OTHER SIDE OF OUR NIGERIAN IGBO POLITICAL HISTORY

OTHER SIDE OF OUR NIGERIAN IGBO POLITICAL HISTORY

BY

MA'AJ CALEB ZONKWA Genuine contributions to education; Excellence Award in 2015: voted top 2% in NGR education industry

RECENT PREAMBLE in Nigeria politics:
"It’s believe Fulani is Yoruba's number one enemy:
however the records show's how the British handed
over Nigeria to them, - the Fulani"

From all available documented information: “This is not the truth”. The British seem not to have handed over Nigeria to the Fulani.       

Records shows:-

Parliamentary elections were held in Nigeria on 12 December 1959. The result was a hung parliament with no clear majority to form a government.

1.     Azikiwe's National Council of Nigeria and Cameroons (NCNC), came first with 2,594,577 votes to get 81 seats.

2.     Awolowo's Action Group (AG), came second with 1,992,364 votes to get only 73 seats and

3.     The Ahmadu Bello's Northern People's Congress (NPC), came a distant third with 1,922,179 votes to get 134 of the 312 seats in the House of Representatives despite getting less public votes.

However, the above three major political parties in the election did not get enough number of the seats to form a government. Therefore, an alliance had to be formed to determine who would rule.  

ISSUE’S:                                                                                                                                   It was a no brainer (common sense) that Azikiwe's NCNC and Awolowo's Action Group should make a coalition government as they came first and second respectively. Awolowo, then humbled himself and volunteered to be a Deputy Prime Minister or Finance Minister in a coalition government with Azikiwe as the Prime Minister. This was because the Azikiwe's NCNC party had more public votes and seats than the Awolowo's Action Group.

COOPERATION OUTLOOK:                                                                                                 Azikiwe invited Awolowo’s team to Asaba, the gateway between the Yoruba's Western Region and the Igbo's Eastern Region to hold coalition talks. The talks were a clever ruse to keep Action Group’s hopes high, so that Action Group would be kept distracted from meeting with other minor parties for talks, including: Northern Elements Progressive Union with 8 seats; Mobolaje Grand Alliance with 6 seats; Igala Union with 4 seats; Independents Candidates with 4 seats; Igbira Tribal Union with 4 seats and the Niger Delta Congress with 1 seat.

Whilst the Action Group team was waiting in Asaba for a meeting with the NCNC, they read in the news that Azikiwe and the NCNC had gone up North and clinched the deal with Ahmadu Bello on forming a coalition government with the NPC.

Tafawa Balewa, a Fulani, would be the Prime Minister of Nigeria while Azikiwe would be the figure head Governor-General. Even Nkrumah of Ghana was shocked. He asked Azikiwe why having spent so much energy fighting for colonial emancipation and then settling for a toothless bulldog role when Nigeria needed him the most.

POINTERS:                                                                                                                                 Azikiwe wrote in his autobiography why he did not form a coalition government with Awolowo.                                In 1947, with over £13,500 raised from the Yoruba people and given to the NCNC, Azikiwe had led other six prominent NCNC delegates to London to protest the “obnoxious laws” of Governor Arthur Richards. The trip ended in failure with backbiting, abuses and accusation of theft against Azikiwe. Azikiwe's opponents at the NCNC, accused him of squandering the money and the trust of Nigerians.

Azikiwe replied insinuating that the Yoruba on the team, that are: Mrs. Fumilayo Ransome-Kuti, Prince Adeleke Adedoyin, and Dr. A. B. Olorunnimbe, were the problem.

There erupted a heated and prolonged press war between Azikiwe's Political Reminiscence in his West African Pilot and H.O. Davies’ Political Panorama in the Daily Service. This led to Igbo in Lagos rushing to buy machetes in large numbers thinking a tribal war was imminent. The Governor and his General Secretary, Hugh Foot, quickly called Azikiwe and H.O. Davies to order at the Government House.

Azikiwe went away with the resolve that “the Yoruba must not be allowed to rule over others in Nigeria”. And afterwards in the Daily Service published the speech of Azikiwe in 1949 about Igbo been destined by God to conquer and rule over others. This among others, will explain why Azikiwe rejected Awolowo's offer of a coalition government in 1959 and instead worked with the Fulani.

The Fulani had been reading Azikiwe and the Igbo through the lens of his 1949 speech ever since. The Fulani way of neutralising Azikiwe when the opportunity came in 1959 was to offer him a powerless post, which surprisingly Azikiwe and the NCNC dutifully accepted in place of being Nigeria’s first Prime Minister.

Azikiwe had thought that the Igbo can easily manipulate the Fulani in place of the educated Yoruba. He thus manipulated Balewa to arrest Awolowo in 1962 and to have him jailed for 10 years in 1963.

Azikiwe also manipulated Balewa to remove from the Western Region the Edo, Urhobo, Itsekiri and Western Ijaw that account for 70% of the oil wealth in Nigeria and created for them the Mid-West Region.

Azikiwe's hatred for the Yoruba gave the Fulani the impetus to rule over others in Nigeria. The Igbo coup plotters tried to undo Zik's mistake in 1966 which resulted in the civil war.

CONCLUSION.                                                                                                      Britain did not really hand over Nigeria to the Fulani. Nigeria was given over to the Fulani by the Igbo. However, to hold on to power in Nigeria, the Fulani enlisted the backing of the self-serving career politicians in England. - copied.

Not many Igbo especially the young Nigerians know this narrative.. 

REFERENCE: 

1. Augustus Adebayo (1981), Public Administration in Nigeria. Spectrum Books Limited, Ibadan NIGERIA.
2.  Bello, Ahmadu (1962), MY Life. Cambridge University Press.
3.  Kirk-Greene, 'A.H.M (1968) 'Lugard and the Amalgamation of Nigeria: A             Documentary Record'. Frank CASS and Company Ltd. P 125-127  
4.  Kirk-Greene AH.M (1970). 'Political Memorandum revision of instruction to Political Officers on subjects Chiefly, Political and Administrative (1913 - 1918) Lord Lugard.' Frank CASS and company Ltd. 125 -127.
5. Olisa, M.S.O. at AL. (1989). 'Ezekwe and Africa Revolution' 'Ibadan Africa - FEP Publishers Ltd. Passim             
6. https://vocational-problemszonkwa.blogspot.com/