Nigeria Constitutional Development in Historical Perspective, 1914-1960
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
American Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences Research (AJHSSR) 2020 American Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences Research (AJHSSR) e-ISSN: 2378-703X Volume-4, Issue-2-pp-242-248 www.ajhssr.com Research Paper Open Access NIGERIA CONSTITUTIONAL DEVELOPMENT IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE, 1914-1960 EDIAGBONYA MICHAEL (PhD) Ekiti State University, Ado-Ekiti, Nigeria Faculty Of Arts Department Of History And International Studies ABSTRACT: This paper examines Nigeria Constitutional development from 1914-1960. It discusses the geographical location of Nigeria. It assesses the concept „constitution‟. The British conquest and amalgamation of Nigeria also came to focus. It examines the provisions of the Nigerian council of 1914, 1922 Clifford‟s Constitution, the activities of Sir Graham Thompson and Sir Donald Cameron. The provisions of Richards Constitution of 1947, Sir Macpherson‟s Constitution of 1951, 1954 Constitution and 1960 Constitution were examined. Finally, it analyses the 1957 and 1958 Constitutional Conferences. The data were sourced from primary and secondary sources. The primary sources include oral interview and archival materials. The secondary sources were books, newspapers, journals, articles, theses, dissertation etc. It was found that the country lies roughly between 30 and 150E Longitude and between 40 and 140N Latitude. It was also found that Nigeria was coined by Flora Shaw to describe the vast land around the River Niger and its basin. It was demonstrated that Nigeria operates a written constitution while Britain the colonial master has unwritten constitution. It also found that Sir Clifford Constitution was remarkable for its elective principle while the 1947 Constitution of Sir Richards included the Northern part of the country in the Central legislative council for the first time. It was also discovered that for the first time, Nigerians were made Ministers in the 1951 Constitution while the 1954 Constitution Introduce the federal system of government in Nigeria. KEYWORDS: Nigeria, Amalgamation, Constitution, Development, Provisions. I. INTRODUCTION Nigeria covers an area of 923, 768km. The country lies roughly between 30 and 150E longitude and between 40 and 140N latitude (Ekundare, 1973). It is undoubtedly a country with a great political and economic potential in the Third World. The name “Nigeria” was coined by flora Shaw, who later became the wife of Lord Lugard which she used as the title of an article in the Times, to describe the vast land around the River Niger and its basin. It was then called Niger-area, but after a long usage it was shortened to Nigeria. Nigerians have a common racial origin which unites them while their differences are attributable to history and local environment (NERC, 1978) According to Ajayi and Alagoa, the history of Nigeria before 1800 can be much more than just a collection of histories of individual peoples political and ethnic units (Ajayi & Alagoa, 1980:22). So it is instructive to state here that the country as it is known today had not existed before 1914, instead, there were a number of states and kingdoms like the Hausa states, Benin Kingdom, the Bornu Empire, Old Oyo Empire and so on. Before 1914, Nigeria was not a single political unit. For proper understanding of this paper it may be necessary to examine constitution as this will provide an insight into what the paper is about. For a start constitution can be seen as a formal or legal document. According to Oyediran, not only that it is descriptive of the allocation of powers between levels of government and various positions and responsibilities, it is also legalistic in nature (Oyediran, 1998:1). Finer on his part saw constitution as codes of rule which govern the allocation of functions, powers and duties among the various governmental agencies and their officers and define the relationship between and the public (Finer, 1970). Another scholar, Ben Nwabueze posits that a constitution is an act of the people if it is made by them either directly in a referendum or through a convention or constituent assembly popularly elected (Nwabueze, 1982). Based on the above position of scholars, constitution can be seen as the basic instruments or tools for the control of political power. It is the fundamental rules, regulation or principles of any organization, state or country. It could therefore be said that a constitutional government is a government in which the Head of State and all the functionaries of government operate in accordance with the written or unwritten constitution of the AJHSSR Journal P a g e | 242 American Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences Research (AJHSSR) 2020 state (NERC, 1978). This is the reason why the constitution of a country is a paramount in its administration. For example in Nigeria, the constitution is written while Britain operates unwritten constitution. The constitution in a democratic setting is binding on all the citizens. On the strength of this, the constitutional development in Nigeria in