History of Nigeria (1960-1979)

Nigeria was granted full independence in October 1960 under a constitution that provided for a parliamentary government and a substantial measure of self-government for the country's three regions. From 1959 to 1960, Jaja Wachuku was the First black Speaker of the House of Representatives of Nigeria. Wachuku replaced Sir Frederick Metcalfe of Great Britain. Notably, as First Speaker of the House, Wachuku received Nigeria's Instrument of Independence, the Freedom Charter, on October 1 1960 from Princess Alexandra of Kent - HM The Queen of United Kingdom's representative at the Nigerian independence ceremonies.

The federal government was given exclusive powers in defense, foreign relations, and commercial and fiscal policy. The British Monarch was still head of state but legislative power was vested in a bicameral parliament, executive power in a prime minister and cabinet, and judicial authority in a Federal Supreme Court. Political parties, however, tended to reflect the make up of the three main ethnic groups. The Nigerian People's Congress (NPC) represented conservative, Muslim, largely Hausa interests, and dominated the Northern Region. The National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC) was Igbo- and Christian-dominated, ruling in the Eastern Region, and the Action Group (AG) was a left-leaning party that controlled the Yoruba west. The first post-independence National Government was formed by a conservative alliance of the NCNC and the NPC, with Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, a Hausa, becoming Nigeria's first Prime Minister. The Yoruba-dominated AG became the opposition under its charismatic leader Chief Obafemi Awolowo.

The First Republic

In October 1963 Nigeria proclaimed itself a Federal Republic and former Governor General Nnamdi Azikiwe became the country's first President. From the outset Nigeria's ethnic and religious tensions were magnified by the disparities in economic and educational development between the south and the north. The AG was maneuvered out of control of the Western Region by the Federal Government and a new pro-government Yoruba party, the Nigerian National Democratic Party (NNDP), took over. Shortly afterward the AG opposition leader, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, was imprisoned on treason charges that were later admitted to be without foundation. The 1965 National Election produced a major realignment of politics and a disputed result that set the country on the path to civil war. The dominant northern NPC went into a conservative alliance with the new Yoruba NNDP, leaving the Igbo NCNC to coalesce with the remnants of the AG (Action Group) in a progressive alliance. In the vote, widespread electoral fraud was alleged and riots irrupted in the Yoruba West where heartlands of the AG discovered they had apparently elected pro-government NNDP representatives.

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