Divided Nigeria

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30642, 7 January 1965, Page 6

Divided Nigeria

Since Nigeria became independent in 1960 it has been the chief vindication of the British colonial system; and in a continent subject to increasing fragmentation and dictatorship, it has been both the largest and the most stable of the new African nations. In the last year, however, rivalries among the regions and tribes of this huge country—with a fifth of the total African population—reached a climax that threatened Nigeria’s integrity. The recent Federal General Election, the first since independence, was quite unsatisfactory because it was boycotted by many voters. In spite of the redrawing of party lines that has taken place and the warnings that the old coalitions would not be restored, the Prime Minister (Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa) now seems able to form a broadly based Government. This is good news, for political disruption would have upset the progress that Nigeria has been making. The chief opposition party, an alliance of the main parties of the more progressive and economically sounder Southern region, had hoped to break the grip which the conservative North, led by Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, with the support of the Western region Government, has maintained. The Western Government has not had popular support and the leader of its opponents, Chief Awolowo, now a political martyr, is in prison. The North has, however, increased its majority in the Federal Parliament, largely because of the boycott of elections called by Opposition leaders, who claimed that conditions for free and fair elections did not exist. Their charges were supported by members of an electoral commission, who reported that registers were incomplete and that polling arrangements had broken down.

The North has also been accused of rigging the census on which representation in the Federal Parliament is based with a view to ensuring its dominance, and of political and economic discrimination in the North against Nigerians there from other regions. President Azikiwe suggested that this had brought the federation to the point of dissolution and the regrouping of party alliances before the elections to emphasise the differences between north and south lent weight to his fears The break-up of Nigeria would be regrettable, but because of the resourcefulness that seems characteristic of Nigerian politics, this appears to have been averted.