NIGERIA’S FOREMOST NATIONALISTS Some Nigerians were involved in the struggle for Nigeria’s Independence before she finally got it on October 1st, 1960. Nigeria was recognized by three regions of North, West and East. That gave birth to the three major ethnic groups of Hausa-Fulani, Yoruba and Igbo with over 250 ethnic groups notwithstanding. Mid-Western region later emerged after an unsuccessful attempt to have Middle Belt region out of the Northern region. Today we have six geo-political regions which have lead to the emergence of six major ethic groups of Hausa-Fulani, Yoruba, Igbo, Tiv, Ijaw and kanuri representing North West, South West, South East, North Central, South South and North East respectively and in order of numerical strength. Because we have six geo-political regions in Nigeria today and I cannot write on all the people that were truly nationalistic, it is important to identify one leading nationalist from each of the regions. In the North West is Alhaji Sir Ahmadu Bello, South West; Chief Obafemi Awolowo, South East; Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, North Central; Chief Senator Joseph Tarka, South South; Chief Anthony Enahoro and North East; Alhaji Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa. I shall write on each of them. Alhaji Sir Ahmadu Bello, a Hausa-Fulani man from Sokoto State, North West Nigeria, was born on June 12, 1910 in Rabbah, Sokoto State. He was the son of a district head and heir to the Sokoto caliphate. His great grandfather was Sultan Bello, the founder of Sokoto and son of the revered Shaykh Usman Dan Fodio. Ahmadu Bello received his education first at the Sokoto Provincial School, the only modern school at that time in the Sokoto Province and then proceeded to Katsina Teachers Training College. After spending five years at katsina, he was appointed by the Sultan to become a teacher at the Sokoto Middle School, his alma mater which had undergone rapid transformation. In 1934, he was promoted and sent to Gusan as a divisional head. In 1938, he made an unsuccessful bid to become the new Sultan of Sokoto. The successful Sultan conferred upon Sir Ahmadu Bello the traditional title of Sarduna, alternatively spelled Sardauna, and elevated him to Sokoto Native Authority Council. In 1948, he was offered a scholarship to study Local Government Administration in England. Ahmadu Bello accepted the scholarship sensing he needed to shore up his knowledge about the process of governance. After returning from England, he was nominated to represent Sokoto Province in the Regional House of Assembly. In 1952, he won a seat in the Northern House of Assembly and became a member of the regional executive council and was successively Minister for Works, Local Government and for Community Development in Northern Nigeria. In 1954, Bello became the first premier of Northern Region under the platform of the Northern Peoples Congress(NPC) while also serving as a leader of the party. He maintained both positions until January 15, 1966, when he was assassinated in the nation’s first military coup in Lagos. Chief Obafemi Awolowo, a Yoruba man from Ogun State, South West Nigeria, was born on March 06, 1909 in lkenne, Ogun State. His father was a farmer and sawyer who died when Obafemi was only seven years old. He attended various schools and then became a teacher in Abeokuta, after which he qualified as a short hand typist. Subsequently he served as a clerk at the famous Wesley College as well as a correspondent for the Nigerian Times. After earning a Bachelor of Commerce degree in Nigeria from a London University through correspondence in 1944, he went to UK where he earned a law degree as an external student. While there he founded the Egbe Omo Oduduwa, a pan-Yoruba cultural society which set the stage for the formation of the Action Group. In 1949, Awolowo founded the Nigerian Tribune, the oldest surviving private Nigerian newspaper, which he used to spread nationalist consciousness among his fellow Nigerians. As leader of the Action Group between 1950 and 1966, he represented the Western Region in all the constitutional conferences intended to advance Nigeria on the path to independence including the demand for a Federal constitution, following primarily the model proposed by the Western Region. He was the first leader of Government Business and Minister of Local Government and Finance, first Premier of the Western Region under Nigeria’s Parliamentary system of government from 1952 to 1959 and the official leader of the opposition in the Federal Parliament to the Tafawa Balawa government from 1959 to 1963. Awolowo was appointed Federal Commissioner and Vice President of the Federal Executive Council by Yakubu Gowon’s military administration