THE BEGINNING OF NIGERIA’S FEDERALISM

Nigeria’s federalism dates back to the Littleton Constitution of 1954. The constitution recognized the Western, Northern and Eastern regions as the federating units. The powers of the central and regional governments were defined in the exclusive, concurrent and residual lists.
Following the London constitutional conferences of 1957 and 1958 and the Willink’s Commission of Enquiry, the constitution was amended to become the independent constitution of 1960.

In the 1958 London constitutional conference, it was agreed that Nigeria should become independent on October 1, 1960 and that plebiscites be held at the behest of the United Nations (UN) in both Northern and Southern Cameroon. The plebiscites were held on Feb 11 and 12, 1961 with Southern Cameroon opting to join the Republic of Cameroon while Northern Cameroon voted to be part of Nigeria.
It was after the 1957 constitutional conference that the Western and Eastern Regions attained self government on August 8, 1957.

These talks laid the frame work for the fiscal federalism that heralded the policies and objectives of the regions in the First Republic. Each of the regions had financial autonomy and regulated their security, with the federal police only acting as a balance. The development of infrastructure that was witnessed under this system is yet to be replicated after the country reformed the federalism of that era.

The problem of Nigeria’s federalism was compounded by the incursion of the military into politics on 15, January 1966 by the overthrow of the democratic government led by Prime Minister Tafawa Balewa. He and the Premiers of Northern and Western Regions were killed in a coup championed by mostly Igbo officers.
The country’s first military Head of State Aguiyi Ironsi promulgated the Unification Decree 34-a unitary system, but this worsened the problem of unity.

The Hausa/Fulani group whose hold on power was upturned challenged Ironsi’s decree, leading to his assassination on 29 July, 1966, in a counter coup led by mostly Hausa-Fulani officers. Gen. Yakubu Gowon was made the military Head of State following Ironsi’s death.

One of the fall-outs of the July coup was the massacre of Igbo people leaving in Northern Nigeria. The killings were revenge actions for the murder of mainly northern leaders in the coup of Jan 15, 1966. A senior Igbo military officer and Governor of the Eastern Region Col. Emeka Ojukwu challenged the leadership of Gowon installed by the northern officers who ousted the government of Ironsi. Ojukwu also complained about the killing of his people in Northern Nigeria. His calls for a new federal and governance system that gives greater autonomy to the regions as a means of addressing the issues of the period was not successful.

The Aburi meeting in Ghana in Jan 1967 was supposed to have provided the cushion for the peaceful resolution of the political crisis brought by the coups, but it did not.