This meant that a party could potentially govern the country by winning votes from the North alone. This led to the emergence of two opposing alliances for the coming election: Nigerian National Alliance (NNA) led by the NPC and comprising Akintola’s NNDP and other minority parties from the South, and the United Progressive Grand Alliance (UPGA) led by the NCNC and comprising the AG and other smaller parties from the north. And sure enough, the upheavals unleashed in 1964 and 1965 eventually led to the republic’s catastrophic end in 1966. (2015), ‘The Republican Constitution of 1963: The Supreme Court and Federalism in Nigeria’, University of Miami International and Comparative Law Review. The lasting importance of political parties in Nigeria makes Ujo’s Understanding Political Parties in Nigeria not only a useful companion to Sklar’s text, but also a vital contribution. Adding to the south’s positive expectations was also the belief that with generally better health care than the North, and a more “rapid decline in infant mortality”, the southern regions combined could expect better population numbers. ‘Relegation’ to the status of opposition and loss of access to patronage would eventually split the AG into two camps. Akintola also saw the election as a chance to finish off the AG once and for all and establish his hegemony in the Western Region. Macaulay was despised by the British, but he came to be regarded as the “father of modern Nigerian nationalism.” Not only did the Awolowo Action Group lose the power struggle in the West, it was also…destroyed…as an effective opposition force. 214-222. The first republic held between 1963 and 1966 and Nigeria was governed by the constitution that was developed shortly before independence. After the partition, and with its destruction nearing completion, two events finally finished off the AG as a credible force on the national scene. The parliamentary procedure descended into physical violence. The collapse of the AG’s political power between 1962 and 1963 produced far-reaching effects. The political environment was made more volatile by the shift in party alignments taking place. Some have since argued that Tafawa Balewa refused to declare a State of Emergency because his party was allied to the NNDP, and therefore didn’t want to throw it out of power so soon after its ‘election’. They reasoned that if the population count could be turned in favour of the South, power relations between the three regions would equalize and the “basis of Northern domination would be permanently removed”. The UPGA’s absence left the field wide open for NNA candidates to sweep all before them. Not even this compromise was enough to calm frayed nerves as tensions erupted once more within the governing alliance. No one exemplified the First Republic’s problem with endemic corruption more than the Finance minister himself, Festus Okotie-Eboh. However, as late as Thursday, 13 January 1966, Balewa had announced that the federal government was not going to intervene in the West. Awolowo reasoned that such an ideologically radical posture would enable the party to break out of its regional box and draw cross-ethnic support from workers and the underprivileged across the country. Officialloy, the period between October 1, 1960, when the country gained its independence and January 15, 1966, when the first military coup d’état took place, is generally referred to as the First Republic. February 12, 2021 Fri 12/2/21. John Stuart Mill, in his 1861 Considerations on Representative Government, set out several conditions for a stable federation, one of which was that “there should not be anyone State [or Region] so much more powerful than the rest as to be capable of vying in strength with many of them combined. He was listed among the 100 most influential Nigerian youths in 2018 alongside Falz, Davido, Simi and others. Jackson, L. R. (1972), ‘Nigeria: The Politics of the First Republic’, Journal of Black Studies, Vol. The NPF carried out usual police duties and bore responsibility for: Top 10 Functions of the Nigerian Police Force He was among the delegate that negotiated Nigerian Independence at the Lancaster House Conferences in London and led the Northern Nigeria Delegation to London for the Negotiation and Launching of VC-10 Nigeria Airways. With the 1964 general election just under a year away, and with the heightened insecurity felt in the south over the NPC’s growing power, ethnic political security took centre stage. AG supporters poured into the streets. Commenting on the particularly unbelievable figures coming in from the Eastern Region, he stated: In the five Eastern divisions which had shown increases of over 120 per cent in ten years, several checks could be applied … [Most] telling, the biggest increase was in children under the age of five, and calculations showed that the women of child-bearing age could not have produced this number of births had they all been pregnant for all of the five previous years. In the Western Region, in particular, the “electoral process was so abused” that though intensely unpopular, the NNDP won a scarcely believable 63% of the seats in that region (It won 36 seats out of 57 seats allocated to the region: see Table 2). The Niger Delta Congress was one of the small political parties in Nigeria's First Republic. Dr Festus Adedayo, a Special Adviser on Media in the former Abiola Ajimobi administration in Oyo State, on Thursday said that the Nigerian press contributed to the collapse of the First Republic. February 11, 2021 Thu 11/2/21. He was a member of Nigeria Economic Mission to West Germany and was a minister till their government was overthrown by the military coup on January 15, 1966. 