National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons

National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC), was a Nigerian political party from 1944 to 1966. The name included 'Cameroons' because Cameroon had become an administrative part of Nigeria in 1945. Cameroon had been a colonial territory of Germany. Following the defeat of Germany and its allies in World War II, the United Nations confiscated the territories under the administration of Germany before World War II. These territories were then given to various victor countries to administer them in trust for the UN until they were mature for political independence. They were then called Trust Territories. That was how Cameroon was taken from Germany and handed over to Britain. When Nigeria was preparing for the 1960 political independence, the people of southern Cameroon were consulted in a plebiscite on whether to go with Nigeria to independence or join up with the French Cameroon. The people opted for unification with the French Cameroon. Thus, NCNC became National Council of Nigerian Citizens in 1959. The party was formed in 1944^[1] by Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe and Herbert Macaulay. Herbert Macaulay was its first president, while Azikiwe was its first secretary.^[2] However, in general, it was made up of a long list of nationalistic parties, cultural associations, and labor movements that joined to form NCNC. The party at the time was the first to take a concerted effort to create a true nationalist party. It embraced different sets of groups from the religious, to tribal and to trade groups with the exception of a few notable ones such as the Egbe Omo Oduduwa and early on the Nigerian Union of Teachers. The party is considered to be the second prominent political party formed in Nigeria after a Lagos based party, the Nigerian National Democratic Party.

Party politics

During a national conference in 1954, the party had opposed a call to include the right of secession. It argued that the nation was not a league of forced nations and it will be ruinous to include such right. The policies of the party, from its inception favored a countenance of determined expression for self-government and nationalism. The major aims of the party taken on subsequent campaigns at home and abroad were as follows.

• The extension of democratic principles and advancement of the interest of the people of Nigeria and Cameroons under British mandate.
• The impartings of political education to the people of Nigeria in order to prepare them for self government.
• The provision of medium of expression for members of NCNC through which they would endeavor to secure for Nigeria and the Cameroons, political freedom, social equality, religious toleration and economic activity.^[1]

The first test of the party came in the 1951 election, the party won majority votes in the Eastern Region of Nigeria's House of Assembly but became the opposition in the western region with Azikiwe as the opposition leader representing Lagos.Azikiwe was well on his way be winning the election in the Western Region when Awolowo persuaded the Western House to denounce Azikwe because he is an Easterner and will not represent the wishes of the largely Yoruba West. This lead to the famed carpet-crossing in the house and Azikwe and the NCNC lost the election in the West. This event is still viewed by many as the beginning of ethnic politics in Nigeria. Western Nigeria has continued till today to found a unique regional political party along those lines and Awolowo's doctrines of a "Yoruba" party or "O'dua" has continued to be a major inspiration to many political leaders from the Western Region. Azikiwe later on, became the Premier of Eastern Region, Nigeria in 1954. After Nigeria's independence, Azikiwe was Governor-General (1960-1963) and President (1963-1966). In 1966, a military coup ended Azikiwe's term as president, and the NCNC dissolved in the following turmoil.

The NCNC was accused by its adversaries of focusing overly on the interests of the Igbo population. By the late 1940s, the Nigeria Youth Movement, a western Nigeria political organization had decided to support a Yoruba focused party accusing the NCNC of ethnic imperialism. However, the western opposition needed to tactically rev up local sentiments as its base was made up of local elites who depended little on nationalistic sentiment but on the local economic and political activity in their various towns and cities. During the Biafran war of secession, Azikiwe became a spokesman for the republic and an adviser to its leader.

Notes

1. ^ ^{a b} D. I. Ilega, Religion and "Godless" Nationalism in Colonial Nigeria: The Case of the God's Kingdom Society and the NCNC Journal of Religion in Africa > Vol. 18, Fasc. 2 Jun., 1988.
2. ^ O. E. Udofia, Nigerian Political Parties: Their Role in Modernizing the Political System, 1920–1966, Journal of Black Studies Vol. 11, No. 4 (Jun., 1981), pp. 435–447.

References

• Peter C. Lloyd, The Development of Political Parties in Western Nigeria. The American Political Science Review > Vol. 49, No. 3 Sep., 1955.
• Tekena N. Tamuno, Separatist Agitations in Nigeria since 1914. The Journal of Modern African Studies > Vol. 8, No. 4 Dec., 1970.