Jockeying for Power
By KEITH KYLE
Two extreme results could come from the Nigerian general election, the first since in- dependence, which must be held before the end of the year. The Sardauna of Sokoto's Northern People's Congress might win an outright majority, either by itself or with the aid of its small allies in the coastal strip. 'Alternatively, it is just pos- sible that the two main coastal parties, the National Convention of Nigerian Citizens (NCNC) and the Action Group (AG), might make a clean sweep of the strip and with the aid of a northern coalition of minorities, the Northern Progressive Front, form a Federal Government without the dominant party of the north. Either result could lead to the break-up of the Nigerian Federation unless the leaders act with restraint.
The northern region is by far the greater part of the huge country and, according to the dis- puted 1963 census, contains 54 per cent of the total population. It has a distinct civilisation, with a recorded history going back to 1067 and a literature of its own (in Arabic script) dating from the fifteenth century. By contact over .the trade routes, of the Sahara, it has for a millen- nium been part of the Islamic world. In terms of African history it is the proudest example of continuity with a civilised past. But in terms of Nigerian politics, the north has come to be counted backward.
Since Islam was firmly established when the British arrived, they avoided conflict by barring- the north to Christian missions. The narrow coastal strip between the northern region and the sea surged ahead in modern education. The three regions into which the strip is divided, east, mid-west and west, together with the Federal capital territory of Lagos, are closer to universal primary school attendance than any other part of Africa. In particular, the Ibos who dominate the eastern region took rapidly to European edu- cation and they colonised the key bureaucratic and commercial positions open to Africans under colonial rule in the north.
Nigeria's fundamental problem is thus the rela- tion of the north to the coastal strip. Under the Sardauna of Sokoto, a man of regal presence and aristocratic connections, the mixed peoples of the north, already having a long history in common, have largely relinquished tribal sensi- tivity in favour of counting themselves northerners. There are not many, however, who think of themselves as Nigerian. And although the present coalition in Lagos includes both the NPC and the NCNC, it is an uneasy alliance. Recently the regional newspapers owned by the two parties have been Slamming each other with unrestrained ardour—the NCNC paper even ridiculing the two things most sacred to the north, its history and its religion. Part of the trouble lies in the Sardauna's policy, as northern Premier, of turning the Ibos out of his region bag and baggage. His northernisation means that a northerner has first priority for any vacancy, an expatriate second and a fellow-Nigerian only a grudging third. This northern political predominance is ex- ceedingly frustrating for the impatient African nationalists of the coastal regions,-all the more so as the northerner who, representing the senior partner in the coalition, fills the office of Prime Minister cuts such a drab public figure. Alhaji Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa has been an ad- mirable Attlee-type Cabinet chairman during the difficult early years of the Federation, but his limitations as a symbol of Nigeria's size and potential influence have never been more ap- parent than in the eighteen months since the founding of the Organisation of African Unity.
From Nigeria's viewpoint, the last OAU con- ference at Cairo was a farce equivalent to Sovereign's challenge to Constellation. The Nigerian press, misled apparently by the Prime Minister, continued to canvass the chances of a Nigerian being appointed Secretary-General—in compensation for Lagos having lost the competi- tion with Addis Ababa as the seat of the organisation—long after everyone else knew that the decision would go in favour of one of the two French-speaking candidates.
The south's own two figures, who could 'stand for' Nigeria in the way Nkrumah stands for Ghana or Kenyatta for Kenya, are both, in different senses, prisoners: Zik (Nnamde Azikiwe) is a prisoner in the State House as ceremonial President--part of the bargain between the NPC and his NCNC—and Awo (Obafemi Awolowo) is a prisoner in prison, doing ten years for trying to organise an armed rising.
The present electoral alliance between the NCNC, now led by Dr. Michael Okpara, the eastern Premier and a considerable personality in his own right, and the Action Group, which still acknowledges the incarcerated Awolowo as its President, is designed to supply Nigeria with an African nationalist government of what is now the orthodox kind. On a large number of dubious assumptions—that the Sardauna's south- ern allies won no seats, that Aminu Kano's northern opposition party won enough seats to prevent the north's absolute majority in the one- chamber Parliament being at the same time an NPC absolute majority (which it is now)—such a government would just be possible. Optimists, have talked of Zik pardoning Awo and sharing executive power with him—Zik as executive President under a revised constitution and Awo as Prime Minister. But it would be a perilous experiment to rule against the north; Aminu Kano told me that if he held the balance of power (which he has a slightly greater chance of doing than the Liberal Party in Britain), he would
favour forming a national government of the , three main parties and their allies. For this there is growing sentiment.
The results are partly a foregone conclusion: Okpara's NCNC will sweep the east and mid- west regions, the Sardauna's NPC will get a large majority in the north. But the big question-mark is the western region. Here a genuine two-party system is functioning—almost the only one in Africa. As a result there are almost continuous political purges and armed clashes between party roughnecks, so that many Nigerians are longing for a national government or even a complete merger of the parties.
The Sardauna told me that he was confident `we shall win the election and I shall form the next government.' This does not mean that he will be Prime Minister—since he does not care to leave his beloved north for Lagos.. Nor does it exclude a national government, which he is thought in some circumstances to favour. It merely means that he, as majority party leader, will nominate the next Prime Minister. It may
not be Tafawa Balewa and if the others are to resign themselves to another round of northern
leadership, it would be wiser if it were not. My tip would be, watch out for Yussuf Maitama Sule, the Federal Minister of Mines and Power and chairman of the NPC's Lagos branch. For Sule, unlike the Sardauna and Balewa, is a nationalist politician as well as a loyal northerner.
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