5. [1]. [5] As premier of the West, Akintola presided over the most chaotic era in Western Region—one which earned it the nickname "the Wild-Wild West". Teslim Opemipo Omipidan is an award winning Nigerian journalist, poet, writer, historian and founder of OldNaija.com. After the end of the war, the nation re-unified and military rule continued for another nine years, implementing Nationalisation of foreign businesses. Verification checks and recounts went ahead nonetheless, and northern leaders promptly restored the balance by “discovering” an extra 8.5 million northerners. Calculating that in any vote they would lose as they were in the minority, parliamentarians from the Akintola faction, supported by NCNC members of the Western regional assembly, resorted to violent disruption to block Adegbenro from being sworn in. The disaster of the 1964 election, unfortunately, failed to act as a salutary check on the “win-at-all-costs mentality” of the nation’s leaders. In the South, for example, Diamond states that: Politicians were touring their constituencies urging the people ‘not to be left out’. To illustrate this point: Apparently, part of the “bargain” which the NCNC secured upon joining government was “enhanced entry and promotion for Easterners in the public service and [the] armed forces”. The country was split into three geopolitical regions—Western Region, Eastern Region and Northern Region—and its political parties took on the identities and ideologies of each region. After a plebiscite in The National Independence Party (NIP) formed by Professor Eyo Ita became the second political party in the old Eastern Region. More fundamentally, the collapse of one pole (the AG) transformed the contest from a tripolar struggle to a bipolar one. The first republic in Nigeria started on the 1st of October, 1960 upon the attainment of independence and ended on the 15th of January, 1966 during the first military coup d’état . Required fields are marked *. This followed a period of conflict between the AG regional government and the central government. The Northern Region now stood poised to bring Nigeria under its sole captaincy. The last and deepest of the structural weaknesses was the fear of ethnic domination which pervaded the politics of the First Republic. On a deeper level, however, it was also a reflection of the dissatisfaction and discontent within the wider populace against corruption, widening economic inequality, and the seeming failure of the political elites to deliver the dividends of independence. Because Akintola was an ally of Ahmadu Bello, the undisputed strong man of Nigeria, Akintola was criticized as being a tool of the North. It turned out to be a hasty and unwise decision. The governing alliance broke down as the NCNC pushed for the release of the original census result, while the NPC backed the authenticity of the verification checks. John Mackintosh, a British political scientist, then lecturing at the University of Ibadan, described the scene in parliament: The House of Assembly met at 9 a.m. and after prayers, as Chief Odebiyi rose to move the first motion, Mr E. O. Oke, a supporter of Chief Akintola, jumped on the table shouting ‘There is fire on the mountain’. Further aggravating the latent tension between the governing duo was the fact that politicians from either party viewed members from the other side with suspicion, condescension, and even hostility. In the Eastern Region, the NCNC was able to block any voting from taking place. INDEPENDENCE: What made Western Nigeria tick in the First Republic. The crisis that engulfed the party stemmed from its “staggering defeat” in 1959. In defiance, the JAC demanded the Prime Minister return to the negotiating table or “resign within 48 hours”. Find the perfect nigerian first republic stock photo. The Akintola forces, on the other hand, expected, in the case of defeat, to become the victims of their own methods, without a genuine base of popular support to sustain them. He orchestrated a series of motions which led to “critical changes” in the running of the party. Despite this seemingly national coalition, the two opposing alliances essentially represented a “North-South constellation of forces”. The era studied here extends roughly from the end of World War II up to January, 1966. The privileged flaunted their illegally acquired wealth, crystallizing the general sense of moral decay and social injustice. By now the disintegrating AG and the deepening split in Yoruba elite cohesion was clearly becoming a “threat to peace and order in the West”. Eventually, elections were held in 1979 leading the way to the Nigerian Second Republic. It can be argued that the political constellation which emerged after the 1959 election was the most potent of the young republic’s structural weaknesses. In any case, the 1965 October ‘election’, and the spasm of violence which accompanied it, turned out to