Thread by @RemiAdekoya1

Morning All! As promised, from 2day, I'll be series-tweeting summarized excerpts of my thesis chapter narrating major socio-political events from 1945 to 1967 that led to constructions of sub-national identities by Awolowo, Azikiwe and Bello and to the identity politics of today.

Nationalist Beginnings.

While organized political associations advocating nationalist ideals, such as Herbert Macaulay's Nigerian National Democratic Party (NNDP), were active from as early as the 1920s, the Nigerian Youth Movement (NYM), established in 1936, was the first...

organization to successfully recruit nationalist and politically-conscious elements from various sections of Nigeria. NYM aimed for ‘the development of a united nation out of the conglomerate of peoples who inhabit Nigeria’ by establishing ‘a sense of common nationalism among

the differing elements in the country’. Obafemi Awolowo was one of the first members of the party while Nnamdi Azikiwe joined in 1937, the latter helping broaden NYM’s appeal by popularizing it amongst Igbos via his newly-established nationalist newspaper, the West African Pilot.

However, while many historical accounts emphasize the ‘national’ outlook of NYM, it was in fact a predominantly Southern Nigerian organization whose nationalist message never made much impact in the Northern parts of the country. A number of reasons have been offered for this.

These range from low education levels in the North to the combined hostility of the region’s powerful emirs and British authorities to NYM. Ultimately, referring to NYM as the ‘first truly national party’ in Nigeria, is somewhat of an exaggeration.

However, the movement did offer promising beginnings for a potentially nation-wide nationalist political organization, especially as the commencement of WWII provided immense stimulus to nationalist activity in Nigeria.

Pre-WWII, regular Nigerians were largely isolated from the outside world. Only a small elite student community had experienced life in the West. Regular Nigerians, whose contacts with the British was usually with colonial officials, considered all white people powerful beings.

This changed during the war as Nigerians recruited into Allied Forces came into contact with regular European soldiers who were farmers, tradesmen or even servants back in their countries.

Nigerians at home also observed white soldiers passing through their country, with none of the special privileges the colonial officials they saw everyday had.

These experiences helped demystify white people as self-sufficient and all-powerful, rendering to regular Nigerians more plausible the nationalists’ claims that independence could be wrested from the British.

But while NYM energetically agitated for increased political and economic rights for Nigerians, personal rivalries intensified within the organization.

The most consequential of these rivalries was between Azikiwe and Ernest Ikoli, another top NYM figure who in 1938 founded the Daily Service, a nationalist newspaper that became direct competition for Azikiwe’s West African Pilot, a fact Azikiwe is said to have strongly resented.

The Nigerian reading public was very small at the time; competition was fierce to get their business. The in-fighting eventually led to Azikiwe’s departure from NYM in 1941. In what was a sign of things to come, the NYM rift was fraught with accusations of ethnic chauvinism

levelled by Azikiwe against his rivals and vice versa. Igbo NYM members stood solidly behind Azikiwe and when he left, they went with him. Thus, despite efforts by Awolowo and others to keep NYM alive and ethnically broad-based, after 1941 it essentially became a Yoruba-dominated

movement that fizzled out slowly but surely.

The NYM saga left a lasting impression on Yorubas in the movement, including Awolowo who later argued the loyalty Igbo NYM members had shown Azikiwe in his rivalry with Ikoli (who was from a minority ethnic group) arose not from ideological, but ethnic, affiliations.

Awolowo would later use the NYM experience to justify his consistent view Nigeria should not be structured under a unitary constitution, but a federalist system, as would eventually be the case.

He argued this was necessary in part to avoid the country being ‘dominated’ by one ethnic group (read: the Igbos) under a unitary system.

Perhaps I shall stop here for today. Tomorrow, we move to socio-political events immediately following WWII.

Have a nice day folks!