3 hours Ago By ONU JOHN ONWE
State power is alien to African governance template. In a primitive society like Nigeria, it became monstrous leviathan and an instrument for the conquest and exploitation of state resources. Within two years (1960-62), the Northern People’s Congress ruling the North and Nigeria thought Awolowo, a pesky upstart that must be uprooted, and they utilised the anti-corruption stratagem.
An inquiry into Western Region parastatals (National Bank of Nigeria and NIPC) were targeted as it rightly thought that the humongous funds used to finance the Action’s Group’s political campaigns must have been harvested from there. Legal bottleneck was created by the Western Region to delay the onslaught. But the Premier, Akintola had been sufficiently rattled to prefer rapprochement with Northern Power establishment to escape the obvious but present danger.
Awolowo did not buy Akintola’s perspective, which made Awolowo design a way of strengthening the Western Region behind him but got betrayed as Premier Akintola resisted Awolowo’s attempt to cage him. Akintola sought refuge in the Northern political tent and was enthusiastically welcomed by Sir Ahmadu Bello. The alliance was cemented by Ahmadu Bello visiting Ibadan on state visit to formalise the accord to the annoyance of Awolowo.
The stage was set for the three pronged war: between Akintola and Awolowo in Western Region and the one between Awolowo and Sir Ahmadu Bello while the Federal Government, under Tafawa Balewa, used federal security/legal arsenal to support Akintola against Awolowo such as the State Emergency Law against Awolowo. As stated in the first part of this essay, democracy in Britain has chequered history – bitter and sweet experience as a feudal autocratic enclave with bare rights. It was not until 1688 that a revolution took place to abolish absolutist constitutional framework to parliamentary democracy which ushered in capitalism, constitutionalism, and rule of law.
Nigeria as a colony of Britain inherited the negative aspects of British parliamentary democracy, feudal economic base and absolutist autocracy. But the inheritance of this British system was a default act as the indigenous rulers knew no better but rather cooperated and allowed Britain to impose a neocolonial state, autocratic constitutional framework and feudal economic system on Nigeria. All through the history of Nigeria, the country has had no democracy as the governing norm has been autocracy from the conquerors led by British consuls and commercial buccaneers like Sir George Taubman Goldie that largely conquered and organised the areas now known as Nigeria.
From 1914-1960, the rulers from Lord Lugard (erstwhile security officer of the Royal Niger company) to Joseph Robertson all had been autocrats appointed from London. The various constitutional frameworks or legal orders (from Letters Patent, 1913 to 1999 Constitution) owed its vile origin to British autocratic laws. Rulership is based on strict selection process that requires unwavering acceptance of the autocratic order and norms.
Inclination to democratic principles, norms, and values earns prospective candidate disqualification. Going through the developmental process in Nigeria from 1951 to date, it will be seen that the trajectory and the substance have remained the same as stated in the first part of this essay. When it became clear to Britain that the educated class of prospective indigenous rulers then concentrated in Lagos and other southern towns were determined to hijack power from them, they quickly fell back on the earlier plan of foisting a friendly class of traditional rulers or their representatives as encapsulated in the Indirect Rule System – a process whereby Britain had hoped to plant leaders to take over from them if decolonization happened.
So, as these nationalist leaders, led by Herbert Macaulay and Nnamdi Azikiwe, got serious with political organisation and mobilisation leading to the formation of the National Council of Nigeria and Cameroons (NCNC) later renamed National Council of Nigerian citizens, Britain changed course by creating tribal enclaves and turning them into centres of political activities and socio-economic empowerment. Britain quickly got tribal parties to spring up in the Northern and Western Regions when it financed Mutanen Arewa that transformed into Northern People’s Congress and Egbe Omo Oduduwa that transformed into the Action Group. These tribal organisations that metamorphosed into political parties were the brain-child of Britain to break the incipient nationalism led by Herbert Macaulay and Nnamdi Azikiwe, the two most hated Nigerians, by Britain.
Tafawa Balewa was head-hunted by British M16 agent (Robert Wright) and groomed almost till independence. Awolowo was recruited by Sir John Macpherson to break Southern leadership cadre, exploiting Igbo-Yoruba rivalry. And Macpherson succeeded.
It was to the credit of Governor Macpherson that the greatest political and electoral heist of 1951 was executed. NCNC was an amalgam of over one hundred tribal and syncretistic organisations as its constitution eschewed direct personal membership. Membership flowed from personal membership of allied organisations.
It was this loophole that Governor John Macpherson exploited in 1951 to rob NCNC of its electoral victory in the Western Region by sowing bogey of tribal domination of the Western Region by Azikiwe, an Igbo thereby breaking NCNC party coherence thereby harvested dissenting parliamentarians of NCNC-sllied Ibadan People’s Party namely; Meredith Akinloye, Moyo Aboderin, SA Akinyemi, S.O Lanlehin, Akinbiyi) and Lagos member (H.P Adebola, Adeleke Adedoyin, and Olurun Nimbe, Ayo Rosiji) who cross-carpeted to afford Awolowo’s AG majority thereby making Awolowo premier.
The history of Nigeria is variegated patches of autocratic selections passed off as democratic elections..
