Azikiwe and the Perception of Political Dominance in 1954

[Ogbuagu Anikwe]

There are two narratives that are being sold in the intellectual dying intellectual altercation between Obi Nwakamma and Mobolaji Aluko which I believe do violence to the facts of Nigerian history during the watershed year of 1954. It’s not so much about what Nwakamma and Aluko have written (I enjoyed those minus the profanities of course), but from two narratives that one can discern from the sidelines, as the bombs were being concurrently exploded by the likes of Kadiri and other passionate passersby at the arena of conflict. My purpose is not to stoke the conflict further but to advise on offering perspectives that are based more on passion than on the facts.

I am concerned about two interpretations that appear misleading:

1. Azikiwe must have teamed up with Ahmadu-Bello in 1954 (rather than Awolowo) to fulfill a burning ambition to rule or to use the Igbos to “dominate” Nigeria through an NPC federal government – because Zik saw the Northern Peoples’ Congress (NPC) as a party of unlettered and ignorant members who can easily be manipulated.

2. Awolowo magnanimously offered Azikiwe the prime minister's position in 1954, a gesture that demonstrated political sagacity, patriotic instincts, and respect for elders; 

These interpretations reflect the viewpoints of their promoters and I have no problems with their expressing them; I certainly have no right to ask them not to hold on to their right to hold and to impart opinions. My concern is that these perspectives, made in the heat of passion, are being offered without regards to the facts of the 1954 (Macpherson) Constitution which governed (a) the conduct of the 1954 federal elections in Nigeria and (b) the constitution of a federal government cabinet. 

At the conclusion of the 3-month long elections (October – December, 1954), the NPC won majority of federal seats by simply securing 79 of the 94 legislative seats in the Northern Region. The National Council of Nigeria Citizens (NCNC) won 23 of the 42 legislative seats in the Western Region, beating Action Group (AG) party (with 18 seats) to second place. In addition, NCNC also won 32 of the 42 seats in the Eastern Region, leaving the United National Independent Party (in alliance with the AG) with 7 seats. In the Southern Cameroons, the Kamerun National Congress won all of the six seats in contention, while the two seats reserved for the Federal Territory of Lagos were shared apiece between AG and NCNC. The balance from the 184 seats declared for elections were won by independent candidates and native organizations such as the Ilorin Talaka Parapo Alliance. 

These results provide the context in which Zik addressed his party members about the possibility of NCNC dominating the federal government. 

The Macpherson constitution recognized regional representation in the Federal Government Council of Ministers. However, the regional members of the Council were to be nominated not by the regional legislatures but by parties having a majority in the federal elections from each region. Thus, even though the AG was in power in the Western Region, the fact that NCNC won majority of the seats in that region meant that NCNC would select all three ministerial slots from the Western Region, in addition to selecting all three ministerial nominations from the Eastern Region as well. What this meant was that, regardless of whatever alliance configurations occurred after the elections, NCNC had secured six (6) of the 10 ministerial portfolios (60%) in the cabinet, leaving the NPC with three seats (30%), KNC with one (10%), and AG with nothing. In other words, if NPC had decided, for instance, to go into alliance with AG, this NCNC dominance of ministerial seats in the federal cabinet would still have been assured. 

If Awolowo were to approach Azikiwe and suggest that they team up to form the government (as happened), it would be totally misleading to propose that he (Awo) was merely sweetening the deal by deferring to Zik as an elder or indeed demonstrating political astuteness. As I said before, one can be excused for misinterpreting this gesture. However, if we keep in mind that after the elections, the NCNC came to the federal legislature with 56 representatives, compared to AG’s 27 (which is less than half of the NCNC number), it would be obvious that only an imprudent politician would have suggested that the party with less number of seats be given the prime minister slot – and Awo was clearly not. In other words, AG had no option than to offer the party with a majority the position of Prime Minister in the alliance that it sought with the NCNC. 

