Thread by @busanga

Been musing variously at the concept of “winning” politically, of late. Some time, momentary political wins are overrated. No doubt, winning is sweet. And a loss can be gut wrenching, but history is replete with instances where it was far better to lose! Follow Me.

Lets go on the history lane. One instance that comes to mind for a young nation like ours, was 1959-1960. The election of 1959 was seemingly watershed moment for the country. The winning party would seemingly shape the future of the country. NCNC, AG & NPC were on the ballot

It was hard fought. The country was seemingly Tri-furcated along Tribal Lines. But there was also an underlining philosophical difference between the three major parties. NPC was deeply Pro-Federalist & Anti-Unitarian; May sound weird but pick up Ahmedu Bello’s book to read it.

On the other extreme was Zik of Africa. He was defiantly, pro-unitary system, believing that the Nation would develop faster under a strong, dominant central government and promoting the ideals of nationhood devoid of federalist bent. He was after all calling for US of Africa.

At the center was the Action Group. Who was basically federalist much like NPC, but had a strong point of disagreement with NPC on what the constituents of such federalism should be. Advocating for minority rights in the regions,it wanted more states/regions and campaigned for it

Indeed to the very point of annoying both opponents (NPC & NCNC) who later set aside their major differences to form a ruling coalition, Chief Awolowo campaigned with helicopters in the hinterlands of minorities in the North especially.

Pissing off all

facebook.com/newsofnigeria/…

Again, it was also politics and strategy. It boiled down to numbers. A massive Northern region was difficult to compete with at the center without harvesting the massive minority votes that interestingly is MAJORITY in the North. Even these maps are simplistic. Taraba is Babel.

Democracy is interesting because despite what you think, human beings act in self interest and these interests are aggregated in voting numbers and campaign contributions. 1959 contest brought all these issues to fore. Election came and went- here are the numbers.

So in other words, while Awo’s strategy worked (harvesting such a massive amount of votes for a small party) & third largest number of seats (because universal suffrage was not the basis of Northern Region votes), it couldn’t form a government. So it lost. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1959_Nige…

The direction of forming govt in a parliamentary system where no one emerged with majority of 186 out of 312, could be in 4 ways: AG/NCNC bcos they aligned on leftist social policies. NPC/NCNC bcos they aligned on rightist economic policies. NPC/AG bcos they were federalist.

Or a unity government. 20/20 is hindsight, but it is what it is. Economy won, and the personal animosity against Awo’s strategy by Sardauna in 1959 or Zik (deep seated suspicion) since the early 50s ensured Awo was frozen out on Oct 1, 1960 google.com/amp/s/www.then…

5 years happened after that. Awo was jailed by the coalition for treason. Western region which his party governed was balkanized politically as NPC harvested Akintola to form NNDP, while NCNC harvested Mid-West region out of tiny Western region ironically 4 minorities. Awo Lost.

Any analyst up until this point will add up the cost of Awo’s political strategy from 1950 to 1960 and declare it a losing one. But wait. As Tidjan Thiam’s father said, “The most important thing in life, is not to die.” So the horrible events of 1966 happened. Two Coups.

Newly sworn in Lt. Col Yakubu Gowon needed allies in a badly fractured country careering towards a bloody civil war. Gowon released Chief Awo who escaped all the chaos while held in Calabar prison by the NPC/NCNC/NNDC. That changed Nigeria.

Here is General Gowon discussing how Chief Awolowo saved Nigeria’s unity. Beyond that, upon assuming the Vice Chairmanship of the Government (FEC), as the de facto Prime Minister of Nigeria he went to work to shape the Nigeria you know today.

First, he stood by Gowon as he went about the creation of States that finally implemented his ideas about minority rights across Nigeria. Gowon started with 12 states, now we are at 36. Less than 18 are dominated by the 3 majority tribes that dominated the three original regions.

Second, he led the economic planning that ensured Nigeria was debt free during the civil war era.

He served meritoriously as summarized in this speech he gave on his way out after the war.

dawodu.com/awo1.pdf

Third, anything you know about the structure of the oil and gas industry, system of federal allocation and management of federation assets in Nigeria today, were due to the pioneering efforts of Chief Obafemi Awolowo. I wonder why the HQ of Min of Finance is not named after him.

He went on to be awarded the highest national honour in 1983 that only Heads of State have -GCFR and became the 4th SAN in Nigeria in 1978- all after these slights and loss of 1960 to 1966.
onigegewura.blogspot.com/2017/12/obafem…

In life, when you lose some time, you win. When you win, you lose

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