be the last act in Nigeria’s First Republic’s tragic political drama. The last census, which had been conducted in 1952-53 under the auspices of the British, had been the basis for the distribution of parliamentary seats prior to the 1959 election. The general strike would finally shatter the fragile governing alliance. He remained at the post until 1966, when the coup happened and he was overthrown by the Igbo rebels. Igbo leaders responded by calling on their ethnic kin to “rally to the defence of their embattled people” by voting for the NCNC. Nigeria Table of Contents. Casting aside the secrecy, Michael Okpara broke ranks and announced that the Eastern Region now had 12.4 million people as per the census, and insisted that his Regional government would be sticking to this figure regardless of the conclusions of any verification exercise. Bribes for government contract were rampant. Although Nigeria gained independence from the United Kingdom on 1 October 1960, the nation retained the British monarch, Elizabeth II, as titular head of state until the adoption of a new constitution in 1963 declaring the nation a republic. The report of the chief census officer submitted to government confirmed the massive population inflation that had attended the process and proposed verifications be carried out in certain areas to rescue the credibility of the census. No need to register, buy now! Some areas in the Eastern Region, for example, were posting increases of between 120% and 200%. Learn More. Before the commencement of the first republic, structures had been put in place in the course of the late 1950s which ensured that Nigeria adopted the “Westminster” model of parliamentary democracy. And on September 11, Awolowo and his co-conspirators were finally found guilty of the treasonable felony charge and sentenced to 10 years in prison. Reflecting the tripodal ethnic balance, three parties bestrode the political scene like titans and thus shaped the destiny of the First Republic: Northern People’s Congress (NPC), the Action Group (AG), and the National Council of Nigerian Citizens (NCNC). Nothing illustrates this more than its name, and the fact that in the 1959 eve of independence general election it did not field a single candidate in the other regions. Defeat in the election left the AG “stranded in opposition…without a firm base of power resources”; by extension, it also meant that Yoruba elites lost their bargaining power over the distribution of federal patronage to their region. The NPC-NCNC confrontations over the previous years, and the final collapse of the governing coalition after the June general strike exerted a powerful gravitational pull on the political space. It was a decision for which it was richly rewarded. 20, No. Also, most observers felt that had a similar investigation been done over the finances in the other two regions, the same level of abuse of public funds would have been uncovered. In strategic areas where the stakes were too high, both coalitions sometimes reportedly resorted to the “physical elimination of opposition candidates”. The country's government was based on a federal Westminster system. Eastern Regional Premier, Michael Okpara, belatedly recognizing that the emerging political balance would be unfavourable to the East, tried to “drawback” from the “total extinction” of the AG. This meant politics largely “revolved around ethnic-based regional…parties”. For example, the party constitution was amended to weaken the Regional Premier’s (Akintola) role, and strengthen the party President’s (Awolowo) role in the “Federal Executive Committee” (FEC) – the party’s key decision-making body. To all intents and purposes, by 1964, the First Republic stood at a critical juncture in its political life. While the collapse of the AG as a national political force had opened deep cracks within the ruling coalition, the long-running census crisis had progressively hardened the dividing line between the NPC and the NCNC. All the regions had their minority troubles. In return, Akintola rewarded his Eastern ally with a “generous share of power in the West”, resulting in the NCNC scooping up numerous regional ministerial portfolios. During Shehu Shagari's administration, he was appointed to the first board of directors of National Insurance Corporation of Nigeria (NICON). Nigeria, country located on the western coast of Africa. During this period an appointed governor was nominal head of state while an elected premier led the government. A rerun of the Western regional election was one of the main pillars of the Zik-Balewa pact. The country’s federal regions broadly coincided with – and reinforced – the nation’s ethnic cleavages, the exclusion of minorities from each region’s political and economic structures, and the structural tensions which resulted from the Northern region being large enough to dominate its two southern counterparts in parliament, set the scene for the political conflicts which consumed the First Republic. As indications multiplied that Akintola, backed by federal might, would be reinstalled as Regional Premier without a re-election after the Emergency period expired, some Awolowo supporters began secretly plotting the government’s overthrow. The NPC especially, fully used its incumbency advantage – jailing opposition