Second, at the conclusion of the 1954 election, the Action Group had become a political orphan by not garnering enough legislative seats from the Western Region to secure the Region’s three (3) ministerial seats in the cabinet. The NCNC, on the other hand, was empowered through its electoral victories in the East and West to have a majority of seats in the cabinet, thanks to the Macpherson Constitution. Thus, even if the NPC had decided to align with AG to form a government, NCNC dominance of the federal cabinet ministerial slots would still have been assured, in accordance with the Constitution. This fact is evident in the composition of the first national cabinet, after the NPC-NCNC alliance, as follows: Malam Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, Minister of Works & Transport (North, NPC); Malam Muhammadu Ribadu, Minister of Lands, Mines and Power (North, NPC); Malam Inua Wada Kano, Minister without Portfolio (North, NPC); Dr. Kingsley Ozuomba Mbadiwe, Communication and Civil Aviation (East, NCNC); Mr. R. A. Njoku, Trade & Industry (East, NCNC); Mr. M.T. Mbu, Minister without Portfolio (East, NCNC); Mr. Adegoke Adelabu, Natural Resources and Social Services (West, NCNC); Chief Festus S. Okotie-Eboh, Labour and Welfare (West, NCNC); Mr. Kola Balogun, Minister without Portfolio (West, NCNC); and Mr. V. Mukete, Minister without Portfolio (Southern Cameroons). 

Here are my interpretations, on the basis of the above, and in accordance with the 1954 Constitution which guided the elections and the first national government: 

One: I propose that it made sense at that time, and even now, for NCNC to have aligned with the NPC rather than the AG to form the government. If Zik had agreed with Awo for NCNC to enter into an alliance with AG in order to form a government, this would have been a malevolent political gang-up against a party with majority seats, and designed to exclude the Northern Region from the government. The consequences of such a conspiracy can be appreciated only by reviewing our subsequent political experiences where politicians who won majority of votes in their regions authorized themselves as winners of national elections and progressed in words and actions (both in the courts and on the streets) that discomfited everyone. 

Two: I read two interpretations from the events of 1954, as they relate to the personal political ambition of Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe: (a) Zik was altogether a coward for passing up a golden opportunity offered by Chief Obafemi Awolowo to become the first prime minister of Nigeria (a position for which he was not only eminently qualified but was also consumed by ambition to allegedly seek at all costs); alternatively, (b) Zik was capable of subsuming this burning personal ambition to rule (or to use his Igbo people to dominate Nigeria) to a larger national interest in order to avert chaos and in order not to promote the escalation of political conflict in his native country. 

Whichever interpretation anyone agrees with, the words of Shakespeare, paraphrased, rings true – ambition should have been made of sterner stuff.

Ogbuagu Anikwe

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[Rex Marinus]

Ogbuagu, it was not the 1954 elections, but the 1959 elections. The NCNC had swept the federal seats in Western Nigeria and beaten the Action Group. If regional elections had been held that year, the NCNC would have formed the government of the West, and this 1954 election was a sort of referendum on Awolowo's capacity as an administrator and on the AG as a party in the West, in the period that Azikiwe had led a sustained and high minded opposition as leader of the Opposition in the Western House, from 1951-1953. He had to return to the East in 1954, and his party won both the East and the West in that federal election. The 1954 federal elections was a test run for the federal elections of 1959 that'd lead to political independence.  NCNC's success startled the colonial powers in 1954, and you can gauage the impact in the various news reports in the British papers in that period. The nationalist party won elections in the 2 regions of the South and made significant in-road northwards. The suppression of votes in the North denied the NCNC and its northern alliance, NEPU, the Idoma Peoples Party, the Rwang Pam faction of the UMBC, from electoral victories with the colonial administrators helping to gerrymander the elections. But because of the principle of proportional representation the NCNC supplied the highest number of ministers, and going by proportionality, the leader of the NCNC Parliamentary caucus, K.O. Mbadiwe should have been appointed Federal Prime Minister in 1957. But the Governor General chose their man, Balewa.

The same scenario played out in the 1959 independence elections. Awolowo's offer to ally with Zik to form the Federal government after that election was ultimately a left-handed gesture, because (a) a faction of Awo's party clearly wanted to ally with the NPC, (b) Any successful alliance of the Southern parties and their northern allies to form a government was calculated to alienate the North which was already contemplating secession, and (c) Azikiwe had to contend with the dynamics of his own party and the possibility of a permanent rift after only surviving a party crisis leading to that election in 1958. He opted to subdue his own ambition, a move which puts a lie on Salimonu Kadiri's allegation that Azikiwe was a power-monger, for the good of the federation. Ceding power for the public interest is hardly the act of a man blinded by ambition, clearly. But whatever strategic play Azikiwe and his party were making, they put into consideration the possibility that down the line, without British interference after indepedence, the Nationalist party would regain power and establish the government. There, was where they were sorely mistaken. I think you should correct the dates.

