The document summarizes the findings of the Henry Willink Commission, which was appointed in 1957 to investigate the fears of ethnic minorities in Nigeria. The Commission found that in each of Nigeria's three regions, there was a majority ethnic group comprising about two-thirds of the population, with minority groups making up the remaining one-third. The minorities expressed fears of domination by the majority groups in terms of political influence, access to resources and public posts, and discrimination in law and order. The Willink report outlined these fears and proposed constitutional safeguards to protect minority rights and address their concerns regarding the new independent Nigerian federation.

1. THE MINORITIES QUESTION AND THE WILLINK
INTERVENTION
SANI BALA SHEHU
08065872052. 08080626852. 08073400690. 08045298
685.
Sanibalashehukano@yahoo.com
The roots of the minorities question and its current expression in
relation to the problem of development is to be traced to the mode of
evolution of Nigerian federalism. There is little doubt that Nigeria,
Africa’s major federal state, has maintained an intensely living, strong
and persistent tradition of federalism (Beckett, 1987:89,95). With
over 250 distinct ethnic group, and ranked seventh with 13 percent
homogeneity in terms of ethnic and linguistic homogeneity on an
ascending scale in which north and south Korea are ranked 132th
with 100per cent homogeneity (Derbyshire and Derbyshire, 1989;
422; kurian, 1987:1474), Nigeria seems ideally suited for federalism.
There are suggestions that a national consensus exists about the
relevance of the federal arrangement to Nigeria’s circumstances such
that all post-independent constitutions have affirmed it and all but
one regime, military and civilian, have accepted it (nwabueze, 1983;
Jinadu, 1987). Nwabueze (1983:383-4), in fact, suggests that
federalism is here to stay in Nigeria.
The federal republic of Nigeria presently consists of a central of
federal government, 30 states, 589 local governments, and a
mayoralty in the federal capital territory, Abuja. This structure
evolved from the amalgamation of southern and northern Nigeria in
1914. Between 1914 and 1945, the governmental structure was
implemented through separate political and departmental
administrations only tenuously coordinated at the centre (ukwu,
1988:27). In 1946, the Richards constitution imposed a unitary
system which did not reckon with Nigeria’s cultural plurality. This
was supplanted in 1951 by a quasi-federal constitution. A federal
constitution of 1960 consolidated this by establishing Nigeria on the
Westminster parliamentary model as a federal state. Both this and
the republican constitution provided for the division of powers
between central and regional governments (Nigeria, 1960; 1963). The
federal system emerge in Nigeria at about a time of little official
concern for local development save as might be inferred from the
implementation of the colonial plan for the4 welfare and

2. development on Nigeria, to the extent that it was understood at all
outside the circle of the political class, was relatively undeveloped
(nwabueze, 1983:380).
Contrary to the voluntaristic expectations of classical federal
theory, Nigerian federalism, as federal experiments elsewhere in
Africa (mckown, 1988a) , was not necessarily a result of local
impetus inherent in calculation of advantages each unit would gain
while retaining its local autonomy. It was also not explicitly
introduced as a mechanism for local development and self rule.
Federalism was introduced as a British administrative expedience
designed to cope with Nigeria’s ethnic pluralism though the latter, it
is often argued, made its introduction as a mechanism of political
accommodation almost inevitable (awolowo, 1966). There is even
suggestion that federalism was introduced as a British stratagem for
maintaining indirect influence on Nigeria after independence
(okonjo, 1974-chapters 9 and 10). What is certain however, is that
Nigerian federalism was built up from a process of devolution or
fissiparity, not accretion or aggregation as was typical of older
federations-canada, Australia and the United States. The state
essentially devolved part of its powers to regional governments
(nwabueze, 1983:34; bach, 1989:221; ekeh, 1989:27). While
federalism was thus useful both to the outgoing colonialists and the
nationalist politicians as a tool for striking a balance between regional
and national identities (mawhood, 1983), the balance struck was, and
remains uneven, considering the interest of minority groups in the
country.
The adoption of federalism also failed to meet its political ends in
Nigeria in its early years. The system adopted in 1954 was structurally
flawed right from start (awolowo, 1966:21; olowu, 1990b:203). The
flaws include (i) the correspondence3 of regional administrative units
with the geography of the three major ethnic groups-hausa-fulani,
Yoruba and Igbo which effectively regionalized the ruling class
(ii) imbalance in the composition of the regions with the northern
region dominating the rest both in geographical size (75 percent of
Nigeria’s landmass) and population (60 percent); and (iii) the
majority-minority ethnic structure within each region which
underlined a permanent state of tension and instability. These, with
the weakness of the federal centre which made the regions the
repository of original sovereignty and ethnicity as the basis for
political support, resulted in a tripartite conflict structure aggravated

