Evolution of Nigeria, 1849-1960 (Part 5)
Today:Saturday, November 21, 2009
Although the Richards Constitution was expected to last for nine years, opposition to it, especially from the political leaders, was so strong that a new constitution, the so-called Mepherson Constitution, was promulgated in 1951. Unlike its predecessors, there was significant participation of Nigerians in its making from the village level up to the lbadan General Conference of 1950. The major provisions of the Constitution were as follows: the establishment of a 145-member House of Representatives, 136 of them elected, to replace the Legislative Council; a bicameral legislature for both the North and West, one being the House of Chiefs while the East retained the unicameral House of Assembly; the establishment of a Public Service Commission to advise the Governor on the appointment and control of public officers; the competence of the Regional Legislatures to legislate on a range of pre- scribed subjects while the central legislature was empowered to legislate on all matters including those on the Regional Legislative lists. Substan- tially, therefore, the 1951 Constitution was more or less a half-way house between regionalisation and federation.
Between 1951 and 1954, two important consti- tutional conferences were held in London and Lagos between Nigerian political leaders and the British government. These resulted in a new 1954 Federal Constitution whose main features were: the separation of Lagos, the nation's capital, from the Western Region; the establishment of a Federal Government for Nigeria comprising three regions, namely, North, West and East with a Governor- General at the centre and three Regional Governors; the introduction of an exclusive Federal Legislative List as well as a Concurrent List of responsibilities for both the Federal and Regional Governments, thus resulting in a strong central gov- ernment and weak regions; regionalisation of the Judiciary and of the public service through the establishment of Regional Public Service Commis- sions, in addition to the Federal one.
From the point of view of the evolution of the Nigerian state, the most significant thing about the 1954 Constitution, which remained in force until Independence in 1960, was that the Lugardian prin- ciple of centralisation was replaced by the formula of decentralisation as a matter of policy in the administration of the Nigerian state. Another signif- icant aspect of that Constitution, which was to cast a long shadow on the development of independent Nigeria, was that the federation it established was unique since one region, the North, was larger than the other two regions, East and West, combined. Thus, at Independence in 1960, the main fea- tures of the Nigerian state that had evolved since 1900 were: weak constitutional and institutional basis for development politics; an unbalanced federation; regionalism which engendered mutual jealously and fear; and regionally-based political constituencies.
Indeed, the Nigerian colonial state was perceived by Nigerians, especially the emerging political elite, as an illegitimate foreign system operated according to unfamiliar rules and norms which could not function to promote a sense of common national identity among the diverse ethnic groups or even the three Regions that then made up the country. These legacies of colonialism have remained the bedrock of the many problems of nation building in Nigeria since 1960.
FURTHER READING
Afigbo, A. E. (1998) History As Statecraft. Dike, K.O. ( 1957) 100 Years of British Rule in Nigeria, 1851-1957. lkime, Obaro, (ed.), (1980) Groundwork of Nigerian History, (lbadan, Heinneman). Tamuno, T.N. (1972) Evolution of the Nigerian State: The Southern Phase. Uya, Okon, E. (1992). Contemporary Nigeria: Essays in Society, Politics and Economy, Buenos Aires; Edipubli S. A.
