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EMMF:
Making a Difference in Nigeria
A history of Nigeria
The Portuguese
discovered Nigeria in the 1480’s along with one of its indigenous races, the
Edo. The Edo kingdom was noted for its
brass and ivory work and for its barbaric customs of human sacrifice, but for
white traders its chief interest was as a source of slaves and pepper. Long subject to the Yoruba civilization that
had Hamitic origins and had established itself between the 7th and 10th
centuries along the Niger River delta in the south, the Endo probably did not
establish a state independent of the Yoruba until in the early 15th century. The Yoruba maintained a loose federation
until the late 16th and early 17th centuries, when they were united under the
Alafin of Oyo. The Oyo Empire, however,
did not extend to the coast where the Endo in the west and the Igbo in the east
were relatively autonomous. The north
had been settled by Hausa-speaking people.
Although they were a mixture of Arab, Hamitic and Negro stock, the Hausa
spoke a common language of Hamitic origin.
In the early 16th century, the Hausa were partially conquered by the great
Moslem empire of the Songhai of western Sudan.
It was not until the early 19th century that the Hausa states were
completely conquered in a Holy War by the Fulani who had peacefully settled
among them from the 13th century onward.
Despite their subjection to the Fulani emirs, Hausa administration was
retained, and the Fulani turn largely to slave raiding. While the Fulani were conquering the Hausa,
the Oyo state to the south was also coming under control of a Fulani emirate
established in Yorubaland.
British interest
in Nigeria dates to the mid-16th century when the first English merchants
visited Benin. Although slow to adapt
to the rigors of the African climate, by the end of the 18th century British
traders were in the majority.
Nonetheless the English had no formal political commitment to Nigeria
until 1861 when it became expedient for them to annex its major port of Lagos
in an attempt to stop the slave trade.
This opened the interior of Nigeria to British traders who formed the
United African Trade Company in 1879 that succeeded in ousting most Europeans
from their trading posts. In 1886 the
company was chartered by the British government as the Royal Niger Company and
empowered to maintain law and order wherever it could obtain the right to do so
through treaties with native rulers and to levy taxes to defray the expenses of
government. The company quickly
established a protectorate in the North where it developed a trade monopoly
with the Sultan of Sokoto and many other rulers. In the south it proclaimed a protectorate in the Niger delta and
controlled the palm oil trade. In 1888
Yorubaland was placed under protection of the British following a pact with the
Alafin of Oyo, while in 1892 the king of Benin accepted a British protectorate
and promised to forgo slave trading and human sacrifices. Three years later the Alafin repudiated
British rule but was greeted by an expeditionary force that forced him to
submit. Shortly thereafter King Overami
of Benin failed to keep his promises.
When a British counsel and his entourage, dispatched to give Overami an
ultimatum, were massacred on their way, a British force captured the king and
sent him into exile.
Nigeria came
under complete British dominion in 1900 when the responsibilities of the Royal
Niger Company were assumed by the crown: the Niger Coast protectorate in the
south and a similar protectorate for the north where the Fulani emirs held sway
and were reluctant to accept complete British rule. However by 1906 the emirs were subdued through a combination of
force and diplomacy that allowed the Fulani to administer their territory
provided they accepted certain broad principles and policies laid down by the
British government. By 1914 both the northern
and southern parts of Nigeria were governed by a governor-general appointed for
the entire country and two lieutenant governors under him, one for each part of
Nigeria. After World War I a new
legislative council was established, but no serious efforts toward
self-governance was entertained until after World War II when the country was
divided into Northern (Hausa), Eastern (Igbo), and Western (Yoruba) Regions,
each with its own house of assembly which in the main was made up of elected
members. A series of constitutional
maneuvers culminated in the birth of the Federation of Nigeria with Lagos as
its capitol and a full ministerial system headed by the first Prime Minister,
Sir Abubakar Balewa of the Northern Region.
In 1957 the Western and Eastern regions were given full internal government
while the North waited until 1959 to accept it.
In 1960, The
Federation of Nigeria became an indepedent nation of the British
Commonwealth. A coalition government
was formed by the Northern Peoples’ Congress (NPC), the dominant party among
the predominantly Moslem Northern Region, and the National Council of Nigeria
and the Cameroons (NCNC), the governing party of the Eastern Region where the
Igbo were the strongest racial group.