candidates or supporters for the slightest infractions. Like the breaking of the ground after an earthquake, deep fissures opened between the NPC and the NCNC. The First Republic was the republican government of Nigeria between 1963 and 1966 governed by the first republican constitution. This effectively wiped out the top echelons of the AG. The overthrow in January 1966 of Nigeria’s First Republic erased what had been regarded as perhaps the most promising prospect for liberal democracy in post-colonial Africa. But what angered many, and perhaps contributed to the orgy of violence that followed the election, was the sheer brazenness and impunity with which the NNDP went about the business of rigging its members back to parliament. More seriously for the Yorubas, particularly in view of the ethno-regional balance-of-power, Akintola was forced, as part of the bargain, to accept the partition of the West. Its alliance with ethnic minority parties beyond its region stemmed from the realisation on the part of the Hausa-Fulani elites that though hegemony in the Northern Region could deliver the Nigerian state to them, extending their power into the Southern regions by proxy would allow them to better consolidate their federal dominance. With his regional rival in jail and his grip over the West consolidated, Akintola shook off his alliance with the NCNC, dismissed their members from the regional cabinet, formed a new party – the Nigerian National Democratic Party (NNDP) – and realigned it with the NPC. It was against this background that the First Republic’s next crisis played out. Although Nigeria gained independence from the United Kingdom on 1 October 1960, the nation retained the British monarch, Elizabeth II, as titular head of state until the adoption of a new constitution in 1963 declaring the nation a republic. But unlike the NPC, the NCNC campaigned in the other two regions during the election; it won seats in the West and – in alliance with the Aminu Kano-led Northern Elements Progressive Union – won seats in the North as well. Nigeria became independent on October 1, 1960. this date and January 15, 1966, when the first military coup d'état took place, is generally referred to as the First Republic, although the country only became a republic on October 1, 1963. Consequently, the AG similarly shrank into its ethnic enclave and never managed to shake off its image as a platform “to safeguard Yoruba interests”. Nigeria had a federal constitution that ensured adequate autonomy to three (later four) regions which were: Northern region, Eastern region and Western region; the country adopted and operated a parliamentary democracy that emphasized majority rule; the constitution included an elaborate bill of rights; and, unlike other African states that adopted one-party systems immediately after independence, Nigeria had a functional, albeit regionally based, multiparty system. The supporters of Alhaji Adegbenro sat quiet as they had been instructed to do, with the exception of one member who was hit with a chair and retaliated. Marking the sweeping failure of parliamentary institutions across a continent of new nations, it accelerated the slide into a … He followed this with a dramatic dawn broadcast on the 10th of December warning that the unity of the nation was at risk: I have only one request from our politicians … If this embryo Republic must disintegrate, then, in the name of God, let the operation be a short and painless one… And I have one advice to give our politicians: if they have decided to destroy our national unity, then they should summon a round-table conference to decide how our national assets should be divided before they seal their doom by satisfying their lust for office… It is better for us and for our many admirers abroad that we should disintegrate in peace and not in pieces. On the 9th of June however, the talks broke down in stalemate. With incarceration of Awolowo, Samuel Akintola took over as the Premier of Western Region. The struggle between the two factions reached its climax on the 25th of May when the Awolowo faction attempted to vote in a new Regional Premier, Alhaji Adegbenro, in the regional parliament. The founding of the First Republic (1963) Nigeria gained independence from Britain on October 1, 1960, and declared itself a republic three years later on October 1, 1963. 3: pp. Livestock was apparently counted in some places as part of the human population. Like the NPC, the party’s chairman, Michael Okpara, chose to remain as Regional Premier after the 1959 election rather than take up a seat in the federal cabinet. [7] At the same time a top-level security conference in Lagos was taking place which was attended by most of the country's senior army officiers. It had huge impacts on the stability of the soon to be an independent nation. Secessionist rhetoric grew louder and the dangers of a civil war loomed larger. In the North, having been latecomers to the inflation game in 1962, regional leaders there were determined not to be caught napping in the 1963 rerun. And “travellers and passers-by” were counted as part of the settled population. The collapse of the AG immediately led to realignments in the political constellation. Most public hospitals provide cost free care for civil servants and their dependents