3. by the challenge it posed to minority ethnic groups to assert
themselves (afigbo, 1989:12) . it also threatened the legitimacy of the
centre and its ability to give leadership appropriate to the demands of
nation-building.
The reproduction of these structural defects at the level of
exercise of state power informed perceptions that federal
development resources were concentrated in the north. This
promoted a structure of politics based on psychological fears of
political and economic domination (elaigwu, 1979) and retarded
political participation. Moreover, the structure posed difficulties for
the ruling class in reconciling their private interest with maintenance
of the conditions for local development. Ake (1988:48) forcefully
suggests that: development, for sure, was never on the agenda. To the
extent that it internalized the regional problem (dunford, 1988), early
Nigerian federalism was, in awolowo’s words, an abominable
disruptive heritage (awolowo, 1968:69). Under the colonial regime,
the problems associated with this heritage informed the appointment
of the Henry willink commission in 1957 to inquire, in particular, into
the rears of the ethnic minorities.
The willink intervention and thereafter. When alan lennox-boyd, the
then secretary of state for the colonies appointed the willink
commission in September 1957, its terms of reference included: to
ascertain the facts about the fears of minorities in any part of niogeria
and to propose means of allayin those fears whether well or ill
founded and to advise what safeguards should be included for this
purpose3 in the constitution of Nigeria, (Nigeria, 1958) . this was
part of the many efforts, some constitutional, some administrative,
designed to reconcile the polylot elevemens which made up Nigeria.
By this time, it had become obvious that Nigeria was a federation of
an unusual composition, among other things because in each of the
three regions it was possible to distinguish between a majority group
of about tow thirds of the population and minority groups
amounti8ng to about one third, (Nigeria, 1958:1) at his posed political
difficulties which informed incessant claims by the minority groups
for separate states at the various constitutional conferences in the
1950s.
Given the structure of Nigerian federation at the time, the fears of
the minorities were expressed mainly in relation to regional
governme3nts which were practically dominatve by the major ethnic
groups in each region. According to the willink report, the fears of the

4. mino9rities arose from two circumstances first the division of the
whole territory into three powerful regions, in each of which one
groups is numerically preponderant, and secondly the approach of
independence and the removal of the restraints which have operative
so far (Nigeria, 1958:2-3). In the western region, fears were
expressed in the areas of Yoruba domination of, especially, the mid-west
minorities; victimization in the process of maintenance of law
and order by officially sponsored things, hooligans and strong arm
p[arties, discrimination in the economic field and in the provision of
services; gerrymandering and its effects on the distribution of
parliamentary seats; conflict between ethnic and partisan loyalties in
the intergovernmental context; and potential for the partiality of
legislation. There were also trite fears by religious minorities among
the Yoruba.
Similar fears were expressed in the northern region. In the
particular, the minorities were worried about the role of traditional
rulers (emirs) who appointed district heads to rule over non-Muslims.
There were also social fears and grievances concerning the use of
contemptuous expression and discriminatory social practices; fears of
political influence regarding the impartiality of the native authority
police and the alkali (the legal aspect of Muslim law) religious
intolerance; and fears that the political regime in the north was
tending towards a foreign policy sympathetic with nations of the
middle east based on their common allegiance to Islam.
In the eastern region, there was the general fear amongst the
minority ethnic groups that they might be ove run, commercially and
po0litically, by the demographically dominant and socially mobile
ibo. In particular, there were fears of autocratic government
predicated on the perceived dictatorial conduct of the reigning (in the
eastern region) ibo dominated national council of Nigerian citizens
(NCNC); fear of public posts and services which included the
deliberate object of the ibo majority… to fill every post with ibos; fears
of local government and chiefs relating to insufficient devolution of
powers which left ethnic minorities with limited powers to debate
issues and little power to initiate action. There were also fears
regarding public order and changes in the legal system similar to
those expressed in the western and northern regions. In particular,
the ethnic groups that made up the then rivers province of which ogni
division was part, nursed long-standing grievances to the effect that
the geography of their deltaic landscape and its associated difficulties

5. for development were not understood at and inland headquarters.
They were, therefore, united by fear of neglect at the hands of a
government who in any case put the needs of the interior first.
(Nigeria, 1958;50).
The willink commission acknowledged the existence of a body of
genuine fears amongst minority groups althou7gh these might have
been exaggerated in a few instances. However, the commission fell
short of recommending any form of self-determination, including the
creation of states, on the reasoning that to set up a separate state
would accentuate and underline to obliterate, (Nigeria, 1958, 33, 87).
Rather, the commissions recommended panacea included (i) a vague
constitutional provision of some fulcrum or fixed pointer outside and
above politics from which absolute impartiality can be exercised; (ii)
the establishment of a council in each minority area charged with
fostering the well-being, cultural advancement and economic and
social development of the area (iii) the development of special areas
should be placed on the concurrent legislative list such that funds and
staff should be contributed by the federal and regional governments
into a board, with a federal chairman to be established for this
purpose. Such a board was to initiate schemes to supplement the
normal development of the special area’ (Nigeria, 1958:88,103-104).
The analysis of the willink commission and its recommendations
suffered from a lack of depth inherent in its inability to go beyond the
level of an epiphenomenal enquiry. For instance, it accepted laid
down-procedures without establishing whether or not the letter and
spirit of such procedures were adhered to. Similarly, the commission
exhibited copious ignorance of the boundaries and hence distinct
identities of various ethnic groups, hence the classification of a vast
number of ethnic groups in the rivers province as Ibo. Such weakness
contributed to its limited relevance to the resolution of the minorities
and development question which called it into existence. Inevitably,
the demand for the resolution of the question, especially through the
creation of states, continued.
The pressure for reform was dictated as much by the imperatives
of development. These provided the grounds for political
restructurings which carved out more units in the federation to
ensure participation and development and to assuage fears of
domination. The main instrument for this exercise was the creation of
states. Thus, in 1963, the mid-western region was created by

