By ONU JOHN ONWE
The history of Nigeria is a cocktail of comedy of errors if not tragic errors. British creation of Nigeria is a deliberate error. Britain persevered in its creation and sustenance not because it was the right thing to do for the people but because it suited its selfish interests.
But the creation of Nigeria would have been a comedy of errors the resolution of which would have ended well if only the people for whose benefit it was created had through their leaders accepted that fact and worked to turn the errors into a workable and beneficial proposition.
But they did not. In 1947, Tafawa Balewa had warned against continuing Nigeria British experiment. In 1953 Nigeria’s irreconcilable differences hit the nationalist leaders on their faces, Ahmadu Bello had exclaimed that the “mistake of 1914 has come to light.” Even before 1953.
Obafemi Awolowo had sounded a note of caution that Nigeria being a mere geographic expression would like Italy which Metternich had described using that phrase needed great dose of national nurturing and good faith to succeed.
But Azikiwe bought the British illusion and never looked before leaping and he plunged the Igbo into the bottomless abyss of boiling cauldron of tribalism, hatred, violence and death.
And the Igbo have been the losers. By 1930s, Nigerian politics was bracing up for the incipient nationalism taking root in Lagos, Nigeria’s colonial capital. Most of the nationalist leaders were southern educated people.
These educated élites formed themselves as Lagos Youth Movement. With time, it transformed as Nigeria Youth Movement (NYM). The majority of members were Yoruba and Igbo.
The return of Nnamdi Azikiwe in early 1930s and his establishment of the West African Pilot newspaper which promoted nationalist activities bolstered his nationalist credentials. Azikiwe and Awolowo were members of Nigeria Youth Movement.
But in 1941, a vacancy in Lagos Legislative Council needed to be filled and two NYM members, Ernest Ikoli, an ethnic Ijaw from Eastern Nigeria and Samuel Akinsanya, an ethnic Ijebu-Yoruba indicated interest, Azikiwe supported Samuel Akinsanya, while majority of Yoruba including Awolowo supported Ernest Ikoli.
Ordinarily, this minor problem would have been sorted out amicably but that was not the case as it ballooned to a big political problem which ended up scattering the NPM. Historian Samuel Crowder reports that Samuel Akinsanya was rejected by Yoruba NYM members because of traditional dislike for the Ijebu by other Yoruba which angered Azikiwe.
As a result the party was weakened specifically when Azikiwe left with substantial number of his supporters to joined Herbert Macaulay to form the National Council of Nigeria and Cameroon in 1944 with Macaulay as president while Azikiwe became secretary.
The formation of this nationalist political party, the NCNC was a political catalyst that became a joker to British colonial enterprise. Britain had no answer or antidote to the broad nationalism it unfurled.
Two years after when the party, due to its peculiar formative structural weaknesses and poor leadership was not measuring to Nigerians’ expectations especially after its disastrous 1945 London Delegation, Nigerian youths led by Kola Balogun, Abiodun Aloba, Nduka Eze and MCK Ajuluchukwu on February 16, 1946 formed the Zikist Movement to support and bolster the nationalist agitation for independence as championed by Azikiwe’s NCNC.
From 1946, this nationalist youth organisation virtually took over the organization and agitation for independence that Britain virtually lost its bearing in colonial administration, coherent decolonisation policies and everything else. This Zikist Movement lived to its mission of assisting NCNC to get independence from Britain without conditions.
NCNC exclipsed every other political party, political groups and politicians as it virtually sucked up vital and creative forces of Nigerian society what with its core membership comprising 101 tribal unions, two trade unions, two regional political parties, four literary associations, eleven social clubs among others.
It was a behemoth. As said before, Britain had no answer to these magnificent political formation and mobilisation championed by NCNC and the Zikist Movement, especially given that it had not set in motion its neo-colonial agenda whereas it had kick-started its decolonisation process which at that stage cannot be reversed. So every political force was quietened by the incontrovertible dominance of the NCNC and the Zikist Movement over Nigeria.
Realizing the potency of the nationalist fervor and unbreakable spirit of NCNC and the Zikist Movement, Governor John Macpherson newly posted from Sudan having completed laying down Sudan’s decolonization policies and processes changed course from Governor Arthur Richard’s combative posture to conciliation and accommodation.
Governor Macpherson called Azikiwe, the very target Britain must demolish to realise its neocolonial agenda. Governor Macpherson told Azikiwe that the British Nigeria colonial entity was his inheritance if only he could. But Azikiwe bought the British illusion and never looked before leaping and he plunged the Igbo into the bottomless abyss of boiling cauldron of tribalism, hatred, violence and death quieten the drum of war his NCNC and the Zikist Movement were beating. To prove British colonial authority’s good faith, Governor Macpherson immediately appointed Azikiwe into Nigeria Colonial Education parastatal.
Azikiwe believed Macpherson and worked to tone down his nationalist activities but he never confided in his party leaders and the Zikist Movement. In 1948, the NCNC adopted its Kaduna Freedom Charter with its concomitant call for ‘Positive Action’ in furtherance of realisation of independence in early 1950.
So, on 27 October, 1948, the Zikist Movement in translating NCNC ‘Freedom Charter’ into positive action organised a lecture entitled, “A call for Revolution” in Lagos with Azikiwe as a Guest of Honour. Azikiwe dodged the lecture but the Zikists nevertheless went on with the lecture with Anthony Enahoro as the chairman of the occasion. The Zikists having held the lecture in defiance of Nigerian colonial authority’s ban on the lecture were rounded up, arrested and tried for sedition and treason.
The following: Anthony Enahoro, Osita Agwuna, Ralph Aniedobe, Ogoegbuna, Duke Dafe, Oged Macaulay, Raji Abdallah, Smart Ebbi, Fred Anyiam, Nasasu Amosu, Ikenna Nzimiro, Bob Ogbuagu, Adina Nwana, Omo Igio, Onyefusi Nsuebo, Peter Osugo, Julius Ntoop, Martin Onaiyekan, Paul Maijeh, and other were victims. Upon the arrest of these youthful nationalists who had sacrificed their youthful energy and resources in support of NCNC and Azikiwe, Azikiwe disowned them and dismissed them as “fissiparous lieutenants” and “cantankerous followers.”
They were all convicted and senesced to varying prison terms. Knowing that Azikiwe has successfully detached this revolutionary group from himself and NCNC, Nigerian colonial authority weighed in with a sledge hammer by passing a law proscribing the Zikist Movement on April 12, 1950.
Azikiwe’s betrayal of the Zikist Movement marked his loss of nationalist credentials and the protective cover afforded him was removed thereby laying him bare to centrifugal forces of tribalism and British neocolonial intrigues and subterfuge.
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Azikiwe never recovered from this fatal blow he inflicted upon himself by his betrayal of the Zikist Movement. One British colonial official was reported to have exhilaratingly declared after the 1950 Constitutional Conference and the 1951 elections that they “got Azikiwe where they desired.”
From 1950, Britain recovered its lost ground and unfurled its neocolonial agenda by gingering and buoying up the comatose tribal and centrifugal forces represented in Britishcreated Hausa-Fulani hegemony and awakened Yoruba tribal irredentism. Out of this British neocolonial agenda, Britain created the Northern People’s Congress and Action Group.
Balewa was head-hunted by British M16 agent called Robert Wright but working as education officer in Bauchi Province who groomed to led Nigeria while Ahmadu Bello ruled the North. Awolowo was thrown up in the Western Region as the putative political leader.
