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CIDOB International Yearbook 2008 Keys to facilitate the monitoring of the Spanish Foreign Policy and the International Relations in 2007 Country profile: Nigeria and its regional context Annex Biographies of main political leaders* (+34) 93 302 6495 - Fax. (+34) 93 302 2118 - [email protected] - [email protected] 302 2118 93 Fax. (+34) - 302 6495 93 (+34) - Calle Elisabets, 12 - 08001 Barcelona, España - Tel. España 08001 Barcelona, 12 - - Calle Elisabets, * These annexes have been done by Dauda Garuba, Senior Programme Officer at the Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD) in Nigeria, in collaboration with CIDOB Foundation. Fundación CIDOB CIDOB INTERNATIONAL YEARBOOK 2008 Nigeria and its regional context Biographies of main political leaders of Nigeria Abubakar Tafawa Balewa (1912 -1966) Prime minister 1960-1966 Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, Nigeria’s first and only Prime Minister of independent Nigeria, was born in 1912 in Tafawa Balewa, present Bauchi State. He had early education at a Quranic School in Bauchi and also studied at the famous Katsina Teachers’ Training College between 1928 and 1933 before returning to Bauchi to teach at the Bauchi Middle School. He later became the headmaster of the school. He (along with Malam Aminu Kano) was among the few learned teachers who were selected in northern Nigeria to study at the University of London’s Institute of Education where he obtained a teacher’s certificate in History in 1944. On return from the UK, Sir Balewa was appointed an Inspector of Schools, a position he held before he joined partisan politics and got elected by the Bauchi Native Authority to the Northern Region House of Assembly in 1946. He co- founded the Northern People’s Congress (NPC) with Alhaji Ahmadu Bello (through the fusing of the Bauchi Discussion Circle with other political associations he had also helped to found) and became the deputy leader of the party. He won the Tafawa Balewa seat in the Northern House of Assembly and the federal House of Representatives in 1951and became federal Minister of Works, and of Transport, in 1952 and 1954 respectively. He was also elected Senior Minister in a coalition government formed by the NPC and the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC) in 1957 and retained the position of Prime Minister when Nigeria attained independence in 1960. He was re-elected for the position in 1964 and retained it till he was assassinated in Nigeria’s first military coup in 1966. Throughout his political career, Sir Balewa played a leading role in national policy making and participated with highly appreciable skills in the Nigeria constitutional reform processes up to the time the country attained a republican status in 1963. However, his critics believed that he was limited in his power, especially in the context in which he was remained theoretically answerable to his NPC President, Ahamdu Bello, who was also the Premier of Northern Region. This has been explained in the ‘incompetence’ he demonstrated in handling the series of crises that engulfed Nigeria in the first few years after independence. 1 CIDOB INTERNATIONAL YEARBOOK 2008 Nigeria and its regional context Nnamdi Azikiwe (1904 – 1996) Governor General 1960-1963 and President 1963-1966 Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, a foremost Nigerian nationalist and pan-Africanist, was born of Igbo parents on November 16, 1904, in Zungeru, present Niger State, where his father had worked as a Clerk in the ‘Nigerian Regiment’. He studied in Onitsha, Calabar and Lagos, and thereafter worked briefly at the Nigeria Treasury in Lagos, before proceeding to the United States 1925 for further studies, where he obtained Bachelors in Political Science from Lincoln University. He also obtained advanced degrees from the same university and from the University of Pennsylvania in 1932 and 1933 respectively. In- between studying for his advanced degrees, Zik, as he was fondly called by admirers, worked as an Instructor in Political Science at Lincoln University before returning to Africa where he picked up a job as Editor of the Africa Morning Post in Accra, Ghana. Prior to this time, he had expressed a pan- African ideology in many of his writings, especially Liberia in World Politics (1934), In Defense of the Black Republic and Renascent African (1937). His writings did not only earn him the nickname ‘Great Zik of Africa’, they also spawned a philosophy of African liberation that became known as Zikism. He left Ghana for Lagos, Nigeria in 1937 after he was acquitted of a treason charge in connection of an article by I.T.A. Wallace-Johnson entitled: "Has the African A God?" which he published on May 15, 1936. While in Lagos, he founded the West African Pilot, and many others that were later brought under the Zik Group of Newspapers, to push a nationalist agenda. Zik