Nigeria held its first round of parliamentary elections on December 12, 1959. Despite garnering more votes than the National Council of Nigeria, the Cameroons, and the Action Group, the Northern People’s Congress emerged victorious, securing 134 of the 312 seats in the House of Representatives. The involvement of prominent regional politicians, Chief Obafemi Awolowo and Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, the former premiers of the Eastern and Western regions, respectively, was one important factor in the 1959 election. The possibility that any of them would become Nigeria’s “first prime minister” after independence drew them to the election.
Sir Ahmadu Bello, the other member of Nigeria’s historical trio, favored staying in his role as the Northern Region’s premier. At the federal level of government, their political party was led by his “able lieutenant,” Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa. Tafawa Balewa possessed the unique distinction of being the sole prime minister in Nigerian history, having assumed the role in 1957. In January 1966, the parliamentary system came to an end permanently, and the presidential option took its place.
Chief Obafemi Awolowo and Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe faced significant obstacles in their pursuit of political party support during a period when such support was mostly based on ethnic or regional allegiances. At the expense of the Southern, Eastern, and Western regions, the North was granted 50% electoral representation. Notably, Awolowo’s Action Group (AG) and Azikiwe’s National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroon (NCNC) were fierce rivals in the South and relied on coalitions with smaller northern political parties like the United Middle Belt Congress (UMBC) and the Northern Element Progressive Union (NEPU), respectively. The Northern People’s Congress (NPC), led by Sir Ahmadu Bello, was the ethnocentric party that dominated the North.
Due to Nigeria’s unique circumstances, political parties were forced to join a coalition of convenience because none of them was realistically positioned to form the government. Notwithstanding Chief Awolowo’s readiness to yield the prime ministership to his more senior opponent, Dr. Azikiwe, the AG and NCNC discussed forming the government with the backing of their northern allies, but this did not come to pass. If the proposed agreement between the NCNC and AG was implemented, Sir Ahmadu Bello threatened to remove the North from the federation. But given the fierce antagonism between the two main parties, a coalition government would have been extremely powerful! The NPC and NCNC/NEPU alliance ultimately formed a partnership of mutual convenience.
In the North, the extreme party opposing the NPC’s conservatism was known as the NEPU. The opposition was led by Chief Obafemi Awolowo and consisted mostly of the AG and the UMBC, the latter of which advocated for the creation of a Middle-Best zone outside from the North. Because of the customary intolerance for rivalry and opposing viewpoints, criticism from Awolowo and the Action Group was seen as Yoruba resistance to the federal government. Consequently, the Action Group’s ethnic heartland was the target of any attempt to limit its power.
A portion of the Western regional boundary was attempted to be redrew by combining it with the north, and the Mid-Western Region was established in 1964 with punitive aim despite its popularity.
The NPC/NCNC conspiracy joyfully ignored the more unsettling calls for the creation of states in the North and East, which were mostly made by the peoples of the Middle Belt and Calabar-Ogoja Rivers, respectively. By 1962, the normally orderly Action Group had been subverted by the ruling coalition government. Although there are many other possible explanations for the party’s dissolution, ideology seems to be the most pertinent. Some party members pushed the leadership to break with its “democratic socialism” philosophy and work with the ruling coalition for the sake of the Yoruba people.
This stance led to further intra-party disputes, which in turn caused a chain reaction of hostilities that ended in a brutal civil war between 1967 and 1970. The most notable crises that brought an end to Nigeria’s First Republic in 1966 were the census crisis of 1962–1963, the contested federal election of 1964, and the fraudulent election in the Western Region of 1965. Given the contentious politics we’ve just skimmed over, it begs the question of why some people still harbor nostalgia for the parliamentary form of governance. In his book Politics in West Africa, the illustrious Sir Arthur Lewis came to the conclusion that a divided country such as Nigeria was not suited for the adversarial politics of “opposition” and “government.”
In one of his publications, renowned Nigerian scholar Professor Ladipo Adamolekun endorsed the “Lewisian” consociational stance, and this author naturally agrees, believing that a “grand coalition” is the preferable course of action. Comparing the presidential system to the parliamentary one, which divides authority among the three branches of government (executive, legislative, and judiciary), the former seems more inclusive. Though both recent and previous administrations have underperformed, there seems to have been a more cordial and subdued dynamic amongst members of the political classes. According to this writer, it is a good thing that politicians nowadays rarely openly disparage other ethnic groups.
It is still true that the complexity of different countries varies. For example, while the United States of America and Nigeria may have similar levels of diversity, the ethnic makeup of the former is more “dispersed” and the latter more “compartmentalized.” In Nigeria, the concept of a rotating presidency makes a lot of sense, and those who don’t know anything about the scope and dynamics of rivalry between groups of individuals from diverse backgrounds can only belittle the federal character of political appointments. An opinion writer once cried, “Rotational thieving.”
Ideas that promote togetherness can still be debated despite Nigerian politicians’ prowess in embezzling public funds. The Swiss president gets changed every year, but the country isn’t listed as one of the most corrupt in the world! It’s possible that some people simply have a cynical notion of what “rotational presidency” means! As a historian, I think it’s vital to allow other ethnic groups to assume leadership roles in the nation rather than restricting it to the three main tribes.
