up of the Action Group shocked many people when he proclaimed that he believed in National Socialism, some kind of a black Nazi party. Chief Akintola in all these kept quiet because to him party ideology was secondary to inclusive political participation at the federal level. As a realist he knew that ethnic alliance and alignment were the rule rather than the exception in governing a pluralist and largely uneducated country like Nigeria. He was not too happy about the self isolation that the Action Group imposed on itself and that this was neither in the interest of the Yoruba people nor in the interest of Nigeria itself. The federal government from 1957-1965 was therefore largely an alliance between the Igbo-dominated NCNC and the Hausa-Fulani NPC to the exclusion of the Yoruba people. Chief Akintola had made his views known to Chief Obafemi Awolowo, his party leader that the Yorubas could not rule Nigeria alone even with the support of the northern and southern minorities which Chief Awolowo cultivated. In most cases this support was bought by the generous financial inducement of their leaders by the Action Group relying on large financial reserves of the Western Nigeria Marketing Board. It was largely because of these differences in strategy and not in goal that bedevilled the relation between the leader and his deputy. Of course there were other reasons such as the ambition of some of Awolowo supporters like Anthony Enahoro, Samuel Grace Ikoku and Joseph Tarka. When crisis eventually ensued in the Action Group between 1961 and 1962, these minority leaders stoked the fire of division in the party. Ironically the three of them were to desert Chief Awolowo political party to team up with NPN in 1979, the party of the northerners, the same northerners they crucified Chief Akintola for associating with.

Since Chief Akintola was murdered, numerous events have occurred to provide us with material for a reassessment of what the man stood for in Nigerian politics and to judge whether or not some of his ideas have become in some way acceptable. The regime of Major-General Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi swept aside the coup d’état of Majors Chukwumah Nzeogwu, Onwuatuegwu of the Military Training College, Kaduna, Major Ifeajuna, the Brigade Major at Second Headquarters, Apapa, Lagos, Majors Chukuka and Anuforo of the Army Headquarters, Lagos, Major Ademoyega and Captain Oji of the Army Headquarters in Lagos, Captains Gbulie and Ude in Kaduna and Nwobosi in Abeokuta. After consolidation of all powers into his hands, Ironsi tried to impose a unitary form of government on Nigeria in January 1966 with mixed results. The reason for the imposition of a unitary form of government was two-fold. First, there was tremendous public enthusiasm for this after the coup d’etat and secondly, the army by tradition was used to a uniform chain of command. This choice of a unitary form of government reversed the political trend in Nigeria towards federalism, begun in 1939 when the country was formally divided into three administrative regions: the North, the East and the West. Many people in Nigeria, particularly university students and staff, felt that the problems in Nigeria were caused by the exclusive regionalism which had led to people being treated as foreigners, especially in terms of employment as soon as they were out of their regions of origin. This had in fact been carried beyond the extreme in Northern Nigeria where Pakistani and Indian professionals were given preference over southerners in the schools and in the civil service. The reason for this kind of action by northern politicians was the fear of disloyalty on the part of their politically astute southern compatriots, whereas foreigners were less likely to be involved in politics and more likely to be motivated only by monetary rewards.

The northern fear of being taken over by an army of southern bureaucrats was exploited by northern politicians who saw the pattern of killing of civilians and senior military officers during the coup d’état of January 1966 as being heavily weighted against northern and western interests. This assessment culminated in the counter-coup of July 1966 during which northern officers and enlisted men struck back, sometimes with savagery to equal the score. The rest of what followed is history. The northerners seriously contemplated secession, an event that took Nigeria back to the situation of 1953, but wise counsel prevailed for a brief period at least. Ominous rioting broke out during the middle and latter part of the year 1966, leading to widespread murder of innocent people from Eastern Nigeria in the North. Even though many individual northerners, at the risk of losing their lives tried to prevent the mass hysteria and murder. The wound inflicted on Nigerian unity became almost fatal with the result that by July 1967 what later developed into the Biafra-Nigerian Civil War began, first as a police operation and later a full military action by Nigerian military authorities. This tragedy which attracted considerable international attention, some well-meaning but to a large extent designed to destabilise the most populous and important country in black Africa, did not end until early 1970. By that time, some constitutional changes had taken place in Nigeria either by pure design or, what is more likely, as a result of the pressure of the war and because the military leadership of Nigeria during the war was not unmindful of the political aspirations of which the famous Willink Commission’s Report of 1958 had taken note but had not been able to satisfy fundamentally.

