My New Black Magazine - NYU Black Renaissance Noire BRN-FALL-206 ISSUE RELEASE | Page 190

[Back to excerpts from Omo
Omoruyi, The Tale of June 12,
London: Press Alliance Network
Limited, 1999.]

L
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q11) 1959
What Sir James Robertson did
in 1959 was in furtherance of the
colonial policy dating back to 1913
[when Lord Harcourt proposed
the “marriage” of the “Northern
youth,” to “the Southern lady of
means”].
Sir James Robertson also stated
in his memoir that he prepared
Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa in
the late 1950’s for the position of
leadership of Nigeria by sharing
with him sensitive security issues
about British interests in Nigeria
and how he, Sir James “unofficially
and unconstitutionally” assigned
defence, police and foreign affairs
matters before independence to
Sir Abubakar.…(p. 303)

20 http://www.gamji.com/haruna/
haruna161.htm
21

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Nigerian_parliamentary_
election,_1959

sir james’ report card destroyed
southern leaders and favoured
northern leaders
The Northern leaders were “good
boys” and could be trusted; the
Southern leaders were “bad boys,”
and could not be trusted. Sir
James did everything to prepare
Sir Ahmadu Bello, who had no
faith in the 1914 amalgamation, to
accept the Federal Government
and the Nigerian union….(p. 304)
Finally, Sir James did not have
faith in what would happen at
the end of the day. He quoted the
note he kept in December 1956 as
follows:
The general outlook of the
people (North) is so different
from those in Southern Nigeria
as to give them practically
nothing in common. There is
less difference between an
Englishman and Italian, both
of whom have a common
civilisation based on Greek
and Roman foundations and
on Christianity, than between
a Muslim villager in Sokoto,
Kano or Katsina, and an Ibo,
Ijaw or a Kalabari. How can
any feeling of common purpose
of nationality be built up
between people whose culture,
religion and mode of living
is so completely different?
(Italics mine.)

BLACK RENAISSANCE NOIRE

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By the rule of succession, the
Northern People’s Congress (npc),
with no elected member from
the South in the House of
Representatives, succeeded to
the British colonial power in
Nigeria in 1960 and became the
successor of the British Crown
in Nigeria. Sir James was bent
on implementing the succession
plan in favour of the North.
How did he do it?

189

An ncnc-ag coalition government, led
by Zik as Prime Minister and Awo as
Deputy Prime Minister would have
been an ideologically Pan-Africanist
government. [It should be recalled that
Awo, along with Nkrumah, Kenyatta
etc. had taken part in the 5th Pan-African
Congress in 1945; and Zik, though
absent himself, was represented by the
delegation sent by his party, the ncnc.]
But the feud between Zik and Awo
helped to block this coalition by
preventing them from jointly challenging
the choice of Prime Minister already
made by the Governor General. So,
instead of Nigeria at independence being
led by a Pan-Africanist government,
it came to be led by a government
dominated by the Pan-Islamist npc of
Sir Ahmadu Bello and Tafawa Balewa.