The Western Election Crisis and the National Crisis of Confidence, 1965

Abstract

Throughout 1965, the Nigerian political system was ravaged by the tensions and strains that had been developing through years of political conflict and decay. In March, a bitter struggle over the Vice-Chancellorship of the University of Lagos reignited the issue of ‘tribalism’, paralysing the University for months. A scandal over a Federal Minister’s private land deal also briefly took command of the headlines, crystallising the escalating disgust with rampant political corruption and waste. In particular, younger intellectual, professional and administrative elites were becoming bolder in their criticism, openly questioning whether Nigeria could afford a competitive party system in which the urgent need for economic development was overwhelmed by struggles for power and wealth within a narrow dominant class.

‘I had an uneasy and perhaps unwarranted feeling that here, among all Chief Awolowo’s legal books, by flickering candlelight, was being enacted the funeral rites of the Westminster model as a practical proposition in African politics.’—A journalist (in reference to post-election press conference of Action Group Leader Dauda Adegbenro, 12 October 1965) (West Africa, 16 October 1965: 1151)

‘I have told people all along that we are not ripe for a system of government in which there is a fully fledged Opposition.’—Prime Minister Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, 14 January 1966 (West Africa, 29 January 1966: 113)