Colonial era (1880 - 1960)



Colonial era (1880 - 1960)

1880-1905 Southern Nigeria is conquered by the British.

1903 British conquer most of Northern Nigeria including the Sokoto Caliphate.

1912 Lord Lugard, governor of Northern Nigeria establishes a system of indirect rule.

1914 — Northern Nigeria and Southern Nigeria are amalgamated to form Nigeria.

1946-1960 Nigeria enters a period of decolonisation as Nigerian nationalism grows.

1959 Nigeria holds its first national election to setup an independent government. Northern Nigeria wins most of the seats of parliament.

Post-colonial era (1960-1979)

October 1, 1960 — Nigeria gains her independence from Britain; Tafawa Balewa becomes Prime Minister, and Nnamdi Azikiwe becomes President.

October 1, 1963 — Nigeria severs its remaining ties to Britain, and the Nigerian First Republic is born.

January 15, 1966 — Nigeria's first military coup deposes the Nigerian First Republic

July 29, 1966 — A counter-coup by military officers of northern extraction, deposes the Federal Military Government;

1967 — Ethno-religious violence between Igbo Christians, and Hausa/Fulani Muslims in Eastern and Northern Nigeria, triggers a migration of the Igbo back to the East.

May 30, 1967 — General Emeka Ojukwu, Military Governor of Eastern Nigeria, declares his province an independent republic called Biafra, and the Nigerian-Biafran War ensues.

January 15, 1970 —Biafra surrenders to Nigerian forces and Biafra is reintegrated into Nigeria.

July 29, 1975 — General Yakubu Gowon is overthrown in a bloodless coup; General Murtala Mohammed becomes Head of State.

February 13, 1976 — General Murtala Mohammed is assassinated on his way to work; His deputy, Lieutenant-General Olusegun Obasanjo becomes Head of State, and sets a date to terminate military rule.

1979 — Shehu Shagari wins the election as the first Executive President of Nigeria in the American-styled Second Republic.

Causes of the Nigerian Civil War (also referred to as the Biafran War)

The Nigerian Civil War, also known as the Nigerian-Biafran War, 6 July 1967 – 15 January 1970, was a political conflict caused by the attempted secession of the southeastern provinces of Nigeria as the self-proclaimed Republic of Biafra.

The conflict was the result of economic, ethnic, cultural and religious tensions among the various peoples of Nigeria. Like many other African nations, Nigeria was an artificial structure initiated by the British which had neglected to consider religious, linguistic, and ethnic differences. Nigeria, which gained independence from Britain in 1960, had at that time a population of 60 million people consisting of nearly 300 differing ethnic and cultural groups.

The causes of the Nigerian civil war were diverse. More than fifty years earlier, Great Britain carved an area out of West Africa containing hundreds of different ethnic groups and unified it, calling it Nigeria. Although the area contained many different groups, three were predominant: the Igbo, which formed between 60-80% of the population in the southeast, the Hausa-Fulani, which formed about 65% of the peoples in the northern part of the territory; the Yoruba, which formed about 2% of the population in the southwestern part.

The semi-feudal and Islamic Hausa-Fulani in the North were traditionally ruled by an autocratic, conservative Islamic hierarchy consisting of some thirty-odd Emirs who, in turn, owed their allegiance to a supreme Sultan. This Sultan was regarded as the source of all political power and religious authority.

The Yoruba political system in the southwest, like that of the Hausa-Fulani, also consisted of a series of monarchs being the Oba. The Yoruba monarchs, however, were less autocratic than those in the North, and the political and social system of the Yoruba accordingly allowed for greater upward mobility based on acquired rather than inherited wealth and title.

The Igbo in the southeast, in contrast to the two other groups, lived mostly in mostly autonomous, democratically-organised communities although there were monarchs in many of ancient cities. Unlike the other two regions, decisions among the Igbo were made by a general assembly in which every man could participate.

The differing political systems among these three peoples produced radically divergent customs and values.

These tradition-derived differences were perpetuated and, perhaps, even enhanced by the British system of colonial rule in Nigeria. In the North, the British found it convenient to rule indirectly through the Emirs, thus perpetuating rather than changing the indigenous authoritarian political system. As a result of this system, Christian missionaries were excluded from the North, and the area thus remained virtually closed to Western education and influence. This was in direct contrast to the Igbo, the richest of whom sent many of their sons to British universities. During the ensuing years, the Northern Emirs thus were able to maintain traditional political and religious institutions, while limiting social change. As a result, the North, at the time of independence in 1960, was by far the most underdeveloped area in Nigeria, with a literacy rate of 5% as compared to 5.66% in the East (literacy in Arabic script, learned in connection with religious education, was higher). The West enjoyed a much higher literacy level, being the first part of the country to have contact with western education in addition to the free primary education program of the pre-independence Western Regional Government.

In the South, the missionaries rapidly introduced Western forms of education. Consequently, the Yoruba were the first group in Nigeria to become significantly modernised and they provided the first African civil servants, doctors, lawyers, and other technicians and professionals.

In Igbo areas, missionaries were introduced at a later date because of British difficulty in establishing firm control over the highly autonomous Igbo communities. However, the Igbo people took to Western education zealously, and they overwhelmingly came to adopt Christianity. Population pressure in the Igbo homeland combined with an intense desire for economic improvement drove thousands of Igbo to other parts of Nigeria in search of work. By the 1960s the Igbo had become politically unified and economically prosperous, with tradesmen and literate elites active not just in the traditionally Igbo South, but throughout Nigeria.

The British political ideology of dividing Nigeria during the colonial period into three regions North, West and East exacerbated the already well-developed economic, political, and social competition among Nigeria's different ethnic groups. For the country was divided in such a way that the North had slightly more population than the other two regions combined. On this basis the Northern Region was allocated a majority of the seats in the Federal Legislature established by the colonial authorities; the disintegration of Nigeria resulted largely from the fact that the political parties were primarily based in one region and one tribe.

The period between 1966 to 1979 was characterised by military intervention, takeovers and civil war. National rivalries and ethnic sentiments reflected in the national armed forces led to a military intervention in January 1966. Tafawa Balewa’s government was overthrown by junior (mainly Ibo) army officers. Many leading military and political figures were killed in a coup d’état. Regional conflicts flared, prompting massacres of Igbo-speakers living in the north. The Supreme Military Council was formed and the constitution suspended.

The Biafran civil war erupted in 1967 when the military governor of the Eastern Region, Lt. Col. Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu announced the secession of the Eastern Region and proclaimed its independence as the ‘Republic of Biafra’ on May 30 of the same year. During the civil war, military casualties reached an estimated 1,000,000. Biafran civilians died mainly from starvation as a result of the federal blockade.

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