Obi Nwakanma

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From: Ogbuagu Anikwe <oan...@gmail.com>
Sent: Sunday, September 11, 2016 2:40 PM
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Cc: Mobolaji Aluko; Obi Nwakanma
Subject: Azikiwe and the Perception of Political Dominance in 1954

 

[Ogbuagu Anikwe]

Greetings my dear brother and thank you for the correction; I agree with you that the AG began alliance talks with the NCNC only after the 1959 elections. I apologise to the Group for the mix up in dates. 

I however wish to state that my submission about the significance of the 1954 watershed elections still holds true, considering that it was the result of this (1954) election that was used to arrive at the decision not only about who should be appointed prime minister but also about the need to form a broadbased government on August 27, 1957.

I want to disagree that KO Mbadiwe should have been invited to form the government in 1957; that is not what the constitution stipulated and it is also inconceivable that a party with less number of representation in the parliament could have been invited to form a government on its own regardless of the number of seats it was entitled to in the cabinet.

I need to state/restate the following:

1. In 1957 there was no election; only a broadbased government (which included two AG cabinet members) was formed. The issue of political alliances did not therefore arise. 

2. After the 1959 elections, there was no basis for either Awolowo or Azikiwe to contemplate being Prime Minister - in a system where a different party from theirs had a (simple) parliamentary majority. They could team up to do this of course - as Awolowo wanted - but this would have amounted to a political gang-up designed to install chaos in the land. Only a politician with inordinate ambition would have agreed to do this and Zik proved that he was not.

3. You and I are agreed that Zik acted in the larger national interest by aligning with the NPC rather than with AG. This alliance continued to ensure even representation of the regions at the cabinet level since the NCNC had continued to nominate ministers from the Western Region where it was keenly competing with the AG.  If NPC had aligned with the AG, the East would have been thrown into the political wilderness (as is the case today), the same way that the North would have felt sidelined in the event of an NCNC-AG alliance.

4. The 1959 federal elections final tally was NPC 148, NCNC 89 and AG 75. This result put the parties in the exact same position they were in 1954. It would still have amounted to a gang-up against the party with a simple majority, and with dire consequences  for the young nation, if NCNC and AG had teamed up to form a government under the circumstance. 

5. By 1959, it has to be stated that both NPC and the AG had completely shed their ethnic/regional toga; they campaigned nationwide and struck fruitful alliances across regions. In the elections, NPC through its allies secured 6 seats in the Western and one (1) seat in the Eastern Regions while AG with its allies secured 25 seats in the Northern and 14 in the Eastern Regions. NCNC was the only party that had hitherto maintained a pan-regional character (across East and West); its Northern alliances in 1959 further gave it a trully national character for the first time. It is inaccurate to say that NCNC was a national party prior to 1954; this was its objective but it was never fully attained.

5. Finally, contrary to the impression created by your response, Zik's party DID NOT win the majority of seats in the Western Region in 1959 as it did in 1954. The final tally for the West in 1959 was NPC 6, NCNC 21, and AG 35.

I stick only to the facts when analysing our history. One of the sad things I learnt in my journalism practice is that our intellectual and political elite classes deliberately and willfully distort our history to serve diverse narrow interests. I'm always on the lookout for these characters without conscience who are miseducating our young people and sowing the seed of disunity in our country. 

Ogbuagu Anikwe. 

On Sunday, September 11, 2016, Rex Marinus <rexma...@hotmail.com> wrote:

Ogbuagu, it was not the 1954 elections, but the 1959 elections. The NCNC had swept the federal seats in Western Nigeria and beaten the Action Group. If regional elections had been held that year, the NCNC would have formed the government of the West, and this 1954 election was a sort of referendum on Awolowo's capacity as an administrator and on the AG as a party in the West, in the period that Azikiwe had led a sustained and high minded opposition as leader of the Opposition in the Western House, from 1951-1953. He had to return to the East in 1954, and his party won both the East and the West in that federal election. The 1954 federal elections was a test run for the federal elections of 1959 that'd lead to political independence.  NCNC's success startled the colonial powers in 1954, and you can gauage the impact in the various news reports in the British papers in that period. The nationalist party won elections in the 2 regions of the South and made significant in-road northwards. The suppression of votes in the North denied the NCNC and its northern alliance, NEPU, the Idoma Peoples Party, the Rwang Pam faction of the UMBC, from electoral victories with the colonial administrators helping to gerrymander the elections. But because of the principle of proportional representation the NCNC supplied the highest number of ministers, and going by proportionality, the leader of the NCNC Parliamentary caucus, K.O. Mbadiwe should have been appointed Federal Prime Minister in 1957. But the Governor General chose their man, Balewa.

