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Nigeria
Negotiated federal independence following constitutional conferences in London and Lagos; Abubakar Tafawa Balewa became prime minister, with Nnamdi Azikiwe as Governor-General from November 1960.
- Independence
- October 1, 1960
- Before
- Federation of Nigeria
- Metropole
- United Kingdom
- Leader
- Abubakar Tafawa Balewa
- Transition
- Negotiated
- Movement
- NCNC (Azikiwe); Action Group (Awolowo); Northern People's Congress (Bello and Balewa)
“Today is Independence Day. The first of October 1960 is a date to which for two years every Nigerian has been eagerly looking forward to. At last, our great day has arrived, and Nigeria is now indeed an independent sovereign nation.”
— Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, October 1, 1960
Amalgamation and Indirect Rule
Britain annexed Lagos in 1861 and built up protectorates across the Niger region. On 1 January 1914 Frederick Lugard amalgamated the Northern and Southern Protectorates into a single Nigeria. Indirect rule governed the Muslim north through its emirs and barred Christian missions, and with them mission schooling, from the north. The south developed more quickly through trade and missionary education. The gap entrenched regional differences that shaped all later politics.
Regional Parties, Federal Constitutions
Nationalist politics grew out of three regionally based parties. The NCNC was founded in 1944 under Herbert Macaulay, with Nnamdi Azikiwe as secretary-general. Obafemi Awolowo's Action Group was founded in the West in 1951, and Ahmadu Bello led the Northern People's Congress. Successive constitutions, the Richards (1946), Macpherson (1951) and Lyttelton (1954), moved Nigeria towards a federation of three regions, each dominated by one party and its main ethnic group.
Negotiated Independence
Constitutional conferences in London and Lagos set the terms of independence. The Eastern and Western regions gained internal self-government in 1957, and the North, at its own request, on 15 March 1959. Nigeria became independent on 1 October 1960 with the NPC's Abubakar Tafawa Balewa as prime minister. He led a coalition of the NPC and NCNC. On 16 November 1960 Azikiwe succeeded Sir James Robertson as the first Nigerian Governor-General.
Chronology
- January 1, 1914 — Amalgamation of Northern and Southern Nigeria
- August 1944 — NCNC founded
- October 1, 1954 — Lyttelton Constitution establishes a federal system
- 1957 — Eastern and Western regions gain self-government
- March 15, 1959 — Northern Region gains self-government
- October 1, 1960 — Independence; Balewa prime minister
- November 16, 1960 — Azikiwe becomes Governor-General
Aftermath
Nigeria became a republic on 1 October 1963 with Azikiwe as president. Regional and ethnic rivalries led to two military coups in January and July 1966, and the Eastern Region seceded as Biafra under Odumegwu Ojukwu in May 1967. Estimates of civilian deaths in the Nigerian Civil War (1967–1970) range from about 500,000 to 2 million, with some as high as 3 million, most from starvation under the federal blockade.
Legacy
Nigeria became independent as a federation of three mutually suspicious regions, and that structure broke down in the Biafran war. The nation nonetheless survived as a single state and became Africa's most populous country and one of its largest economies.