during the period preceding the civil war. In the second republic, he contested and lost in the 1979 and 1983 Presidential elections under the platform of Unity Party of Nigeria(UPN). His policies of free education and health were implemented in all the States controlled by his party, the UPN. Awolowo died at his Ikene home on May 09, 1987. Dr. Benjamin Nnamdi Azikiwe, an Igbo man from Anambra State, South East Nigeria, was born on November 16, 1904 in Zungeru, Niger State. His father, Obed-Edom Chukwuemeka Azikiwe was a clerk in the British Administration of Nigeria. After studies at Hope Waddell Training Institute, Calabar and Methodist Boys High School, Lagos, Azikiwe went to the United States and attended Howard University, Washington DC before enrolling and graduating from Lincoln University, Pennsylvania in 1930. He obtained a masters degree in 1933 from the University of Pennsylvania and worked as an instructor at Lincoln before returning to Nigeria. In November 1934, Azikiwe became editor of African Morning Post, a daily newspaper in Accra Ghana. He returned to Lagos in 1937 and founded the West African Pilot which he used as a vehicle to foster nationalism. After a successful career in Journalism, Azikiwe ventured into Politics, co-founding the National Council of Nigeria and Cameroon(NCNC) along side Herbert Macauley in 1944. He became Secretary General of NCNC in 1946 and was elected to legislative council of Nigeria the following year. Azikiwe was President, Nigerian National Democratic Party, led by ladoke Akintola from 1947 to 1960, a member for Lagos in the Legislative Council of Nigeria from 1947 to 1951, member and leader of opposition to the government of Obafemi Awolowo in the Western Region’s House of Assembly from 1952 to 1953, elected Chief Minister of Internal Affairs from January to September, 1954, Eastern representative member of privy council, 1954 to 1959 as well as member for Onitsha in the Eastern House of Assembly where he became Premier of Eastern Region from 1954 to 1960. Azikiwe was President of Senate from January to November 1960. He became Governor General from November 1960 to October 1963 and on the same day was first Nigerian named to the Privy Council of the UK. With the proclamation of a republic in 1963, he became the first President of Nigeria. In both posts, Azikiwe was ceremonial until the military coup of January 15, 1966 removed him from office. In the second republic, he was Chairman and Presidential candidate of Nigerian Peoples Party in 1978, making unsuccessful bids for the Presidency in 1979 and 1983. He died on May 11, 1996 at University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital (UNTH) Enugu after a protracted illness. Chief Senator Joseph Sarwuan Tarka, a Tiv man from Benue State, North Central Nigeria, was born on July 10, 1932 in Igbor, Benue State. His father, Tarka Nachi was a native authority teacher. He got trained at the Katsina Ala Middle School and later at Bauchi Teachers College. He returned and taught at Katsina Ala, his alma mater. At that time, he was the General Secretary of the Tiv Native Authority Staff Union and a member of the Northern Teachers Association. When the time came for political activities, he was dragged into politics from the classroom and elected to a seat in the Federal House of Representatives in 1954 on non-party basis at the age of 22 to represent his constituency. He was re-elected in 1959. He attended all the constitutional conferences aimed at putting Nigeria on the path to independence and was among the delegation to London that negotiated Nigeria’s independence. Tarka was the founder and President of the United Middle Belt Congress(UMBC) in the first republic and that made him the first politician to form a political party in North Central. The party formed an alliance with Action Group(AG) and contested the pre-independence elections of 1959. The UMBC again formed an Alliance with the AG and both contested elections against the ruling Northern Peoples Congress(NPC) led by Alhaji Sir Ahmadu Bello in 1963. Tarka was appointed Federal Commissioner for Transport and later Communications between 1966 and 1974 by General Yakubu Gowon. During this time, when the South East Seceded, he declared the support of the Middle Belt for one Nigeria and was one of the Chief Advisers to Yakubu Gowon on how to sustain peace and maintain Nigeria as one nation. Tarka was so nationalistic in finding solutions to problems that threatened the unity and stability of Nigeria. When the debate on sharia in the Constituent Assembly between 1977 and 1978 in transition to the second republic raged and threatened the unity of Nigeria, Tarka was sent for by members of the Assembly as an august guest to proffer