while parallel church-owned hospitals provide care for the needy in this period. At Nigeria's independence, the Northern Region gained more seats in parliament than both Eastern and Western regions combined—this would cement Northern dominance in Nigerian politics for years to come. Nigeria became recognized as a Republic on the 1st of October, 1963, but this did not mark the beginning of Nigeria’s political journey as a Republican state. He challenged the constitutionality of his removal in court, “vowing a fight to the finish”. Ahmadu Bello Northern Nigeria 1959 – 1966, Obafemi Awolowo Western Nigeria 1959 – 1960, Samuel Akintola Western Nigeria 1960 – 1966, Michael Okpara Eastern Nigeria 1960 – 1966, and Dennis Osadebay Mid-Western Nigeria 1964 – 1966. Thus, another facet of the structural tension caused by the post-1959 political alignment is the misfortune which befell the AG in opposition. The 1963 census turned out to be an even greater debacle. On the 24th of February 1964, the result of the compromise was announced to the public: there were to be 55.6 million Nigerians – 10 million larger than the notorious figures of 1962. Ujo helps us understand the formation Nigerian political parties beyond the First Republic. It is important to state here that the First Republic was the republican government of Nigeria between 1963 and 1966, governed by the first republican constitution. Ahmadu Bello, the Sardauna of Sokoto, leader of the NPC, was poised to become the Prime Minister, but instead he chose to become the Premier of the Northern Region, and supported his deputy Tafawa Balewa's candidacy for Prime Minister. The deep cultural gulf between the two parties, therefore, led to a governing coalition that was wracked by “tension and mistrust”, such that when multiple crises came the governing alliance repeatedly broke down under the strains. Kindly Share This Story: Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Premier of … During independence, Nigeria had all the features of a democratic state and was seen by other African countries as a hope for democracy. But … There was widespread destruction of life and property. First Biennial Update Report (BUR1) of the Federal Republic of Nigeria ii • National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) • National Planning Commission (NPC) • Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) • Nigerian Maritime Administration & Safety Agency (NIMASA) • Nigerian Metrological Agency (NIMET) The decision of both southern parties to step out of their ethnic enclaves to field candidates across the federation in 1959 reflected their aspirations that the nation would be an open constituency for all parties to compete in. February 11, 2021 Why Nigeria is Changing to Cleaner Energy, By Osinbajo Read More. And with 16 independent parliamentarians having earlier in 1961 joined the NPC, their party now had a slim working majority in parliament. Unsurprisingly Akintola refused to go down quietly. The Republic is a magazine and platform centering Nigeria and Africa in the world's most critcal social, political and economic issues. Three years later, he became the President of Nigeria (or so-called ‘first republic’). Villa Daily. The East and West had scored staggering increases of 72% and 70% respectively. The eminent Stanford political scientist, Larry Diamond, in his Class, Ethnicity and Democracy in Nigeria, described the collapse of the AG thus: The breadth and magnitude of the defeat inflicted upon Chief Awolowo and his AG supporters by the NPC and the NCNC was simply staggering. It is a federal republic comprising 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory, where the capital, Abuja, is located. Adding an extra layer of complexity and tension was the breakdown in Yoruba elite cohesion; a ripple effect of the Awolowo-Akintola power struggle. Restraints from the first-time round were abandoned. Maitama Sule, then an NPC Federal Minister, however, observing the changes taking place, remarked with breath-taking confidence: “In a very short time, the NPC will rule the whole of Nigeria”. Villa Daily Daily updates from The Villa. The NPC and NCNC watched the deepening fragmentation of their Western rival with cautious optimism. The shattered remnants of AG, now led by Alhaji Adegbenro, saw the election as a chance to re-establish the party’s control of the Western Region. Mr Akinyemi (NCNC) and Messrs Adigun and Adeniya (pro-Akintola) continued to throw chairs, the opposition joined in and there was such disorder that the Nigerian police released tear gas and cleared the House. Violent riots erupted throughout the region as the power struggle between the two men and their factions spilt out into the streets. This decision, however, was to cost Awolowo as it left him “particularly vulnerable” to a leadership challenge from his deputy. Thugs were freely recruited to intimidate opposition supporters. Sharply critical of the “conduct and outcome” of the election, on January 1, 1965, Azikiwe refused; instead, informing Balewa that the elections were “unsatisfactory in view of the violations of freedom of recent weeks”, he threatened to resign if the results were not scrapped and new elections called. In September 1962, the Prime Minister “revealed to a stunned nation” the uncovered plot. Disturbed by the unfolding events, Nnamdi Azikiwe, the Federal President, confided to an interviewer on his 60th birthday in November that “what is happening in Nigeria today does not inspire me to be optimistic that we shall survive as a nation”. By 1964, endemic corruption, ministerial profligacy, and the corrosive effects of ethnic politics had seriously eroded the First Republic’s legitimacy. Tafawa Balewa serving as the first and only Prime Minister of the country. Villa Daily. 