The lone opposition party, the Action Group of the Western Region, was
led by the Yoruban Chief Awolowo. The
NPC-NCNC coalition proved fragile, however, when the Northern Region sought to
unjustly manipulate the census of 1963 in an attempt to win additional seats in
the federal assembly. In the Western
Region the Action Group became divided, and Chief Awolowo was charged with
treason. With Awolow in prison, Chief
Akintola, head of the splinter group and more accommodating to the northern
leaders, sought to manipulate the elections of 1965, the results of which were
widely held to be fraudulent. The
Northern leaders and their allies in the West held sway in Nigeria until on
January 15, 1966, a military coup d’etat was staged by junior military officers
and three prominent pro-Northern politicians were executed: Federal Prime
Minister Balewa, Northern Prime Minister Sir Ahmadu Bello, and Chief
Akintola. Although not a co-conspirator
in the coup, army commander-in-chief Major-General Johnson Thomas Umunakwe
Aguiyi-Ironsi assumed control of the military government, repealed the
constitution, banned political parties and arrested many political
leaders. Within seven months, however,
Ironsi was killed in an army mutiny, and a new military government was
installed with Lieutenant-Colonel Yakubu Gowon at its head. Gowon restored the federal form of
government.
The Civil (Biafran) War in Nigeria
In October, 1966,
after a massacre of Igbos in the north, Lieutenant-Colonel Odumegwo Ojukwu,
head of the Eastern Region government, ordered all but Igbos to leave the
Eastern Region. Shortly thereafter he
assumed authority over all federal institutions, transportation, and tax
collections in the Eastern Region under the guise that the federal government,
as embodied in the northern-dominated Supreme Military Council (SMC), was
attempting to stymie the economy of the Eastern Region in an effort to
undermine its political power. Ojukwu’s
initiatives were denounced by the SMC that in turn was unable to resolve the
continuing dispute over the scope of regional authority. Despite its approval of plans aimed at
preserving the federal system and restoring civilian government, some of these
measures reduced regional powers and further alienated the Eastern Region. By May, 1967, despite attempts at reconciliation
between the federal government and the East, Ojukwu called the remaining
economic sanctions and presence of federal (northern) troops in the Eastern
Region unacceptable and sought the permission of the Eastern Consultative
Assembly to lead a secession from the federation. Shortly after the Assembly granted its permission, Gowon
announced that the country would be divided into 12 states: 6 Northern, Eastern
and the remaining Western. The
boundaries established by his edict would deprive the East of the lucrative
palm oil trade and cut off their access to rivers and streams needed for the
transport of other agricultural products.
The Eastern Region seceded from the federation on May 30, 1967, and
proclaimed itself the indepedent Republic of Biafra. The federal government established an economic blockade and
started military action against the largely Igbo race of Biafra thereby
plunging Nigeria into a long civil war.
Before the war ended in early 1970 with the defeat of the Biafrans and
the restoration of the Federal Military Government (FMG), the number of dead
from hostilities, disease, and starvation during the thirty-month civil war
were estimated at three million. The
end of the fighting found more than 3 million Igbo refugees crowded into a
2,500-square-kilometer enclave. Prospects
for the survival of many of them and for the future of the region were
dim. There were severe shortages of
food, medicine, clothing, and housing.
The economy of the region was shattered. Cities were in ruins; schools, hospitals, utilities, and transportation
facilities were destroyed or inoperative.
Overseas groups instituted a major relief effort, but the FMG insisted
on directing all assistance and recovery operations and barred some agencies
that had supplied aid to Biafra.
Because charges of genocide had fueled international sympathy for
Biafra, the FMG allowed a team of international experts to observe the
surrender. Subsequently, the observers
testified that they found no evidence of genocide or systematic destruction of
property, although there was considerable evidence of famine and death as a
result of the war. Under Gowon’s close
supervision, the federal government ensured that Igbo civilians would not be
treated as defeated enemies. There were
no trials and few people were imprisoned.
Ojukwu, in exile, was made the scapegoat, but efforts to have him
extradited failed. The federal
government granted funds for reconstruction and much of the damage was
repaired. Rehabilitation of 70 percent
of the industry incapacitated during the war was accomplished in about three
years. Social services and public
utilities slowly were reinstituted, although not to pre-war levels.
Nigeria Since the Civil (Biafran) War
Military
rule continued in Nigeria through a succession of generals until General Olusegun
Obasanjo, acting in the manner of his predecessor, General Murtala Muhammad,
drafted a constitution in 1976 that was ratified in 1979, thus paving the way
for the elections of that year and the return to civilian rule. The Second Republic, however, lasted only
until 1983 when it fell victim to regional rivalries, corruption, and a fall in
oil prices. The economy faltered and
confidence fell to the point that an estimated $14 billion was taken out of the
country between 1979 and 1983. On
December 31, 1983, the military seized power again and held control of the
government until May, 1999, when General Abdulsalami Abubakar relinguished it
to an elected leader, the retired General Olusegun Obasanjo. Speaking at his inauguration President
Obasanjo declared the day as the “beginning of a genuine renaissance” in
Nigeria. “Today we are taking a
decisive step on the path of democracy,” said the 62-year-old Obasanjo. “We will leave no stone unturned to ensure
sustenance of democracy, because it is good for us, it is good for Africa, and
it is good for the world.” The Third
Republic has given the Nigerian people a renewed optimism, and they are busy
attempting to repair their social institutions like the ENMC.
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