1. The Amalgamation of 1914 was a pretention.

Governor Hugh Clifford (29/12/20, Nigerian Council Debates): ‘The people of British West African colonies and protectorates have no more pretensions to a common nationality than have, for example, the people of Europe.’

Nnamdi Azikiwe (4/12/54): ‘So long as the British umbrella give both parties protection, so long they appeared to be able to live together. Now, on the eve of the British departure, certain forces are at work to create a permanent breach in relations of north and south.’

2. The British colonialists ignored opposition to the Amalgamation of 1914.

Lagos Weekly Record (February 1919): ‘Let us hope that with the departure of Sir Frederick the Nigerian system the product of his exuberant imagination will be consigned to the limbo of oblivion where embedded in the historical strata of British imperial colonization it will exist as the fossilated remains of an administrative experimental failure.’

3. A veneer of unity was quid pro quo for getting Nigeria’s independence.

Chief Obafemi Awolowo (1/5/45): ‘The Yorubas, Hausas and Ibos have nothing in common. The only common factor to all of them is British overlordship. The veneer of western learning and civilisation and the common interest in demanding political freedom have tended to make it appear that there is some unity…’

4. The colonialists structured Nigeria to make the northern voice perpetually dominant. 

The Sardauna of Sokoto, Ahmadu Bello (12/10/60): ‘The new nation called Nigeria should be an estate of our grandfather, Othman Danfodio. We must ruthlessly prevent a change of power. We must use the minorities in the North as willing tools and the South as conquered territories and never allow their future.’

5. The Military coup of 15 January 1966 forced unitary governance on Nigeria.

Decree No 1 (17/01/66): ‘7.—(1) The executive authority of the Federal Republic of Nigeria shall be vested in the Head of the Federal Military Government and may be exercised by him either directly or through persons or authorities subordinate to him: Provided that nothing in this subsection shall prevent any authority having power to make laws from conferring functions on persons or authorities other than the Head of the Federal Military Government.’

6. Nigeria’s military dictators opposed self-determination and by force imposed ‘indissolubility’ on Nigeria.

Odumegwu Ojukwu Declaration of Biafra (30/05/67): ‘Believing that you are born free and have certain inalienable rights which can best be preserved by yourselves…Unwilling to be unfree partners in any association of a political or economic nature…Determined to dissolve all political and other ties between you and the former Federal Republic of Nigeria…I…by virtue of the authority, and pursuant to the principles recited above, do hereby solemnly proclaim that the territory and region known as and called Eastern Nigeria together with her continental shelf and territorial waters shall henceforth be an independent sovereign state of the name and title of The Republic of Biafra.’

Major-General Yakubu Gowon – May 1967: ‘The citizens of this country have not given the Military Regime any mandate to divide up the country into sovereign states and to plunge them into bloody disaster. As I have warned before, my duty is clear-faced with this final choice between action to save Nigeria and acquiescence in secession and disintegration.’

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