6. plebiscite partly to assuage fears of political domination of minority
groups and bring development closer to the people, and partly for
partisan political reasons (mckown, 1988b) .
Twelve states were created out of the existing regions in 1967.
This revealed the fundamental character of Nigerian federalism as
multi-ethnic, and multi-ethnicity as the very essence of Nigerian
politics (afigbo, 1989). The revelation provided the precondition for
the creation of more states in 12976 to bring the number to nineteen.
State creation was expected to balance the federation as well as shift
both allegiance and competition for development resources from
broad ethnic groups to neutral state entities (miles 1988). There are
reservations that it achieved the desired balance (nwabueze,
1983:306); but certainly the logic of organizational structure and
procedures of the military (oyewole, 1978) and encouragement by top
bureaucrats (olowu, 1990b) facilitated the rapid development of
centralizing federalism in Nigeria between 1966 and 1979. so too did
the increase in revenue yields from the sale of petroleum on the world
market in the 1970s, the logic of which enjoined the state to act in the
interest of capital as represented by oil companies. And so between
1966 and 1979, the balance of power and resources became
increasingly tilted in favour of the federal centre. Nwabueze (1983:1)
argues that such a communist arrangement in which lower levels of
government accept direction from the center on the conduct of their
affairs is not federalism. Olowu (1990a) uses the term federal-unitarism
to describe federal practice between 1975 and 1979. This
notwithstanding, the concentration of oil wealth at the centre made
control of state power at this level very attractive.
It was also during this period that probably the most enduring
legacies of Nigerian federalism were instituted. Alongised the creation
of states and adjustment of political and geographical boundaries was
the establishment in 1976 of a formal third tier of government at the
local level together with a nation-wide reform of the local government
system. The aim was to forge a viable and stable political system
capable of responding to the development needs of the country. While
Nigeria might have borrowed the idea of a three-tier governmental
structure from Brazilian federalism (olowu, 1982) , it was expected to
respond to the peculiar needs and problems of Nigerian society.
Hence much was expected from the new federal arrangement on the
return to civilian rule in October 1976. The consensus on Nigerian
federalism was teste. So far, it has not been vindicated. Nigerian

7. federalism is yet to fully come to grips with the minorities and
development question.
In the present age, the problem is exemplified by minority groups
of the oil mineral producing areas, of which Ogoni is just one.
GROUP DISAFFECTION AND QUEST FOR A RE-STRUCTURING
OF THE FEDERATION
Among the many groups that were created to promote either
regional or ethnic interest or a wider, more secularly-based
reformation of the federal set up were the middle belt forum, the
eastern mandate union (EMU), the western consultative group, the
northern elders forum, the egbe afenifere, the movement for national
reformation (MNR), the ndigbo, and of course, MOSOP and
EMIRON. The issues which dominated the discourse of most of the
groups included ways of ensuring that federal political power is
equally accessible to all Nigerian nationalities which should also be
allowed to have their own political and economic space in a radically
restructured federation in which the power of the federal state is
reduced. Vociferous demands were also made for a greater balance
between the north and the south of Nigeria in the leadership of the
country, in the distribution of political and parasitical offices, and the
economic benefits accruing to the country. Furthermore, arguments
for and against a greater balance between the Christians and Moslems
both in the headship of the federal government and in key military
command appointments. Some groups even went so far as to canvass
the re-regionalization of the Nigerian police force as well as the
regionalization of the armed forces as part of a strategy both for
giving substance to regional autonomy as well as preventing the all
too frequent intervention of the military in politics. Strong views were
expressed in support of and against the use of the principle of
derivation as the sole or main criterion for the allocation of revenue.
There is much in the plethora of views that were canvassed that
was both useless and useful democratic and anti-non democratic but
whatever view we may hold of them, they reflected the changing
mood in the country for a far-reaching programme of reform. The
financial profligacy and political recklessness of the Babangida
military regime only served to reinforce the necessity for reform and,
in time, a host of professional associations and interest groups whose
members still had an objective interest in defending a pan-Nigeria
national-territorial agenda began publicly to push the case for the
convening of a sovereign national conference to discuss the entire