The same scenario played out in the 1959 independence elections. Awolowo's offer to ally with Zik to form the Federal government after that election was ultimately a left-handed gesture, because (a) a faction of Awo's party clearly wanted to ally with the NPC, (b) Any successful alliance of the Southern parties and their northern allies to form a government was calculated to alienate the North which was already contemplating secession, and (c) Azikiwe had to contend with the dynamics of his own party and the possibility of a permanent rift after only surviving a party crisis leading to that election in 1958. He opted to subdue his own ambition, a move which puts a lie on Salimonu Kadiri's allegation that Azikiwe was a power-monger, for the good of the federation. Ceding power for the public interest is hardly the act of a man blinded by ambition, clearly. But whatever strategic play Azikiwe and his party were making, they put into consideration the possibility that down the line, without British interference after indepedence, the Nationalist party would regain power and establish the government. There, was where they were sorely mistaken. I think you should correct the dates.

Obi Nwakanma

From: Ogbuagu Anikwe <oan...@gmail.com>
Sent: Sunday, September 11, 2016 2:40 PM

To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com

[Ibukunolu A Babajide]

Dear Ogbuagwu Anikwe,

An interesting intervention. Two points.

1.  It was after the 1959 federal elections that Awolowo offered Zik the PM position and he agreed to be Finance Minister NOT as you say 1954.

2.  It was a loose coalition of ethnic groups that won the elections in the West in 1954. They were not NCNC per se. The Mabolaje Grand Alliance of the Ibadan people who were not NCNC per se aligned with AG when Zik left the East where he secured good votes to come and be Premier of Western Region.

I thank you for your contribution.

Cheers.

IBK

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[Salimonu Kadiri]

Dear Obuagwu Anikwe,

May I remind you that the 1959 Federal election was referenced because of the much often repeated mythical anecdote and story of how Britain rigged the 1959 federal elections in favour of the NPC to ensure handing over power to Northerners. As you have correctly stated under item 4 of your submission below, none of the political parties had enough parliamentary seats to form the government, in 1959, even though the NPC had 148 seats compared to the NCNC and AG that had 89 and 75 seats respectively. If Britain had rigged the election in favour of the North, the NPC would have had absolute majority over the NCNC and AG put together to form the government. The Governor, Sir James Robertson, only followed the parliamentary procedure when he called on the leader of the party that had the highest number of seats in the parliament, Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, to form the government. Balewa who on his part was conscious of the parliamentary situation, indicated his desire to form a national government comprising of the three major political parties. It was there, that Awolowo declared that he could serve in a national government led by Nnamdi Azikiwe but not in the one led by a feudalist. Since he who would become the Prime Minister depended on the majority of  members of Parliament and not on the party that had the highest number of seats in the Parliament, you must be wrong to assert that Azikiwe, in particular, had no basis to contemplate being the Prime Minister, with the approval of Awolowo's AG when their total number of seats together were 164 against NPC's 148. It is important to note that the national government so formed by Azikiwe could not have excluded the NPC from taking ministerial appointments except the position of the head of government, the Prime Minister. If Awolowo had called for a coalition government between the NCNC and AG to the exclusion of NPC, you might be right to call that political step a gang-up against NPC but to the politically matured, that step would have been seen as strictly following the simple rule of Parliamentary democracy. Your insinuation that 'only a politician with inordinate ambition would have agreed to do this (gang-up) and Zik proved that he was not' would appear illogical, since the same Zik ganged-up with Balewa against Awolowo.