The July coup of 1967 which swept the then Lt Colonel Yakubu Gowon into power also saw the release of Chief Obafemi Awolowo, the jailed leader of Action Group, and his lieutenants. This single political action in retrospect contributed to the success of federal army over the secessionist Biafran forces. With Awolowo out of prison, the Yoruba along with their compatriots in the North, East, and the Mid-West were mobilised to deal with the Eastern secession. This would have been impossible if Gowon had not brilliantly read and discerned the mind of the Yoruba. The war also saw the growth in influence of Chief Obafemi Awolowo’s ideas, particularly about the creation of states. Twelve states were therefore created in 1967 to accommodate the yearnings and aspirations of minorities, and also to undermine the solidarity of the East, which was then divided into East Central State (mainly Igbo), a separate Rivers State, and South-Eastern State, incorporating the areas previously referred to as Calabar-Ogoja-Rivers  (COR). The North, which had always appeared to be a political albatross weighing down the southern regions, was split into Kwara, North-Eastern, North Central, North Western, Benue-Plateau, and Kano states. With this fragmentation, the political dynamite of one single region lording it over the rest was defused. On February 3, 1976, seven more states were created by General Murtala Ramat Mohammed to make up a 19-state federation. Babaginda and Abacha added to this fragmentation of Nigeria until we arrived at a 36 states structure, with Abuja being more or less a state. With the creation of these states, Nigeria seems to have settled down, and the politics of ethnic chauvinism, even though still apparent, has been replaced by politics of state solidarity.

In spite of Awolowo’s opposition, even the culturally homogenous Yoruba and the Igbo have been further split into smaller states. Chief Awolowo had always believed that states should be created on an ethnic basis and that there was no point in splitting homogenous states. But if carried to its logical conclusion, it would have been impossible to satisfy the separate identities of the more than 250 linguistic groups which inhabit Nigeria. What is of interest here is the fact that the Yoruba now find themselves in six states and a large number live and form the majority in Kwara. And yet another Yoruba group constitute a minority in Kogi.

The political intervention of the British led to the emergence of the Nigerian state as we know it today; but even more relevant for our present purpose was the Christian Missionary proselytisation of Southern Nigeria, on the one hand, and the Islamic revival and revolution of the late 18th and 19th centuries on the other. In the case of the Christian missionary impact on Southern Nigeria, the society underwent considerable change, not only in beliefs but also in lifestyle and world-view. Christian missions provided Nigerians with the opportunity to acquire a Western education and a window through which to see other civilisations, but most of all, it led to the growth of educated, Western-oriented elite which would demand the application of all the basic tenets of liberalism in the conduct of Nigerian affairs. The missionary factor in modern Nigeria was first perceived in Yoruba and Efik and later in Igbo areas. The result of this gradual penetration was that the Western-educated elite emerged first in areas where the missionary impact had been greater and more sustained. By the early 1890s, there were Yoruba lawyers, doctors, and other Western-educated men, some of whom were indigenous Yoruba, others the children of repatriated slaves from the New World, particularly Brazil, and also from Sierra Leone.

The point to note is that by dint of an earlier Christian proselytisation, the Yoruba had a head start in the acquisition of Western education and all its consequences. Up to the 1920s, therefore, nationalist agitation for improvement of the African condition was led and completely dominated by the Yoruba and a few Efik, Izon (Ijo) and Itshekiri people. The Igbo did not become a factor in Nigerian nationalism until the arrival of Nnamdi Azikiwe in 1937 from America, where he had trained as a journalist and a political scientist. With his arrival in Nigeria and founding of his newspaper business, Azikiwe was able to fire the imagination of his people and mobilise them to catch up with the Yoruba with regard to Western education, but unlike most of the Yoruba, this goal was sometimes achieved by a community effort. Members of certain villages or clans usually collected money to send ambitious and brilliant young men to the United States or Britain in search of the “Golden Fleece”. This practice, which was widespread in the Eastern part of Nigeria, meant that when the young men returned to Nigeria after their studies, they would be obliged to return the favour of their people either by directly repaying the union that sent them, or by using their newly acquired status or position to somehow advance the cause of the clan or ethnic group. In a pluralist society such as Nigeria, this payment of an educational debt through favouritism and jobbery to one’s own ethnic group was to exacerbate inter-ethnic rivalry if not antagonism.