8. basis on which the Nigerian federation is built and to reform it in
such a way that it would promote democratic accountability, greater
participation in national and sub-national affairs by a majority of the
people, the creative channeling of the energies of the people for
national reconstruction and development, and the enhancement of
the basis for national unity. Among the interest groups and
professional which were at the forefront of the campaign for a
sovereign national conference were those represented by the Nigeria
labour congress (NLC) and a majority of its 42 affiliate unions, the
national association of Nigerian students (NANS), the academic staff
union of universities (ASUU), the association of democratic lawyers
(NADL), the civil liberties organisation (CLO), women in Nigeria
(WIN), the constitutional rights projects (CRP), the concerned
professionals (CP), Nigerians medical association (NMA), and the
committee for the defence of human rights (CDHR), among others.
Several of these groups were affiliate members of the campaign for
democracy (CD) that was at the forefront of the struggle against the
continuation of general Babangida and the military in power
following the annulment of the 1993 presidential election (Olukosi,
1993b, 1994).
The campaign by professional associations and interest groups
(like labour, students, and academics) with a national-territorial
agenda was taken up by some of the organizations that had been set
up to canvass the reformation of the federal system on the basis of
autonomous nationalities in a political arrangement that involves a
reduction in powers, competences and responsibilities of the federal
centre. Particularly prominent tin this regard were the MNR (1993)
and EMIRON/MOSOP. The various groups and interest were united,
partly at least, by an extreme distrust of the military government of
general Babangida in whose programme of transition to civilian rule
they had little or no faith. This loss of faith in the Babangida regime
related as much to this distrust of its intention to hand over federal
power to an elected federal executive as to their loss of faith in the
capacity of the regime particularly, and the Nigerian military in
general, to champion a systematic reform of the federation to permit
a greater input in decision-making by the people. The tempo of the
campaign for a sovereign national conference grew with the
increasing arbitrariness with which the Babangida regime conducted
the transition programme. The programme itself was cumulative
discredited with every round of postponement of the date for the

9. handing over of executive power to an elected president. Such was the
extent to which the tempo for genuine reformation of Nigerian
politics, economy, and society had built up that not even the election
of a civilian president could have blunted the demand for a national
conference on one sort or the other.
It was a mark of the groundswell of
pressures that had build up in favour of the
restructuring of the federal arrangement in the
country that a group of retired senior civil
servants (the so-called super).
THE NATIONAL QUESTION AND
NATIONAL BUILDING: THE LINK
The construction of stable nation out of desperate and often
antagonistic ethnicities or nationalities cohabiting in an artificial
modern state like Nigeria is contingent upon effective resolution of
what is generally known as the “national question” i.e. finding
acceptable solution to the problems of peaceful, harmonious
cohabitation and relationship among the various nationalities that
artificial boundaries have brought together. Even older and more
develop state have had to confront this inevitable problem. The
national question has always been a major factor in all multi-national
societies, and harmonious coexistence depends on its successful
resolution. Where issues of national question have been left
unresolved, such nations have had to be held together largely by
coercion, intimidation and violence.
This was the case with the defunct Soviet Union, a multi-national
conglomerate held together by communist authoritarianism which for
decade swept the “nationalities problems underneath the rug. It
confronted the problem headlong in 1991 and had to split up into its
constituent units later year. Cohabitation of strange bedfellows

10. remains a problem that states of heterogeneous nationalities which
eventually dealt with.
Dealing with the national question or the nationalities problem is an
integral part of any nation’s march to political development and
maturity. new nations, especially those that emerged recently from
colonialism have a numerous task of evolving new and concrete
national identities by carefully welding together their disparate ethnic
or nationality groups and conscious cultivation of a bond of common
national identity. this process of resolving what Lucian term as
“national identity crisis fundamentally involves the acceptance by all
those who co-exist in the same demarcated geographic space and
under the political authority of a modern nation-state that they share
some “distinctive and common bond of ultimate association. this is
far from being an easy process for emergent post-colonial states. as
they further observes in many of new countries the identity crisis
immediately became of the artificial acquire of their physical
boundaries”. The orders inherited by the new successor states were
arbitrary legacies of Europeans colonization which did not take into
proper consideration pre-colonial ethno-cultural configurations and
patterns. As a result of their artificiality and because of the
unwillingness of the colonialist to forge nations out of these diverse
ethnic mosaics, there is rally little emotional attachment to the
emerging nation-states. instead, primordial attachment remain
quite strong, regrettable to the development of “cohesive national
identity”.
In large rears its head more poignantly whenever the evolving
political systems fail to endanger the feeling that the nation-state
belongs equally to all that comprise it. This crisis, it must be
emphasized, it is not just a peculiarity of the new states along. Older
and seemingly more stable polities also experience i.e., for example,
Canada with recurrent agitations for Quebec separatism, Scottish
nationalism in great Britain Basque separatism in Spain the collapse
and disintegration of former soviet union. in Africa, the appeal to
ethnic separatism was effectively stifled by the coercion and violence
of colonial rule. the pent-up ethnic feeling were later to explode after

11. independence to haunt the new states which lacked the where withal
for the amelioration historical divisions and hostilities.
Regrettably, the post-colonial state in Africa has failed woefully in the
realm of nation-building. The festering sore ethnic nationalism which
colonialism merely suppressed has now become the dangerous
inheritance of the new Africa state. the new rulers of the state, rather
tan symbolized their nations unfortunately cast themselves in the
role ethnic champions who willingly fan the members of ethnic
chauvinism and mutual hatred.
Latent ethnic hatred have therefore found expressions through
political actions that exacerbated the domination of minority by
majority nationalities, policies that marginalized minorities, escalated
hostilities and intensified primordial feelings for the ethnic group
over and above loyalty to the nation-state.
The resultant heightened tension and hostilities have created a
vicious cycle of violence and national insecurity as eruptions of rabid
ethno-nationalism are violently and forcibly suppressed by ruling
authorities,
Socially where major nationality groups controlling power employ the
coercive resources of the state to oppress recalcitrant
minority groups. In periods of national crisis engendered by this
process, the tendency to take solace in primordial groups become
stronger, thus cancelling all pretensions of national solidarity and
coercion. The above has been the lot of most African state largely of
colonial heritage and their own palpable ineptitude to evolved
mechanisms for the resolution of the crucial national question.
Aside from occasional expression and outbursts
of national feelings and patriotism for the
nation-state during periods of international
crisis that might threat the corporate existence
of the state, the feeling of ethnocentrisms has
already been elevated to higher pedestal while
attachment to primordial groups remains the
order of the day. This has resulted in the failure