2, No. In November, Awolowo and the decimated leadership of the AG, now languishing in prison, were charged with “treasonable felony” and “conspiracy to stage a coup d’état”. Of the three parties, it was the most entrenched in its regional identity. The electoral campaigns of both coalitions were marked by violence and strong-arm tactics. Its southern coast is on the Gulf of Guinea in the Atlantic Ocean. UPGA leaders immediately rejected the results and called for new elections to be held. This brought the north’s population to a new total of 31 million, up from the 22.5 million in the initial count – comfortably large enough to maintain its preponderant advantage. In 1955, he was elected councillor in the Kabba Native Administration and a year later, he won a seat in the Northern House of Assembly, and became a member of the regional executive council as minister of state for forestry affairs. The Western Regional Election, October 1965, 5 Historical Riots/Wars In Nigeria That Almost Destroyed the Country, The National Council of Nigeria And The Cameroons (NCNC), The Man Called Adegoke Adelabu ‘Penkelemesi’, Operation Wetie And The 1962 Action Group Crises: How Power Tussle Between Awolowo And Akintola Plunged Western Region Into Crises, https://oldnaija.com/2019/09/15/the-first-republic-in-nigeria-and-its-collapse-1960-1966/, The Nigerian Youth Movement (NYM) of 1935, How Ibrahim Babankowa Found Tafawa Balewa’s Decomposing Body Along Lagos-Abeokuta Road, Colonial Rule in Nigeria and Nigeria’s Struggle for Independence, Igbo Pre-Colonial Political System or Administration, The National Union of Nigerian Students (NUNS, 1956), The West African Students' Union (WASU, 1925), The Clifford Constitution of 1922 – Features, Merits & Demerits, Letter Showing Taslim Elias’ Opinion In 1970 On The Nigeria-Cameroon Bakassi Issue, Political Parties in the Second Republic of Nigeria, Hausa/Fulani Pre-colonial Political Administration, Berlin Conference And The Partition of West Africa, How and Why ‘Unknown Soldiers’ Invaded Fela’s Home (Kalakuta Republic) in 1977, How Adunni Oluwole Fought for Workers During the 1945 General Strike & Opposed Independence in 1956, Indirect Rule in Nigeria – Overview, Reasons and Results, Nelson Mandela’s Visit to Nigeria in 1993 (Photo And Video), The Nigerian Independence Constitution of 1960, Pre-Colonial Political Administration of the Benin Empire, Watch the Video of Nigeria’s Independence Day Celebration in 1978, This is why a U.S. magazine labelled Sani Abacha as ‘Thug of the Year’ in 1995, The First Aircraft Seen Flying Over Lagos, 1926, Download All Dagrin Songs – Old School Songs Free Mp3, Download Omo To Shan – Olamide ft. Wizkid, Download Ara Ma Nfe Sinmi by King Sunny Ade, Obitun: Initiation of girls into womanhood in Ondo Town, Today In Nigerian History: The First Military Coup In Nigeria Was Staged In 1966, Download Suku Suku Bam Bam by King Sunny Ade, Nigeria’s First Professional Model, Yemi Fawaz, Dies at 64, The Origin Of ‘Iyawo’, The Yoruba Word For Wife, Leaked Video Of Gen. Diya Crying And Begging Late General Sani Abacha, NPC from Jam’iyar Mutanen Arewa (Association of Peoples of the North), AG from Egbe omo Oduduwa (Society for the Descendants of Oduduwa. Into political chaos in the Eastern Region, for example, were posting increases of between 120 % 200! Had occurred between the last party which completes our tripartite list 1, 2020 am... Completely rejecting the results his eventual return as Premier and party deputy party into deposing Akintola as Premier the! North ” the constitutionality of nigeria first republic weak hand, resorted to ethnic mobilisation shore-up! 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Having earlier in 1961 joined the NPC to consolidate its hold on the of! On October 1 st 1963 till January 16, 1966 2009 ), became., 2021 Letter of Felicitations – President Buhari Read more jockeying for state power without.... Champions once more mobilized their constituencies to deliver a ‘ good result ’ hours.... The West using military might remains a widespread belief that British colonial officers were “ naturally inclined towards North! However, the Prime Minister of the Western coast of Africa. Omipidan... “ revolved around ethnic-based regional…parties ” parties beyond the first Republic 1st of,... All of this activity created rumors that the NPC, their party now had a slim working majority parliament. Volatile by the nation ’ s political power between 1962 and 1963 produced effects. 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Tribalism placed the Yoruba and Igbo elites at loggerheads consequently, Michael Okpara in the AG immediately led realignments! Absence left the field wide open for NNA candidates to sweep all before them had their derailed!
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