Most of the Yoruba student, by contrast, did not have to rely on his village or town to send him to London or New York because in many cases the parents concerned were involved in import-export trade or in the cocoa industry and were therefore able to pay the way of their children. Furthermore, with Lagos being the administrative and commercial capital of Nigeria, opportunities did exist for quick profit and subsequent capital accumulation by the indigenous entrepreneurs. Sometimes too, the missionary societies which had their headquarters in Yoruba land were able to aid students in their aspirations toward Western education without their having to rely on a communal financial levy.

The case of Northern Nigeria was different. While the Igbo people by the 1940s were trying to catch up with the Yoruba educationally, Northern Nigeria, for historical and religious reasons, continued to lag behind. With the revival of militant Islam and the founding of the Sokoto caliphate in the 19th century by Usman dan Fodiyo, his son, Sultan Mohammed Bello, and his brother, Abdullahi dan Fodiyo, Islam, which had been in a state of decline since the 15th century in Northern Nigeria, revived vigorously. The frontier of Islam continued to expand throughout the 19th century into the Yoruba country and even to Lagos. By the time of the advent of the British in Lagos in 1861, Islam was already a force to be reckoned with in Yoruba land, particularly among the Oyo, Egba, Ijebu, and what later became the Lagos colony areas. Western education was associated with Christian evangelisation. Yet the British colonial regime in Nigeria was not particularly interested in spreading Western education anywhere in Nigeria. For administrative convenience, peace and security, the British under Lugard discouraged Christian evangelisation in the Muslim areas of Northern Nigeria. It is therefore understandable that Northern Nigeria lagged behind the rest of the country in terms of educational advancement. This regional disparity in education resulted in a different attitude towards colonialism by the various peoples in Nigeria. While the Yoruba and the Igbo were impatient and anxious to secure political autonomy as soon as possible, because they felt they were ready educationally, the Hausa-Fulani and Kanuri bided their time and did not want to be rushed into taking what they regarded as a leap in the dark. Western education, when it finally was allowed in the North, was officially funnelled through the so-called Nassarawa schools for the education of sons of Emirs and the Masu Sarauta in the science of administration and local government. Even when the Katsina College was to be elevated in 1930 to a higher status along the lines of the Yaba Higher College, the plan was dropped, ostensibly because of insufficiency of funds and to avoid duplication, but primarily because the British thought otherwise. As a consequence, the Southern and Northern Nigerians were first educated together at the Yaba Higher College, despised by the nationalists because what they wanted was a full university. Lagos as a city was not particularly popular with the British who dissuaded Northerners from coming there.

Lagos in the 1930s was a sleepy old African city which the British colonial administrators were trying to upgrade to the status of a federal capital. Since the old city itself could not be developed, considerable amounts of money were spent on the outlying Ikoyi plains from 1920 onwards. It was in Ikoyi that the Britons lived, in what was the equivalent of the quartier blanc (white area) in French West Africa. The discrimination implicit in segregation did not go unnoticed by the educated Africans and they certainly made sure that in their newspapers one of which was edited by Ladoke Akintola, the British were told about how galling it was for Africans to pay cost of segregated quarters for whites in an African city. It was no secret that European administrators did not like educated Africans, those who were described by Edward Lugard, Sir Frederick’s brother and political secretary as “trousered Niggers”, and it would likely be just as correct to say that nationalism, whether African, Indian, or West Indian, developed mainly as a reaction to the covert and overt racism that go with colonialism.

This was the social situation of Lagos into which young Ladoke Akintola moved in 1930 as a pupil-teacher at the Baptist Academy. The substance of his politics was already present in the ethnic rivalry between the Igbo and the Yoruba, the political rivalry between conservative and traditionalist Northern Nigerians and the impatient and sometimes unrealistic Southern Nigerians and also in the sharpening racial antagonism between the ruler and the ruled, the African and the European. Akintola’s life from 1910 until his assassination in the coup d’état of 1966 encompasses the attempts of Akintola and other nationalists to cope with the forces and the effects of colonialism in Africa in general and Nigeria in particular, and the challenges and eventual failure of the first years of African independence.