12. nation-building efforts, since “the process of
nation-state” according to bill and Hardgrave,
“depends impart on breaking these primordial
patterns of attitude and behaviour, and creating
a new sense of political identity”. This involves a
careful process of creating national institution
“for the counter-socialization of individuals
whose orientations have already been formed to
some extend along traditional lines”. As an
ultimate necessity, nation-building cannot be
brought about by mere wishful-thinking or
simply by the mere fact of coexistence.
Socialization in to an entirely new political
culture i.e. the development of emotional
attachment to the nation-state rather than to
the ethnic group, according to bill and
Hardgrave, “cannot always be attained by fiat or
even by the most enlightened programme of
political education”. New nations must
consciously develop rather than legislate by fiat
mechanisms for the gradual erosion of
particularistic or parochial attitudes, feelings
and behaviour to pave way for real nations.
Valuable lessons can be learnt in this regard
from the experience of the now defunct USSR
where all pretensions to solving the nationalities
problem through forcible Russification failed
abysmal. Even when multi-national states held
together by force, there comes a time when the
need to face up to the challenges of resolving the

13. thorny question becomes an inescapable
national imperative..
CONCLUDING REMARKS.
The feelings and assertion of ethnic nationalism have been the
bane of nation-building in Nigeria. ethnocentricism, even
ethnic chauvinism has fualled by the historical circumstances
of Nigeria`s emergence under colonial rule.the conscious
manipulation of post-colonial politics for the perpectuation of
inherited prejudices,structural imbalance in the federal
structure,divisive and destructive military rule e.t.c which
make Nigeria still largely a “geographical expression” after
three decades.notmuch progress would be made until full
democracy is achieved with structures and mechanisms that
would bridle the propency for ethnic nationalism and channel
loyalties away from the primordial nationality to the Nigerian
nation-state. a return to JUNE12 as the basis for democratic
rule is inevitable, and no amount of deceptive overtures and
subterfuge by the interim national government would wish
away the peoples` verdict. The interim national government is
itself an illegitimate contraption. And any election organised
by it can only be of dubious credibility. if the nation would not
allowed to dissolve in chaos the will of Nigerian people as
freely expressed by them on June 12,1993 must be
respected.#
A word must also be said on the agitations for a national conference.
the current spate of agitations for national conference is a by-product
of Babangida’s unjustifiable annulment of the people’s mandate. by
this arbitrary action, the dictator succeeded in sowing the seeds of
discord among Nigerians, creating the impression that annulment of
the presidential election was to prevent a southerner from becoming
the president thereby perpetuating northern domination, the truth or
falsity of the suspicion notwithstanding, it is a start reality that the
basis for Nigerian unity has been called in to question.
The other side of the controversy, of course, is that a national
conference is an open invitation to chaos. the view is that such a

14. conference is bound to exacerbate mutual suspicions,unlikely to
resolve any of the contentiousof the polity in chaos. Analyst of this
persuation are of the view that national conference is death knell for
Nigeria as outcome may be a replay of the Yugoslav debacle here.
Persuasive as this argument may seem on the surface, it merely seeks
to push the matter under the rug for the sake of geopolitical
expediency.pretending that all is well would not guarantee the
survival of the polity.
Only a realist appraisal of the collective destiny of the nation through
frank discussion at a national conference hold out hope for thorough
nation building.
Sani bala Shehu can be reach via his emails and web blog.
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THE MINORITIES QUESTION AND THE
WILLINK INTERVENTION
March 28, 2009
THE MINORITIES QUESTION AND THE WILLINK
INTERVENTION
The roots of the minorities question and its current
expression in relation to the problem of development
is to be traced to the mode of evolution of Nigerian
federalism. There is little doubt that Nigeria, Africa’s
major federal state, has maintained an intensely
living, strong and persistent tradition of federalism

15. (Beckett, 1987:89,95). With over 250 distinct ethnic
group, and ranked seventh with 13 percent
homogeneity in terms of ethnic and linguistic
homogeneity on an ascending scale in which north
and south Korea are ranked 132th with 100per cent
homogeneity (Derbyshire and Derbyshire, 1989;
422; kurian, 1987:1474), Nigeria seems ideally
suited for federalism. There are suggestions that a
national consensus exists about the relevance of the
federal arrangement to Nigeria’s circumstances such
that all post-independent constitutions have affirmed
it and all but one regime, military and civilian, have
accepted it (nwabueze, 1983; Jinadu, 1987).
Nwabueze (1983:383-4), in fact, suggests that
federalism is here to stay in Nigeria.
The federal republic of Nigeria presently consists of a
central of federal government, 30 states, 589 local
governments, and a mayoralty in the federal capital
territory, Abuja. This structure evolved from the
amalgamation of southern and northern Nigeria in
1914. Between 1914 and 1945, the governmental
structure was implemented through separate political
and departmental administrations only tenuously
coordinated at the centre (ukwu, 1988:27). In 1946,
the Richards constitution imposed a unitary system
which did not reckon with Nigeria’s cultural plurality.
This was supplanted in 1951 by a quasi-federal
constitution. A federal constitution of 1960
consolidated this by establishing Nigeria on the
Westminster parliamentary model as a federal state.
Both this and the republican constitution provided for
the division of powers between central and regional
governments (Nigeria, 1960; 1963). The federal