started his political career in 1944 when he co-founded (along with Herbert Macualay – the father of Nigerian nationalism) the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC) where he was Secretary-general in 1946 and got elected to the Nigerian Legislative Council. He was the leader of Opposition government of Chief Obafemi Awolowo in the Western Region House of Assembly in 1951, before moving to the Eastern Region in 1952, on grounds of ethnic marginalisation, to secure election to the position of Senior Minister in 1952 and Premier of the region in 1954. He became Nigeria’s Governor General after independence in 1960 and got named to the Queen's Privy Council. He was the first President of Nigeria, with Sir Tafawa Balewa being Prime Minister, when Nigeria’s attained of a republican status in 1963. He was swept from power by the first military coup of 1966. He only got back to politics in 1978 as co-founder of the Nigerian People's Party (NPP). He contested the presidency, using the party’s platform in the 2 CIDOB INTERNATIONAL YEARBOOK 2008 Nigeria and its regional context 1979 and 1983 general elections, but was not successful, though his party won two Eastern states. He was forced to quit politics after the military coup that brought Gen. Mohammadu Buhari to power on December 31, 1983. He died on May 11, 1996. Ahmadu Bello (1909 – 1966) Premier North Region, 1954-1966 Alhaji (Sir) Ahmadu Bello, a descendant of the renowned 19th Century Islamic scholar and reformer – Uthman Dan Fodio, was born in 1909 in Rabah in present Sokoto State. He had early Islamic education in Sokoto and western education at the Sokoto Provincial School and Katsina Teacher Training College. He taught for several years at the Sokoto Middle School before joining the Emirate Administration in 1934. Sir Ahmadu Bello’s involvement in broader politics started in 1945 when he assisted to form the Youth Circle in Sokoto - a discussion group of Northern educators and civil servants which became affiliated to the Northern People’s Congress (NPC) that he led as president. As president of NPC, Sir Bello led the northern opinion in the 1949/50 constitutional debates and eventually got elected to represent the Sokoto Native Authority at the Northern House of Assembly in 1952. He served in the northern regional executive council and as Minister of Works, and of Community Development and Local Government in 1953. He became the first Premier of Northern Nigeria in 1954, a position he held after successive elections until he was assassinated in the Nigeria’s first military coup in January 1966. Sir Bello was perhaps the most politically powerful person in Nigeria during the first five years of the country’s independence. However, his distaste for ‘southern Nigerian style of politics’ and the apparently more fulfilling powers Nigeria’s federalism conferred on him as Premier of Northern Region made him conclude not to participate in the federal government at independence in 1960. Instead, he decided to remain as Premier of Northern Region, while seconding his deputy in NPC, Sir Tafawa Balewa, to become Prime Minister of Nigeria when the party was invited to form government at independence. 3 CIDOB INTERNATIONAL YEARBOOK 2008 Nigeria and its regional context Obafemi Awolowo (1909 – 1987) Premier West Region, 1954-1959 Chief Obafemi Awolowo was born on March 6, 1909. He had his early education in the mission schools of Ikenne, Abeokuta, and Ibadan. He had a poor humble background which warranted his having to do odd jobs to raise money for his education, including a University of London degree he obtained in Commerce through correspondence. His greatest ambition of becoming a lawyer was realized when he was called to the London Bar in 1946, after which he returned to Nigeria in 1947 to start what became a thriving legal practice. Chief Awolowo’s political career dates back to when he founded the Action Group (AG) which was simply a transformation from the Egbe Omo Oduduwa (Society of the Descendants of Oduduwa)1 he had earlier helped to form. Prior to this time, he had served at the level of the Nigerian Youth Movement of which he was Western Provincial Secretary, and had launched himself into the Nigerian nationalist struggle with his first published book - Path to Nigerian Freedom – which was highly critical of British policy of Indirect Rule. In that book, he advocated rapid move of Nigeria towards federalism as the best suited form of government for ethnic diversity, Africanization of administration and self-government. All other of his books reiterated and further pushed this argument. After a successful election into the Western Region House of Assembly in 1952, Chief Awolowo held the Western Region’s ministerial portfolios of Local Government, Finance, and Economic Planning, as well as served as the Chairman of the Regional Economic Planning Commission. In 1954, he emerged the first Premier of the Region.