solution. His contributions made the issue to be resolved amicably. Tarka worked relentlessly for the national movement that gave birth to the National Party of Nigeria(NPN) which he was one of the founding members in the second republic. He contested the Presidential primaries on the party’s platform but lost out to Alhaji Shehu Shagari. After the loss, he was elected Senator for Benue East and in the Senate he served as the Senate Committee Chairman on Finance and Appropriation, a position he held until his sudden death on March 30, 1980 at Princess Grace Clinic , London. Chief Anthony Enohoro, an Esan man from Edo State, South South Nigeria, was born on July 22, 1923 in Uromi, Edo State. His father Anastasius Okotako Enahoro was a politician. He attended Government School Uromi, Government School Owo and Kings College Lagos. He became the editor of the Southern Nigerian Defender, Ibadan in 1944 at age 21, thus becoming Nigeria’s youngest editor ever. He later became the editor of Comet in Kano from 1945 to 1949. He was associate editor, West African Pilot and Editor in-Chief, Morning Star from 1950 to 1953. The first three print media were owned by Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe. His nationalistic activities earned him prison terms in 1946, 1947 and 1949 under the British colonial rule. While in politics, Enahoro was a member of the Western House of Assembly in 1947, later a member of Federal House of Representatives in 1951 on the ticket of the Action Group(AG). On April 01, 1953, Enahoro tabled a “self government in 1956 motion” in the Western House of Assembly. He became the Minister of Home Affairs in the Western Region in 1954. During the crisis in the old Western Region, he was leader of the then Mid-Western delegation to the ad-hoc constitutional conference in Lagos. He was detained along with other Action Group members on accusation of treason during the Awolowo alleged coup trial. Chief Enahoro escaped via Ghana to the United Kingdom in 1963 and was later extradited and imprisoned. In 1966, he was released by the military government. Enahoro later became Federal Commissioner for Information and Labour, 1967 to 1974, and Special duties in 1975 under General Yakubu Gowon Government. He was the President, World Festival of Negro Arts and Culture between 1972 and 1975. Enahoro later became member of the National Party of Nigeria(NPN) in the second republic from 1978 to 1983. He was Chairman of National Democratic Coalition(NADECO) a pro-democracy group until his death on December 15, 2010 in Benin City. Alhaji Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, a Balewa man from Bauchi State, North East Nigeria, was born on October 01, 1912 in Tafawa Balewa, Bauchi State. His father was a Bageri Muslim district head in Bauchi. After attending Katsina Teacher’s Training College between 1928 and 1933, he was a teacher and later Headmaster of the Bauchi Middle School. He studied at London University Institute of Education from 1945 to 1946 where he received a teacher’s certificate in history. Upon return to Nigeria, he became Inspector of Schools for the colonial administration and later joined politics. In 1943, he founded the Bauchi Discussion Circle, an organization interested in political reform. He was elected to the colony’s Northern House of Assembly and to the Legislative Assembly in 1947. In 1948, he was elected Vice President of Northern Teachers Association, the first trade union in Northern Nigeria. In 1949, Tafawa Balewa together with Ahmadu Bello founded the Northern Peoples Congress(NPC). In 1952, Balewa served as Minister for Works and later as Minister for Transport. In 1957, he was elected Chief Minister, forming a Coalition government between Northern Peoples Congress(NPC) and National Council for Nigeria and Cameroun(NCNC) led by Azikiwe. In January 1960, Balewa was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II as a knight Commander of the order of the British Empire. He retained the position as Prime Minister when Nigeria gained Independence in 1960 and was re-elected in 1964. As Prime Minister, he doubled as Foreign Affairs Advocate of Nigeria from 1960 to 1961. Balewa held on as Prime Minister until on January 15, 1966 when he was assassinated in a military coup in Lagos. Nigerians and the rest of the world should not stop recognizing the above six as the foremost late nationalists and elder statesmen, bearing in mind the fact that they stood as leading figures among the various people that were instrumental to Nigeria’s independence. Donald Terfa Gaadi donaldfame@ymail +2347036026019, +2348058435407 Abuja, Nigeria September 2013
Posted on: Wed, 11 Sep 2013 14:20:21 +0000
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