16. system emerge in Nigeria at about a time of little
official concern for local development save as might
be inferred from the implementation of the colonial
plan for the4 welfare and development on Nigeria, to
the extent that it was understood at all outside the
circle of the political class, was relatively
undeveloped (nwabueze, 1983:380).
Contrary to the voluntaristic expectations of classical
federal theory, Nigerian federalism, as federal
experiments elsewhere in Africa (mckown, 1988a) ,
was not necessarily a result of local impetus inherent
in calculation of advantages each unit would gain
while retaining its local autonomy. It was also not
explicitly introduced as a mechanism for local
development and self rule. Federalism was
introduced as a British administrative expedience
designed to cope with Nigeria’s ethnic pluralism
though the latter, it is often argued, made its
introduction as a mechanism of political
accommodation almost inevitable (awolowo, 1966).
There is even suggestion that federalism was
introduced as a British stratagem for maintaining
indirect influence on Nigeria after independence
(okonjo, 1974-chapters 9 and 10). What is certain
however, is that Nigerian federalism was built up
from a process of devolution or fissiparity, not
accretion or aggregation as was typical of older
federations-canada, Australia and the United States.
The state essentially devolved part of its powers to
regional governments (nwabueze, 1983:34; bach,
1989:221; ekeh, 1989:27). While federalism was
thus useful both to the outgoing colonialists and the
nationalist politicians as a tool for striking a balance

17. between regional and national identities (mawhood,
1983), the balance struck was, and remains uneven,
considering the interest of minority groups in the
country.
The adoption of federalism also failed to meet its
political ends in Nigeria in its early years. The system
adopted in 1954 was structurally flawed right from
start (awolowo, 1966:21; olowu, 1990b:203). The
flaws include (i) the correspondence3 of regional
administrative units with the geography of the three
major ethnic groups-hausa-fulani, Yoruba and Igbo
which effectively regionalized the ruling class (ii)
imbalance in the composition of the regions with the
northern region dominating the rest both in
geographical size (75 percent of Nigeria’s landmass)
and population (60 percent); and (iii) the majority-minority
ethnic structure within each region which
underlined a permanent state of tension and
instability. These, with the weakness of the federal
centre which made the regions the repository of
original sovereignty and ethnicity as the basis for
political support, resulted in a tripartite conflict
structure aggravated by the challenge it posed to
minority ethnic groups to assert themselves (afigbo,
1989:12) . it also threatened the legitimacy of the
centre and its ability to give leadership appropriate
to the demands of nation-building.
The reproduction of these structural defects at the
level of exercise of state power informed perceptions
that federal development resources were
concentrated in the north. This promoted a structure
of politics based on psychological fears of political
and economic domination (elaigwu, 1979) and

18. retarded political participation. Moreover, the
structure posed difficulties for the ruling class in
reconciling their private interest with maintenance of
the conditions for local development. Ake (1988:48)
forcefully suggests that: development, for sure, was
never on the agenda. To the extent that it
internalized the regional problem (dunford, 1988),
early Nigerian federalism was, in awolowo’s words,
an abominable disruptive heritage (awolowo,
1968:69). Under the colonial regime, the problems
associated with this heritage informed the
appointment of the Henry willink commission in 1957
to inquire, in particular, into the rears of the ethnic
minorities.
The willink intervention and thereafter. When alan
lennox-boyd, the then secretary of state for the
colonies appointed the willink commission in
September 1957, its terms of reference included: to
ascertain the facts about the fears of minorities in
any part of niogeria and to propose means of allayin
those fears whether well or ill founded and to advise
what safeguards should be included for this purpose3
in the constitution of Nigeria, (Nigeria, 1958) . this
was part of the many efforts, some constitutional,
some administrative, designed to reconcile the
polylot elevemens which made up Nigeria. By this
time, it had become obvious that Nigeria was a
federation of an unusual composition, among other
things because in each of the three regions it was
possible to distinguish between a majority group of
about tow thirds of the population and minority
groups amounti8ng to about one third, (Nigeria,
1958:1) at his posed political difficulties which

