On the falsification of Nigerian history: A response to Prof Kayode Oyediran and Adetowo Aderemi

By Obi Nwakanma

My attention was drawn just recently to a response to aspects of my Orbit column published in Sunday Vanguard. The said response was co-authored by Professor Kayode Oyediran, Political scientist and former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ibadan, and Mr. Adetowo Aderemi, publisher of Nigeria: A complete fact finder in which they counselled against the falsification of Nigeria’s history, and offered a thoughtful, even if quite subjective and literalist reading of this history.
Two things seem very central to their umbrage: the necessity, as they insist, first, on giving the outgoing President Goodluck Jonathan “his due,” given the historical significance of his concession to power and second, the attempt to place in some context political developments in which Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, the leader of Nigeria’s anti-colonial nationalist movement, played.
In their rather surprising conclusion, the two authors of this reaction wrote: “Dr. Azikiwe never conceded electoral victory to anyone at any time. On the contrary, despite incontrovertible documentary evidence, persistent lies have continued to be peddled about the 1951 elections in Western Nigeria which the NCNC lost to the AG.”
First, I salute both gentlemen for their insistence on the sanctity on Nigerian history, and secondly, for keeping the debate alive in this disappearing field of discourse. I should also reassure them that I have no intention of falsifying Nigeria’s political history, and I had tried my best in the essay to which they responded, to give Dr. Jonathan his due. I did not, and I still do not, underestimate the significance of his gesture of concession.
Indeed, in my essay I conceded to the urgency of Jonathan’s political act very pointedly. Professor Oyediran and Adetowo Aderemi surprisingly, however, omitted, and it would seem to me quite deliberately, the thrust of my statement.

Awolowo: Founded Action Group and Azikiwe: Succeeded Macaulay as NCNC president

What I wrote
This is exactly what I wrote: “President Jonathan’s concession of power, and his invitation of his opponent to power redeems him totally. There are those who suggest that Jonathan was a colourless president; but that single act gives him timeless colour, because it adds a new dimension to the evolution of public governance and the democratic tradition in Nigeria.
“But the greatest of the implication of the presidential election in Nigeria is that once again, this country confounds Naijaskeptics, who had built and harped on all kinds of apocalyptic, end of history scenarios for Nigeria with this election. But apparently, Nigeria is not disintegrating just yet, and is not bathing itself in blood from this election.” Again, let me emphasize my signature behind this foregoing sentiment.
1951 ‘carpet crossing’
But let me also quickly address the other issue that these gentlemen raised in their conclusion: first, the 1951 “carpet crossing” incident in the Western House is a fairly settled truth of Nigerian history. Too many authorities and witnesses of Nigeria’s evolving political history have rendered that account and situated the moves inside the Western House in 1951 orchestrated by Chief Awolowo and the Action Group to “steal” the leadership of the West from Dr. Azikiwe and his party, the NCNC.
The “Dawodian” version of that event circulated after the facts in the 1990s by a former AG junior party apparatchik, Ganiyu Dawodu, on which later day revisionist historians continue to model and synthesize their narrative has also been frequently contradicted, most of all by its inner illogic.
Participants and witnesses on the floor of the House in 1951 were always unambiguous about the events of that day. Nonetheless, the fact of Nigerian history is that allied with their pro-British interests and mentors in 1951, the AG forced the Nationalist party into opposition in the Western House, and in doing that changed the course of Nigeria’s national history and the trajectory of the anti-colonial nationalist movement.
The Action Group, steeped in its reactionary and revanchist politics, did achieve its goal most certainly of regionalizing power, and creating political silos, which finally subdued the momentum of the nationalist project, weakened the nationalist party, and helped the British colonial powers to manipulate and contain the progressive forces and political development in Nigeria.
Backing dissident NCNC members, the AG also prevented Azikiwe from being nominated from the Western House to the centre, where the nationalists had planned a show-down on the Macpherson constitution. Nevertheless, Dr. Azikiwe remained in the West as leader of opposition, until the NCNC crisis, which forced the party, in the light of the defiance of Eyo Ita, Eni Njoku, Alfred C. Nwapa, and Okoi Arikpo, to resign from the central legislature against party directives, to draft Azikiwe from his western base eastwards to lead the party in 1953.
