My New Black Magazine - NYU Black Renaissance Noire BRN-FALL-206 ISSUE RELEASE | Page 189

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q10) 1959
Sir James confessed that he called
Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa to
form the government in 1959 “by
persuading some of the Southern
members to support him and Sir
Abubakar assured him he would
get a Southern group to work with
him.” Sir James did this before
the results were released in full.
He confessed that he did this to
appease the Sardauna of Sokoto,
the Leader of npc, to stop him
from taking the North out of
Nigeria.24 (p. 302)

Votes

%

Seats

National Council of Nigeria
and the Cameroons†

2,594,577:

34.0:

81

Action Group‡

1,992,364:

26.1:

73

Northern People’s Congress*

1,922,179:

25.2:

134

Northern Elements
Progressive Union †

509,050:

6.7:

8

Mabolaje Grand Alliance*

610,677:

8.0:

6

Igala Union*

4

Independents‡

2

Independents*

2

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Igbira Tribal Union*

1

The manipulation of the 1959
election results:
[An account by Chinweizu]
The 1959 election was manipulated to
deliver power to the Caliphate.
The electoral mechanisms which
accomplished that feat was a
combination of the 1952 arbitrary
allocation of 50 per cent of the
seats in the Federal parliament to the
North as demanded by the Emirs; the
census of 1953 which assigned to the
North 55.4% of the total population
20 in what seemed to be an effort to
retroactively justify the 1952 allocation
of parliamentary seats [this caused
the census to be regarded as rigged];
and the Governor General’s inviting
of Balewa to form a government
even before the election results were
complete. As a result, power over the
whole of Nigeria was placed in the
hands of the Caliphate rulers of the
North. The 1959 election results were
as follows21:

Niger Delta Congress*

1

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188

Party

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Total

7,628,847:

100:

314

Source: Nohlen et al.
* Northern People’s Congress-led coalition (148 seats)
† National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons-led coalition (89 seats)
‡ Action Group-led coalition (75 seats)

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By converting the least votes into the
most seats, this Robertson electionrigging mechanism ensured that
the npc became the dominant partner
in the federal government. Had
proportional representation been
applied, the ncnc-nepu Alliance
which garnered 3,103,627 votes (40.7%)
would have had the most seats and
produced the Prime Minister.
Alternatively, even with the rigged
distribution of seats, had Zik
and Awo brought their ncnc and ag
alliances into coalition, the ncnc-ag
coalition would have had 164 seats
to the npc’s 148. And the GovernorGeneral, Sir James Robertson, would
have been obliged to ask the ncnc-ag
coalition to form the government.

Either way, the ncnc leader Dr. Nnamdi
Azikiwe (a.k.a. Zik), would have
become Nigeria’s Prime Minister at
independence, and Nigeria’s history
might have been quite different. But
that was essentially prevented by the
British managers of the transition
to independence, when Sir James
Robertson invited Tafawa Balewa to
form the government even before
the rigged results were fully in.
Consequently, when the results were
finally out, the option of an ncnc-ag
Coalition had been basically ruled
out, and these parties were faced with
the option of going into junior
partnership with the already designated
Prime Minist er.