19. informed incessant claims by the minority groups for
separate states at the various constitutional
conferences in the 1950s.
Given the structure of Nigerian federation at the
time, the fears of the minorities were expressed
mainly in relation to regional governme3nts which
were practically dominatve by the major ethnic
groups in each region. According to the willink
report, the fears of the mino9rities arose from two
circumstances first the division of the whole territory
into three powerful regions, in each of which one
groups is numerically preponderant, and secondly
the approach of independence and the removal of
the restraints which have operative so far (Nigeria,
1958:2-3). In the western region, fears were
expressed in the areas of Yoruba domination of,
especially, the mid-west minorities; victimization in
the process of maintenance of law and order by
officially sponsored things, hooligans and strong arm
p[arties, discrimination in the economic field and in
the provision of services; gerrymandering and its
effects on the distribution of parliamentary seats;
conflict between ethnic and partisan loyalties in the
intergovernmental context; and potential for the
partiality of legislation. There were also trite fears by
religious minorities among the Yoruba.
Similar fears were expressed in the northern region.
In the particular, the minorities were worried about
the role of traditional rulers (emirs) who appointed
district heads to rule over non-Muslims. There were
also social fears and grievances concerning the use
of contemptuous expression and discriminatory
social practices; fears of political influence regarding

20. the impartiality of the native authority police and the
alkali (the legal aspect of Muslim law) religious
intolerance; and fears that the political regime in the
north was tending towards a foreign policy
sympathetic with nations of the middle east based on
their common allegiance to Islam.
In the eastern region, there was the general fear
amongst the minority ethnic groups that they might
be ove run, commercially and po0litically, by the
demographically dominant and socially mobile ibo. In
particular, there were fears of autocratic government
predicated on the perceived dictatorial conduct of the
reigning (in the eastern region) ibo dominated
national council of Nigerian citizens (NCNC); fear of
public posts and services which included the
deliberate object of the ibo majority… to fill every
post with ibos; fears of local government and chiefs
relating to insufficient devolution of powers which
left ethnic minorities with limited powers to debate
issues and little power to initiate action. There were
also fears regarding public order and changes in the
legal system similar to those expressed in the
western and northern regions. In particular, the
ethnic groups that made up the then rivers province
of which ogni division was part, nursed long-standing
grievances to the effect that the geography of their
deltaic landscape and its associated difficulties for
development were not understood at and inland
headquarters. They were, therefore, united by fear
of neglect at the hands of a government who in any
case put the needs of the interior first. (Nigeria,
1958;50).

21. The willink commission acknowledged the existence
of a body of genuine fears amongst minority groups
althou7gh these might have been exaggerated in a
few instances. However, the commission fell short of
recommending any form of self-determination,
including the creation of states, on the reasoning
that to set up a separate state would accentuate and
underline to obliterate, (Nigeria, 1958, 33, 87).
Rather, the commissions recommended panacea
included (i) a vague constitutional provision of some
fulcrum or fixed pointer outside and above politics
from which absolute impartiality can be exercised;
(ii) the establishment of a council in each minority
area charged with fostering the well-being, cultural
advancement and economic and social development
of the area (iii) the development of special areas
should be placed on the concurrent legislative list
such that funds and staff should be contributed by
the federal and regional governments into a board,
with a federal chairman to be established for this
purpose. Such a board was to initiate schemes to
supplement the normal development of the special
area’ (Nigeria, 1958:88,103-104).
The analysis of the willink commission and its
recommendations suffered from a lack of depth
inherent in its inability to go beyond the level of an
epiphenomenal enquiry. For instance, it accepted laid
down-procedures without establishing whether or not
the letter and spirit of such procedures were adhered
to. Similarly, the commission exhibited copious
ignorance of the boundaries and hence distinct
identities of various ethnic groups, hence the
classification of a vast number of ethnic groups in

22. the rivers province as Ibo. Such weakness
contributed to its limited relevance to the resolution
of the minorities and development question which
called it into existence. Inevitably, the demand for
the resolution of the question, especially through the
creation of states, continued.
The pressure for reform was dictated as much by the
imperatives of development. These provided the
grounds for political restructurings which carved out
more units in the federation to ensure participation
and development and to assuage fears of
domination. The main instrument for this exercise
was the creation of states. Thus, in 1963, the mid-western
region was created by plebiscite partly to
assuage fears of political domination of minority
groups and bring development closer to the people,
and partly for partisan political reasons (mckown,
1988b) .
Twelve states were created out of the existing
regions in 1967. This revealed the fundamental
character of Nigerian federalism as multi-ethnic, and
multi-ethnicity as the very essence of Nigerian
politics (afigbo, 1989). The revelation provided the
precondition for the creation of more states in 12976
to bring the number to nineteen. State creation was
expected to balance the federation as well as shift
both allegiance and competition for development
resources from broad ethnic groups to neutral state
entities (miles 1988). There are reservations that it
achieved the desired balance (nwabueze, 1983:306);
but certainly the logic of organizational structure and
procedures of the military (oyewole, 1978) and
encouragement by top bureaucrats (olowu, 1990b)