Ploy to isolate and confine nationalist party
At this time, the Action Group was still in alliance with the NPC. The details of the AG/NPC pact later published by Awolowo sometime between March and April 1953, detailed a ploy to subvert the nationalist party, work with the Northern regional party to control the central government and determine the course of Nigeria’s future. This ploy to strategically isolate and confine the nationalist party was at the core of the political programme of the colonial powers working through the Action Group in the South.
This ploy was indeed rightly considered a threat to the formation of a coherent postcolonial state by the NCNC as a party and Dr. Azikiwe as its leader. However, by 1953, following political pressure exerted on the government of the Action Group by the NCNC opposition in the West, the AG began to moderate and revise some of its pro-British policies in favour of more visibly nationalist action in consonance with the nationalist agitation.
The most critical of these revisions, the result of NCNC’s persistent opposition was the programme of Nigerianizing the services, which led to the emerging break between the AG and the British interests, leading to the first AG defiance against Sir Macpherson (see the AG policy of “non-fraternization with Sir John Macpherson” in the period). The context of this was apparently a populist measure to forestall increasing public support for the NCNC in the West, the culmination of which led to its resounding victory over the Action Group in the 1954/55 Federal elections in the West. I will return to this shortly. But in the main, by 1953 the AG had joined the NCNC, and following a motion raised by Anthony Enahoro, had demanded for independence by 1956 to the chagrin of their Northern partners, the NPC.
Let me note here that at every phase of that anti-colonial struggle, the nationalist party’s objective, led by Dr. Azikiwe, was always to preserve the nation towards political independence, and to resolve these questions in the full course of nation-building. That is the fact of Nigerian history. At various moments in that period, however, both the Action Group and the Northern Peoples Congress, none of which was frankly fully invested in the sanctity of a pan-Nigerian nationalist project, threatened secession from the union. It always took Azikiwe and the nationalist party to force concessions that preserved the nation.
NPC threatened to secede from Nigeria
For example in 1953, the NPC threatened to secede from Nigeria following disagreements with the Southern parties over the timeline for independence. The fallout of the disagreement was the Kano riots of 1953, which the British authorities tried to paint as arising from irreconcilable ethnic tensions and difference. That event led Dr. Azikiwe to declare, at a meeting of the NCNC in Yaba on May 12, 1953: “I am obliged to issue a solemn warning to those who are goading the North towards secession.”
Dr. Azikiwe’s critique of that move and the expression of what might now be considered his doctrine of indissoluble union was based on a very pragmatic construct of necessity. An economically and politically weak and backward North, he reasoned, would be a dangerous neighbour; and could pose serious problems to a free and prosperous south. In his words: “In my opinion, the Northerners are perfectly entitled to consider whether or not they should secede from the indissoluble union which nature has formed between it and the South, but it would be calamitous to the corporate existence of the North should the clamour for secession prevail.
I, therefore, counsel Northern leaders to weigh the advantages and disadvantages of secession before embarking upon this dangerous course. As one who was born in the North, I have a deep spiritual attachment to that part of the country, but it would be a capital political blunder if the North should break away from the South. The latter is in a better position to make rapid constitutional advance, so that if the North should become truncated from the South, it would benefit both Southerners and Northerners who are domiciled in the South more than their kith and kin who are domiciled in the North.
There are seven reasons for my holding to this view. Secession by the North may lead to internal political convulsion there when it is realized that militant nationalists and their organizations, like the NLPU, the Askianist Movement, and the Middle Zone League, have aspirations for self-government in 1956 identical with those of their Southern compatriots. It may lead to justifiable demands for the right of self-determination by non-Muslims, who form the majority of the population in the so-called ‘Pagan’ provinces, like Benue, Ilorin, Kabba, Niger and Plateau, not to mention the claims of non-Muslims who are domiciled in Adamawa and Bauchi Provinces.