Azikiwe himself had publicly branded the NPC as containing feudal autocrats and illiterate dummies, therefore his decision to form a federal coalition government with the party, was premised on his belief that his ethnic group would dominate the government because of their superior education to the Northerners which would have been impossible if he were to lead a national government consisting of AG. Awolowo decided to be the opposition leader in Parliament and as the Colonial Officials were leaving Nigeria after independence Igbo filled their positions. Samuel Ladoke Akintola, the deputy leader of Action Group and Premier of the Western Region, drew the attention of Awolowo to the discrimination against the Yoruba by the Federal government in appointments in the Civil Service and statutory corporations which he blamed on the refusal of Awolowo to participate in the Federal government. Awolowo averred that if incompetent persons were appointed because of their ethnic origins, it would only accelerate the ruins of the government and enhance the AG to win the next Federal election. The NPC/NCNC gang-up against the AG controlled Western Region began in 1961 when the parliamentary majority of the Federal government passed a resolution to carve out Mid-West from the Western Region while leaving the North and the East intact. In February 1962, the dispute between Akintola and Awolowo over the alienation of Yoruba in federal appointments blew open at the Jos Congress of Action Group when Akintola and Ayo Rosiji the Secretary of the AG walked out. The NPC/NCNC controlled Federal government seized the opportunity of the conflict between Awolowo and Akintola to overthrow the AG controlled Western Region government by declaring a State of Emergency and appointing an administrator to rule the region for six months from May 29, 1962 to 31 December 1962. All the 13 Acts of the State of Emergency rule were signed into law by the Governor General Nnamdi Azikiwe. By the time Emergency rule had ended Awolowo had been incarcerated with his key supporters and charged to court by the Federal Government for treasonable felony. At the same time, Akintola had formed a new political party called United People's Party (UPP) and with the support of the NCNC and some AG members of Western House of Assembly, the NCNC/NPC controlled Federal government returned him as the Premier of Western Region. Before the end of 1963 Awolowo had been jailed ten years and many of his key supporters received sentences ranging between two and seven years. With Awolowo in prison and AG decimated, the NCNC had thought that Western Region would be delivered to them on a platter of gold.

Then, in  February 1964, the Federal Government released the result of the 1963 recounted census figures whereby the North was enumerated with 29.7, East 12.3, Midwest 2.5 millions each and Lagos 675,000. The Premier of the North accepted the census figures while the Premiers of NCNC controlled Eastern and Midwest Region rejected the figures since it would give the North 167 seats out of 312 in the Parliament at the next federal election as against 70 to the East, 57 to the West, 14 to the Midwest and 4 to Lagos. The NCNC premiers of the East and Midwest,Okpara and Osadebay, had hoped that the UPP/NCNC coalition government of the Western Region would also reject the census figures but instead all the NCNC members of the Western House of Assembly, except five, had connived with all the UPP members to resurrect and float the first political party in Nigeria, NNDP, which Azikiwe inherited from Herbert Macaulay in 1946 and liquidated in 1951. Not only that, the new NNDP controlled government of the West published a white paper alleging that the federal government was dominated by what was termed "IBOCRACY" - a network which secured for the Ibo a disproportionate share of jobs, commercial opportunities, federal scholarships etc., at the expense of other ethnic groups in Nigeria. Tables of names listed the favoured Igbo and one spectacular example was that of a medical doctor, Dr. Okwechukwu Ikejiani, who was made Chairman of the Nigerian Railway Corporation, in place of qualified Yoruba mechanical engineers numbering about three. Akintola jokingly referred to what he termed Igbo chauvinism in Yoruba as IKINNI ANI, IKEJI ANI, IKETA ANI IKERIN ANI IKARUN ANI, IKEFA ANI, IKEJE ANI, IKEJO ANI, IKESAN ANI,  IKEWA ANI , SUGBON AWA ONI NI NKANKAN. Meaning the first Igbo shall have, the second shall have, ..... the tenth shall have, but we shall have nothing. The census figures destroyed the relationship between the NPC and NCNC beyond repairs as the December 1964 was fast approaching. In spite of his incarceration Awolowo was still very popular in the West and there were constant protests against Akintola's government.