historical perspective can now be properly examined. First, it is necessary to discuss the British conquest, amalgamation and occupation of Nigeria. This becomes necessary because Britain was the colonial master that conquered Nigeria and set up a style of administration called the indirect rule. By 1914, the British colonial government amalgamated the colony and protectorate of Southern Nigeria and protectorate of Northern Nigeria to become the colony and protectorate of Nigeria. Thereby appointed Governors who administered Nigeria between 1914-1960. These governors drafted the different constitutions that formed the basis of discussion and analysis in this paper. II. THE BRITISH CONQUEST AND AMALGAMATION OF NIGERIA It is not a subject of debate that the geographical entity called Nigeria today is a British imperial creation. The first attempt by the British to subjugate any part of what later became Nigeria to British imperial control took place on December 24, 1851 when the ships of British West Africa Squadron bombarded Lagos (Ojo, 2000: 31). After three days of eventful and historic resistance Oba Kosoko and his supporters were forced to accept defeat. John Beecroft the Consul for the Bights of Biafra and Benin which means the entire coast line of the Nigerian area, succeeded in bombarding Lagos deposed Kosoko and installed Oba Akitoye. Oba Dosunmu, succeeded his father, Oba Akitoye, who died on September, 1852. In 1861, the Acting Consul Mikoskry annexed Lagos. He negotiated with Dosumu, in a treaty for the cessation of Lagos on 30th July, 1861. It was quite unfortunate that Oba Dosumu ceded Lagos to Britain in an agreement to be paid 1,300 pounds a year. So Lagos was ceded to the British Crown and became a crown colony. From Lagos as a base, the British jurisdiction spread and extended into the hinterland as the requirement of order and peaceful trading dictated (Ezra, 1960:13). The success of the conquest and annexation of Lagos encouraged similar actions on different parts of what later became Nigeria. It is not an exaggeration to say that between 1861-1903 kingdoms, empires, states and territorial units that were centres of resistance to the British imperial control were attacked and defeated. Opobo was defeated in 1887 and Ebrohimi was brought down after much resistance against the British in 1894, under the leadership of Acting Consul-General Ralph Moor. Benin Empire was defeated in 1897 by the British soldiers under the command of Rawson. Calabar was defeated in 1885, Aro in 1902. According to Eluwa, Ukagwu, Nwachukwu, and Nwaubani, on February 26, 1895 the British attacked and occupied Brass. They also maintained that Oyo was captured in 1895 and Ijebu fell in 1892 (Eluwa, Ukagwu, Nwachukwu and Nwaubani, 1988: 187). Again, the British defeated Nupe and Kontagora in 1901, Bauchi was occupied on 16 February, 1902 (Ibid, 193). On 3 February, 1903, Kano city was assaulted and Sokoto in 1903 (Ibid., pp. 193-194). Amalgamation It was owing to the activities of the Royal Niger Company and its leader, Goldie that Britain was able to claim at the Berlin West African Conference of 1885 that her interests were paramount in the Niger territories (NERC, 1978:7) In 1886, a charter was granted to the Royal Niger Company to administer the protected territories in Northern Nigeria (Ibid., 7). In 1899, the charter of the company was revoked and protectorate of Northern Nigeria was proclaimed and the company‟s territory came under the British crown. In 1891, the Oil River Protectorate was declared and in 1893, the territory was renamed, the Niger Coast Protectorate. This was so when this protectorate was extended into the interior. In 1900, the Southern protectorate was proclaimed. The Protectorate of Northern Nigeria replaced the administration of the Royal Niger Company. The first attempt to build a nation by our British colonial masters started in 1906 when the colony and Protectorate of Lagos and the Protectorate of Southern Nigeria were amalgamated into the colony and protectorate of Southern Nigeria. In that same year in 1906, Lord Lugard who had been the High Commissioner of Northerner Nigeria since 1900, resigned to take up a new appointment in Hongkong and returned to Nigeria in 1912 as Governor of both the Protectorate of Northern Nigeria and the colony and Protectorate of Southern Nigeria (NERC, 1978). Before this time between 1861-1866, William McCoskey was the Acting Governor of the new colony of Lagos. In 1862 January, Henry Stanhope Freeman became the first British Governor for Lagos (Ibid., 72-74) Between 1866-1874, the administration of Lagos was transferred to freetown in Sierra-Leone (Ibid., p. 74). It was also asserted that in 1874 the administration of Lagos was merged with that of the Gold coast now Ghana with Accra as its headquarters (Ibid., 74-76). This arrangement was in place until 1886. AJHSSR Journal P a g e | 243 American Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences Research (AJHSSR) 2020 The final stage in the amalgamation process was in January 1st, 1914 when the Protectorate and colony of Southern Nigeria was joined to the Protectorate of Northern Nigeria which became known as the Colony and Protectorate of Nigeria.