In 1914, Frederick Lugard amalgamated the Northern and Southern Protectorates into a newly formed country called Nigeria. Shortly afterwards, Sir Hugh Clifford succeeded Lugard in 1919 and was appointed Governor General of Nigeria. In 1922, a few years later, the colonial government setup a new constitution colloquially referred to as the “Clifford Constitution”, that was then implemented in 1923.
The Constitution allowed for elected representation of Nigerians in a newly formed Legislative Council of forty-six members, twenty-seven officials, and nineteen non-officials. Of the non-officials, three were to be elected by adult males in Lagos and one in Calabar.
Therefore, this was the first instance of elected African representation on a Legislative Council in British Africa. The introduction of the elected principle led to the formation of the political parties in Nigeria, the first of which was formed in 1923 and called the Nigerian National Democratic Party (NNDP), led by the late Herbert Macaulay.
–Herbert Macaulay: Grandson of Bishop Samuel Ajayi Crowther (named the first African Bishop of the Anglican Church in 1861, with his diocese on the river Niger). Macaulay founded a number of newspapers in Nigeria, the first of which was “The Lagos Daily News”, the first daily newspaper in Nigeria in which he informed Nigerians about the activities of the colonial government. For his criticisms of colonial injustices, advocacy for civil rights, and push for a greater involvement of Nigerians in their own government, he is often called the “Father of Nigerian Nationalism”.
–Bishop Samuel Ajayi Crowther: “Born in Yorubaland, he was captured as a slave during the Yoruba wars following the fall of the Oyo. The slave ship carrying him across the Atlantic was captured by the Royal Navy, and Crowther was sent to Freetown, Sierra Leone, where he was baptized into the Anglican Church in 1825. Crowther returned to Yorubaland as one of the leaders of the Niger Expedition of 1841, the first major attempt to spread Christianity into the interior of the Nigerian region, and was then one of the founding members of the CMS (Christian Missionary Society) mission in Abeokuta five years later” (Falola & Heaton, 2008, p. 88).
~Dr. Ikenna Q. Ezealah
Primary references:
- A History of Nigeria by Toyin Falola and Matthew Heaton Nigeria:
- A New History of a Turbulent Century by Richard Bourne
- https://passnownow.com/features-clifford-constitution-1922/
Nation Upbuilding 