In August 1964, the NPC, in alliance with the NNDP, the Midwest Democratic Front (MDF), and the Niger Delta Congress of Eastern Nigeria, inaugurated the Nigerian National Alliance (NNA) under which they were to contest the December 1964 , federal elections. In accordance with the terms of the alliance, Balewa invited two NNDP members to join the federal cabinet without first terminating the coalition agreement with the NCNC from December 1959 and despite the fact that the tenure of the government was to expire in five months time. The breach by the NPC of the coalition agreement with NCNC ought to have resulted into withdrawal or resignations of NCNC members of the cabinet and the resignation of Nnamdi Azikiwe whose position, first as Governor General and later as the President, was due to the agreement between the two parties. Conscious of the AG popularity in the West and despite the imprisonment of Awolowo, the NCNC sought alliance with it together with NEPU and UMBC to contest the December '64 federal elections under the umbrella of United Progressive Grand Alliance. In fierce attack, the NNDP projected UPGA as Igbo-dominated organisation created only to serve Igbo interests at the expense of other ethnic groups. Election campaigns in the North and West were marred by violence and on December 10, 1964 President Azikiwe warned in a national broadcast that the violence could lead to dis-integration of Nigeria. When nominations closed on 20 December 1964, 68 NPC candidates had been returned unopposed and Azikiwe urged Balewa, the Prime Minister, to postpone the election for six months and to request the assistance of the United Nations to conduct it. Balewa ignored the President's suggestions and the election was held on 30 December 1964 while UPGA announced boycott which was total in the East even though 19 candidates were also returned unopposed there before the election date, and all the 14 seats in the Midwest were declared won by the NCNC. In the West, 36 NNDP were declared elected as against 13 AG and 5 NCNC which means election boycotts took place only in 3 constituencies. In Lagos Federal Territory, T.O.S. Benson who contested as an Independent candidate, because the NCNC did not trust that he was not an NNDP, was elected by 5 votes and his election was later validated by the courts. That means the election was totally boycotted in 3 constituencies, in Lagos. In the North the NPC won 162 out of 167 seats which implied that NNA alliance won 198 out of 312 seats in the federal parliament. Azikiwe refused to recognise the elections and tried to ask the Army to enforce the cancellation of the elections and holding new ones in the future. Instead Azikiwe found himself surrounded in a house arrest by the Army on the order of Prime Minister Balewa who according to the constitution had the right to executive command of the armed forces despite the title of Azikiwe as Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces. After six days, President Nnamdi Azikiwe, instead of resigning as he had announced on New Year's Day, threw in the towel and invited Abubakar Tafawa Balewa to form a new government, declaring, "I have his (Balewa's) permission to say that he intends to form a broad-based national government." Abubakar submitted immediately a list of 17 cabinet members of which all were NPC from the North to Azikiwe for appointments pending the time elections were conducted in the boycotted constituencies. After elections were conducted in the boycotted constituencies in March 1965, the NCNC abandoned its allies AG, NEPU, and UMBC, in UPGA, to accept ministerial appointments under (NPC/NNDP) the NNA led government. That was politics without principle or moral. Thereafter, Azikiwe left the country for what was termed medical treatment abroad and he did not return to Nigeria until February 1966 after the coup.

My points are these : If Zik did not have inordinate ambition in 1959, he would have remained in opposition together with Awolowo and allowed Balewa to form a minority government; If he did not have inordinate ambition, Azikiwe would not have ignored the protest of his ally, NEPU, in the North against forming a coalition government with NPC; If Azikiwe did not have inordinate ambition, he would not have signed into law all the 13 emergency Acts that overthrew the Action Group controlled Western Region Government in 1962; If Azikiwe did not have inordinate ambition, he would have resigned as the President of the Republic when Balewa breached the coalition agreement he had with the NCNC by inviting NNDP to join the federal cabinet in August 1964; and if Azikiwe did not have inordinate ambition, he would have resigned after the December 1964 federal elections were rigged instead of inviting Abubakar to form a broad-base government. When Nigeria returned to civilian rule in 1979, the separation of power between the Executive and the legislature did not permit coalition. Although the President was Shehu Shagari, his party NPN had only 169 members in the House of Reps and 36 members in the Senate out of 440 and 95 respectively. However, the NPP led by Azikiwe with 78 and 16 members respectively in the House of Reps and the Senate entered into coalition agreement with the NPN to turn the National Assembly into rubber stamp law-makers for the NPN. We knew the results. In view of the aforementioned, Zik was without doubt a politician with inordinate ambition. 

S.Kadiri   

       
 

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Ämne: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Azikiwe and the Perception of Political Dominance in 1954

 

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