23. facilitated the rapid development of centralizing
federalism in Nigeria between 1966 and 1979. so too
did the increase in revenue yields from the sale of
petroleum on the world market in the 1970s, the
logic of which enjoined the state to act in the interest
of capital as represented by oil companies. And so
between 1966 and 1979, the balance of power and
resources became increasingly tilted in favour of the
federal centre. Nwabueze (1983:1) argues that such
a communist arrangement in which lower levels of
government accept direction from the center on the
conduct of their affairs is not federalism. Olowu
(1990a) uses the term federal-unitarism to describe
federal practice between 1975 and 1979. This
notwithstanding, the concentration of oil wealth at
the centre made control of state power at this level
very attractive.
It was also during this period that probably the most
enduring legacies of Nigerian federalism were
instituted. Alongised the creation of states and
adjustment of political and geographical boundaries
was the establishment in 1976 of a formal third tier
of government at the local level together with a
nation-wide reform of the local government system.
The aim was to forge a viable and stable political
system capable of responding to the development
needs of the country. While Nigeria might have
borrowed the idea of a three-tier governmental
structure from Brazilian federalism (olowu, 1982) , it
was expected to respond to the peculiar needs and
problems of Nigerian society. Hence much was
expected from the new federal arrangement on the
return to civilian rule in October 1976. The

24. consensus on Nigerian federalism was teste. So far,
it has not been vindicated. Nigerian federalism is yet
to fully come to grips with the minorities and
development question.
In the present age, the problem is exemplified by
minority groups of the oil mineral producing areas, of
which Ogoni is just one.
GROUP DISAFFECTION AND QUEST FOR A RE-STRUCTURING
OF THE FEDERATION
Among the many groups that were created to
promote either regional or ethnic interest or a wider,
more secularly-based reformation of the federal set
up were the middle belt forum, the eastern mandate
union (EMU), the western consultative group, the
northern elders forum, the egbe afenifere, the
movement for national reformation (MNR), the
ndigbo, and of course, MOSOP and EMIRON. The
issues which dominated the discourse of most of the
groups included ways of ensuring that federal
political power is equally accessible to all Nigerian
nationalities which should also be allowed to have
their own political and economic space in a radically
restructured federation in which the power of the
federal state is reduced. Vociferous demands were
also made for a greater balance between the north
and the south of Nigeria in the leadership of the
country, in the distribution of political and parasitical
offices, and the economic benefits accruing to the
country. Furthermore, arguments for and against a
greater balance between the Christians and Moslems
both in the headship of the federal government and
in key military command appointments. Some
groups even went so far as to canvass the re-

25. regionalization of the Nigerian police force as well as
the regionalization of the armed forces as part of a
strategy both for giving substance to regional
autonomy as well as preventing the all too frequent
intervention of the military in politics. Strong views
were expressed in support of and against the use of
the principle of derivation as the sole or main
criterion for the allocation of revenue.
There is much in the plethora of views that were
canvassed that was both useless and useful
democratic and anti-non democratic but whatever
view we may hold of them, they reflected the
changing mood in the country for a far-reaching
programme of reform. The financial profligacy and
political recklessness of the Babangida military
regime only served to reinforce the necessity for
reform and, in time, a host of professional
associations and interest groups whose members still
had an objective interest in defending a pan-Nigeria
national-territorial agenda began publicly to push the
case for the convening of a sovereign national
conference to discuss the entire basis on which the
Nigerian federation is built and to reform it in such a
way that it would promote democratic accountability,
greater participation in national and sub-national
affairs by a majority of the people, the creative
channeling of the energies of the people for national
reconstruction and development, and the
enhancement of the basis for national unity. Among
the interest groups and professional which were at
the forefront of the campaign for a sovereign
national conference were those represented by the
Nigeria labour congress (NLC) and a majority of its

26. 42 affiliate unions, the national association of
Nigerian students (NANS), the academic staff union
of universities (ASUU), the association of democratic
lawyers (NADL), the civil liberties organisation
(CLO), women in Nigeria (WIN), the constitutional
rights projects (CRP), the concerned professionals
(CP), Nigerians medical association (NMA), and the
committee for the defence of human rights (CDHR),
among others. Several of these groups were affiliate
members of the campaign for democracy (CD) that
was at the forefront of the struggle against the
continuation of general Babangida and the military in
power following the annulment of the 1993
presidential election (Olukosi, 1993b, 1994).
The campaign by professional associations and
interest groups (like labour, students, and
academics) with a national-territorial agenda was
taken up by some of the organizations that had been
set up to canvass the reformation of the federal
system on the basis of autonomous nationalities in a
political arrangement that involves a reduction in
powers, competences and responsibilities of the
federal centre. Particularly prominent tin this regard
were the MNR (1993) and EMIRON/MOSOP. The
various groups and interest were united, partly at
least, by an extreme distrust of the military
government of general Babangida in whose
programme of transition to civilian rule they had
little or no faith. This loss of faith in the Babangida
regime related as much to this distrust of its
intention to hand over federal power to an elected
federal executive as to their loss of faith in the
capacity of the regime particularly, and the Nigerian

27. military in general, to champion a systematic reform
of the federation to permit a greater input in
decision-making by the people. The tempo of the
campaign for a sovereign national conference grew
with the increasing arbitrariness with which the
Babangida regime conducted the transition
programme. The programme itself was cumulative
discredited with every round of postponement of the
date for the handing over of executive power to an
elected president. Such was the extent to which the
tempo for genuine reformation of Nigerian politics,
economy, and society had built up that not even the
election of a civilian president could have blunted the
demand for a national conference on one sort or the
other.
It was a mark of the groundswell of pressures that
had build up in favour of the restructuring of the
federal arrangement in the country that a group of
retired senior civil servants (the so-called super).
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