Introduction Background to Nigeria as a State Nigeria
Introduction: Background to Nigeria as a State: Nigeria is a creation of British colonial rule; it was given the name Nigeria in 1914 when the various parts of the British colonial possession were amalgamated into one territory under a single administration headed by Governor-General Frederick Lugard. Prior to 1914, present day Nigeria consisted of three separate territories, namely, the Protectorate of Northern Nigeria, the Protectorate of Southern Nigeria and the Colony of Lagos. Before the amalgamation, these three entities were administered separately by different administrators, with each one directly responsible to the government of the United Kingdom.
The colonial rulers realised the need to bring the three territories under a unified administration especially for reasons of convenience and perhaps to reduce multiple administrative overhead costs. From 1904, the administration of the Colony of Lagos and Protectorate of Southern Nigeria were brought together under a single governor, Sir Walter Egerton. For the next eight years, the Colony and Protectorate of Southern Nigeria was administered separately from the Protectorate of Northern Nigeria. The respective administrations were only brought together by the Amalgamation Proclamation of 1914 under Sir Frederick Lugard as Governor-General of Nigeria.
Now called the Colony and Protectorate of Nigeria, its capital was based in Lagos. However, Lagos retained its unique status as a colony, with its inhabitants treated as British subjects, owing allegiance to the British monarch and subject to British laws. Also, the now amalgamated country was divided into the Southern and Northern groups of provinces corresponding to the former protectorates, with each group of provinces being administered separately by a Lieutenant-Governor who reported directly to the Governor-General in Lagos. The Northern and Southern groups of provinces also had separate bureaucracies. The implication was that even though the country was now a single entity, it was still separately governed, creating a wide gulf between the North and the South.
The amalgamation proclamation of 1914 effectively created a new colonial state which would later be granted independence as a sovereign state in October 1960. We can therefore legally date the existence of the country from 1914.
Notwithstanding the amalgamation, the British authorities continued to administer Nigeria as two separate and distinct entities, the North and the South. Even the language of administration and bureaucracy differed, for instance, while Hausa was generally used in the North, English was the official language in Southern Nigeria largely because it was the most convenient in a region with diverse ethnic groups and languages. The implication is that the British deliberately perpetuated cultural distinctions rather than welding the new country together in such a way for all to have a sense of belonging and unity.
This deliberate divide-and-rule policy was carried further when in 1939 the British further divided the Protectorate of Southern Nigeria into Eastern and Western groups of provinces while leaving the huge Northern Protectorate intact. Nigeria now had four separate sections, namely, the Colony of Lagos, the western group of provinces, the Eastern group of provinces, and the Northern group of provinces. During the Second World War between 1939 and 1945, there was a critical shortage of administrative personnel, a condition which necessitated devolution of powers to the headquarters of each group of provinces, thus giving them their distinctive characteristics and further solidifying the lack of unity.
This would seem to have left permanent divisions between the North and South on the one hand, and between the East and West on the other, which have continued to determine the nature and character of national politics and governance. Even today, more than fifty years after the grant of political independence, the North-South divide still determines the way the country is governed, as issues such as ‘Federal character’, ‘power rotation’, ‘zoning’, etc are critical considerations in the choice of leaders.
The four administrative divisions survived and were further strengthened by the Richards Constitution of 1945 which actually gave them more powers, and a few years later the Macpherson constitution of 1951 turned them into Regions with more powers. The Colony of Lagos was amalgamated with the Western Region in the same year. Nigeria became independent with three regions, namely, the Northern Region, the Western Region and Eastern Region, with Lagos retaining its original status as the Federal capital.
Since 1960, Nigeria has gone from three regions to four regions when the Midwest was created from the Western Region in 1963; twelve states in 1967; 19 states in 1976; twenty one and now thirty-six states and a new Federal capital in Abuja. These various balkanizations were intended to solve the problems of disunity, but it would seem that not much has been achieved in that direction.
Since the amalgamation, Nigeria has experimented with different constitutions, from the ones drawn and imposed by colonial rulers to the ones adopted since independence in 1960. These include: the Clifford Constitution of 1922; the Richards’ Constitution of 1945; the Macpherson Constitution of 1951; the Lyttleton Constitution of 1954; the 1957/1958 Constitution; the Independence Constitution of 1960; the Republican Constitution of 1963; the 1979 Constitution; the 1995 Constitution; the 1999 Constitution.
Each of the constitutions since 1922 has its own history and the peculiar circumstances that brought it into existence as well as the factors responsible for its apparent failure or success. Each one of them addressed certain needs and dynamics in the course of Nigeria’s march to independence and post-colonial political developments. We shall now examine all of them and the domestic political circumstances that necessitated them.
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