By Fidelis Ekeimo
Unknown to many, time was when Nigerians saw themselves as Nigerians.One was either a Nigerian from the East, West or north until the entry of Nnamdi Azikiwe and Obafemi Awolowo into the arena of Nigeria politics, then new thinking started creeping into the very psyche of Nigerians. Even during the nationalistic struggles, Nigerians joined forces to fight the protagonists of imperialism,, not minding who came from where.
Nnamdi Azikiwe was Igbo, born in the north, spent his youthful days in the West, unlike Awolowo a Yoruba,born in the west and grew up in the west.The tripod nature of Azikiwe’s circumstances gave him a very big advantage because, being of Igbo parents, he spoke Igbo perfectly, being born in the north and spending his boyhood years there he spoke Hausa well, and also attending school in the west placed him at the greatest vantage position. He could speak WAZOBIA.Unlike Awo who had a horizontal adolecense.
From the time they met, Awo never liked Zik and Zik in turn detested Awo for reasons best known to them.That is to clearly say that, contrary to our thinking,the 1951first regional election was not the genesis of East/West mutual mistrust, suspicion and hatred.But as a matter of fact,that election blew and aggravated the whole ugly scenario that will remain until the second coming of Christ
One would have thought that on his return from England where he went to study Law, Awo’s dislike for Zik would have waned, but it was not to be. On the other hand, Zik did not like Awo because he saw Awo as an antagonist,irritant,and a trouble maker.Zik never saw Awo as a man who would go far in politics due to his approaches to the game.
On his return from America in 1934, Azikiwe went straight to the Gold Coast (Ghana) to work for the Accra Morning Post as Editor which made him a talk of the continent. Due to his charisma and finesse in Journalism,he became very popular all over Africa. He was always invited by most African countries to deliver speeches which towered his profile.
The popular Azikiwe returned to Nigeria in 1937 into the warm embrace of most Nigerians. Awo did not like it.He was jealous of Zik because of his education and industry.By1935, at the age of 31,the concept of Pan-Africanism and the political and economic emancipation of colonial Nigeria, the positioning of Nigeria to emancipate the rest of Africa warmed him into the hearts of many. Awo did not like it.
By 1934, the Nigeria Youth Movement had been formed by professionals and merchants like Dr JC Vaughan, Mr Ernest Ikoli, Oba Samuel Akinsanya,Kofo Abayomi, Adeyemo Alakija,H.O. Davis, all Yoruba before others started joining. The motive for the formation of the NYM was to agitate for the upgrading of Yaba Higher College.The movement was soon to metamorphose into a political platform for educated Nigerians who were agitating for the decolonisation of Nigeria.
The likes of Awolowo and Samuel Akintola had already joined the group before Zik enlisted in 1937. The very day Zik joined the NYM, he was immediately elected as a member of the Central Executive Committee and formed the quartet of Azikiwe, Davis, Akinsanya and Ikoli.The big four were the major crowd pullers in the whole of Lagos anytime there was to be public gathering and agitations.It used to be common place that whenever there would be public speech by the big four, unprecedented crowd thronged the venue.Because of his charisma, scholarship at oration and chains of degrees he acquired at that tender age, Zik was addressed as Professor.He became the toast of the century. Awo was livid with envy and jealousy, and also because Zik was the most admired and talked-about.
The same year Zik returned from Accra was the same year he joined the Nigeria Youth Movement and that same year he blazed the glory by establishing a national newspaper-The West African Pilot. The West African Pilot instantly became a big feather that was added to the nest of the NYM. TheMovement exploited the usefulness of the Pilot as its voice and the publicity wing of the organisation.
It is true that the Nigeria Youth Movement had made a breakthrough before Zik’s arrival, his enlistment in the group,his vast experience in political propaganda and tact in Journalism became an inestimable value to the group and helped to propel and boost the popularity of the NYM and in no distant time disorganized the opponents of the movement.
Before Azikiwe returned to Nigeria in 1937,the Nigeria National Democratic Party was the only political party in Lagos and the whole of Nigeria which was formed in 1923 by Herbert Macaulay.It was the oratory and charisma of Azikiwe that helped to defeat and dismantle the NNDP in 1938 election. The NYM won all the three seats in Lagos legislative council and flushed out Macaulay’s NNDP. The NNDP had been winning landslide in all elections from 1923, 1928 and 1933 until the arrival of the wonder man and flambouyant Azikiwe who exploited the West African Pilot to dismantle Macaulay’s political electioneering edifice.
According to the sayings of the wise,when a child washes his hands clean,he would eat with kings.Azikiwe’s profile catapaulted him to the zenith which the NYM could not dream of.At the tender age, Zik initiated himself into the council of elders and most respected members of the NYM. Like a roaring flame, he became very popular among ministers and governors all over Africa and beyond.No other person at that time enjoyed and commanded that kind of public admiration and wide acclaim by Azikiwe.. As a sage would say “he became too big for his age.”
In the natural human setting these qualities of Azikiwe would attract green eyes and jealousy especially in that 1940’s when the political situation in Nigeria was tensed up.With all these Zik’s attributes, the seeds of tribalism unknowingly started to germinate, rear its head watered and blossomed into a hydra-headed monster that is in place today.
To Easterners especially Ndi Igbo,the seed of tribal politics was sown by Awolowo because of the ugly incidences that took place in 1951 Western region election.The Yoruba West saw it differently. They said Zik had sown the seed of tribal politics almost twenty years before 1951.That is to say the very year of 1937 that Zik arrived Nigeria, was the same year he came with tribalism.
Obafemi Awolowo, Zik’s archrival who did not like Azikiwe from day one, and who never forgave Azikiwe for bringing about the downfall of the NYM accused him saying, “Dr Azikiwe delivered a succession of blows now subtle, then hard and heavy, but always accurate and harmful which brought about the fall and ruin of the NYM” The truth remains that when Zik came back to Nigeria, sophisticated with scholarship and oratory,Awo tried to emulate him and be like him but ended being disappointed, frustrated and disgruntled.Awo also alleged that the deadly blows rained on the NYM were done purposefully, like Awo said “to corrode the self respect of the Yoruba people as a group, to build up the Ibo as a master race, to magnify his own vaunted contributions to the nationalistic struggles, to dwarfen and misrepresent the achievement of his contemporaries, and to discount and nullify the humble but sterling quota the older politicians had made in the countries progress.” This belief of Awolowo, published in 1940,reset the Nigeria political pendulum and gave birth to the tribal political and social war that have raged between the Igbo and Yoruba till this day.
Zik’s dislike for Awo from the begining was so deep-seated that Zik never cared to know Awo’s name or call him by his first name rather he referred to Awo as simply ‘comrade from Ibadan’ refusing to note anything about Awo.
Do not forget that all except Ernest Ikoli that founded the NYM were all Yoruba. So the contemporaries Awo accused Zik of were all Yoruba. Zik was the first Igbo to join the NYM. Which means that the old politicians who had ‘contributed their quota’ according to Awo were all Yoruba.Between1920 and 1940 the NYM Yoruba population in the Movement far outnumbered those from other ethnic groups. In fact there were almost none from these ethnic groups apart from Zik and a few Igbo. The reason was not far fetched
Because the NYM was based in Lagos, sojourners saw the Movement as entirely Yoruba affair. They believed that Lagos was just the place for them to stay and make money and then go back home. They were less concerned or interested in politics or any form of agitation. So one would ordinarily expect that except Ernest Ikoli who was a radical journalist, the leadership and rank and file that made up the NYM were all Yoruba until the arrival of the roaring Zik.