It may lead to economic nationalism in the Eastern Region, which can pursue a policy of blockade of the North, by refusing it access to the sea, over and under the River Niger, except upon payment of tolls. It may lead to economic warfare between the North on the one hand, and the Eastern or Western regions on the other, should they decide to fix protective tariffs which will make the use of the ports of the East and West uneconomic for the North.
The North may be rich in mineral resources and certain cash crops, but that is no guarantee that it would be capable of growing sufficient food crops to enable it to feed its teeming millions, unlike the East and the West. Secession may create hardship for Easterners and Westerners who are domiciled in the North, since the price of food crops to be imported into the North from the South is bound to be very high and to cause an increase in the cost of living… .” Azikiwe’s counsel of 1953 remains prescient, and even more vital in the 21st century.
In that same year 1953, the brief partnership that existed between the AG and the NCNC following the motion for self-government in 1956, which both parties endorsed came to an end when the AG walked out of the alliance, following the issue of the autonomy of Lagos as a Federal territory which the NCNC pushed. Awolowo had in fact declared that Lagos would be separated from the West over his dead body, and the Action Group had threatened to secede.
This matter was finally resolved in the 1953 constitutional conference in London. The threat of the AG to secede was contained following concessions made during the London conference that in general negatively impacted the East financially; gave economic advantage to the West, and made significant political allowances to the North, all in the bid to preserve the union. This period began to lay the grounds for a new program of cooperation between the Northern party and the NCNC, given the practical reality of British constitutional manipulations that destroyed any possibility of the emergence of a coherent national political leadership or a national movement in the period.
The nature of these manipulations have been admirably captured in James P. Hubbard’s book, The United States and the End of British Colonial Rule, 1941-1968. In 1954, the NCNC had won the federal elections in two of the three regions, and practically formed the bulk of the federal cabinet from 1955 under the government of the colonial Governor-General, Sir James Robertson.
It was practically the “ruling government” in a unique constitutional arrangement that gave the NPC slight control of the Parliament and the NCNC control of the cabinet. It was therefore all the more “dramatic,” even though not unexpected of the British Governor-General to announce Sir Abubakar in 1957, to be prime minister and leader of the transitional Federal government over his Cabinet colleagues, especially having confined the leadership of the national party constitutionally to a regional position.
This was the point I was labouring, perhaps a little too generally, to make. Secession was a constant possibility, and the North threatened to secede from the union again in 1957, and Northern secession was a possibility following the 1959 elections. It was like a wraith haunting Nigeria’s political future. Of all the parties that went into that election in 1959, the NCNC had the widest national following, and was represented in some strength, nationally. The result of that election was however basically such that none of the parties won a majority to form the government at the center, even with the NPC winning more seats than any of the parties. On the score of that election, it is on record that the Action Group offered itself, under the leadership of Chief Awolowo, for a coalition with the NCNC to form the independence government with Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe as Prime Minister. Following consultations with his party’s leadership, and gauging the internal dynamics of the party, Dr. Azikiwe made the most important political concession of his political career. He chose not to be Prime Minister.
He chose to partner with the Northern Peoples Congress among other factors, but largely on three principles: (a) if the two southern parties formed the national government, the NPC which always feared marginalization by the South would feel even more dangerously isolated by power, and as a regional opposition. Such a situation would certainly awaken the secessionist moves of the North, (b) It was imperative, especially at the early stages of the nation, to maintain a “government of national unity” and the NCNC thus favored a continuation of the 1954 arrangement of inclusive government, and (c) Dr. Azikiwe did not want to further exacerbate the internal rebellion in the NCNC which had been convulsed by party crises since 1956/7 by working with the Action Group following the stout opposition of the NCNC Western committee. Azikiwe’s concession of the office of Prime Minister to the NPC arguably saved Nigeria from possible disintegration very early in the day.
Awolowo’s refusal to join the national government, quite clearly isolated his party, and was a significant factor in the crisis that convulsed the Action Group and led remotely to the collapse of the first republic. Azikiwe read the mood of history clearly and made that concession to work with the NPC. That is a fact of history which I hope Professor Oyediran and Mr. Aderemi can come to terms with.