Newspaper proprietor and member of the defunct Zikist Movement, who saw it all in the fight for Nigeria’s Independence, BOB OGBUAGU, tells Editor, Politics/Features, EMEKA ALEX DURU, and Assistant Politics Editor, DANIEL KANU, the story of the struggle, recounting risks, intrigues and betrayals in the exercise.
The struggle for Independence
That is a very big question in terms of the fact that we didn’t fight for the Nigeria we are seeing today. The background was that, at that time, the British constituted the government that was in place and they administered us. Our pre-occupation was to get them out of government because they were running the place as they liked. They brought us the Bible (Christianity) and followed it up with commerce. We had the United African Company (UAC), John Holt, then education, then administration. Whatever they were doing was to meet the agenda of their people. Their initial song was “God save the Gracious King” until it metamorphosed to “…Gracious Queen”.
So our pre-occupation was to let the interlopers leave our land, so that we could organise our life. There was nothing like going to have a roadmap. Rather, we had one thing in mind: to get Nigeria independent, because it was a period independence fire was raging throughout West Africa and the middle of East Africa. Our methodology was simple. We had no guns or any explosive devices; it was argument against argument, but they had the superior argument because they were in power. So they had the laws.
Evolution of nationalist movement
It was the time Zikist Movement came out as the off-shoot of the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC).
The history of Nigeria’s independence and political evolution dates back to early 1940s, when the political parties were being organised. We had the NCNC – an all Nigeria party with Herbert Macaulay as the first President-General. Action Group (AG) came much later. At that time, I had just finished from the Methodist College, Uzuakoli (in the present Abia State) in 1945, and for one reason or another, my father, who was a teacher, thought that the best place to send me was the North to stay with his friend and my big uncle. So I started my life in the North.
Eventually, I got into the nationalist struggle. It was a matter of the whole of Nigeria with little participation from the North that urged all of us to go in search of what everybody else was seeking then: freedom from the British. It peaked from 1944 onwards as the flame raged throughout Nigeria, particularly in the South. The British didn’t like it. So they came up with seditious laws with which they clamped anybody who had any courage to say anything against them into jail. I lived in Jos then. I wasn’t satisfied with government service. So I joined the John Holt in 1946. Later I joined the Geological Survey Department in 1947. I was restless; I didn’t like what was going on.
The turning point
NCNC held its first convention in Kaduna in 1948. Then we had the Legislative Council, which was rotating between Lagos and Kaduna. So, members of the council were holding their first session in Kaduna and the NCNC also slated its first national convention in Kaduna.
As chairman of the Zikist Movement in Jos, I was drafted as Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe (Zik)’s aide-de-camp (ADC) because we didn’t trust the White Man to look after him. That was a turning point. It was then that we said the time had come for us to have a frontal attack with the British. Then we had Saad Zungur from the North and Kola Balogun as the secretary. The first series of lectures – inflammatory lectures – were to begin in 1948. Of course, in all, we were not abusing anybody. We were just telling the British to go; that we were ripe enough to look after ourselves. Of course, they called that sedition and those who published those articles were also held. They were very serious with us, as they vowed to deal with us squarely.
Colonial masters on the offensive
The first series of lectures with the theme ‘A call for revolution’ were delivered in Lagos at Ebute Metta by Osita Agwuna. They then descended on us in 1950 and put us into jail; I think about 56 young people. They so arranged it that the arrests were made simultaneously throughout the country, so that you had no time tell your colleagues what was going on.
The following day, we were all in court. Some had six months, some had nine months, depending on the Magistrate that handled your case, though they were all British Magistrates. I served my term in Jos for six months for possessing seditious documents. We refused to plead. We agreed that anytime we were held and they asked us of our plea – guilty or not guilty – we should not talk. We kept mute. In my case, the Magistrate was an ex-military man. When I refused to respond or make any plea, he said: “It was mute of malice” and sentenced me six months. But we went into the detention happily because the whole country was behind us.
If you behaved well in prison then, you had some days off. For the six months, I only served about four.
We did not accept violence as an instrument of our struggle. We thought it was a matter of the will – their will and our own will. But ultimately they had the law behind their own will. That, I think, was the crux of the struggle.
The intrigues, the betrayals
But then, our parent political party, the NCNC led by Zik, denied us. It was then that Zik made his famous statement: “He who fights and runs away lives to fight another day”. We were disappointed. Nduka Eze, Kola Balogun and other colleagues in the struggle felt very bad. In fact, Prof. Ikenna Nzimiro never forgave Zik. But I did. When I came out, my papers were in tatters. I had to find something to do and Zik appointed me the Northern Regional Representative of the Pilot Newspapers with M.C.K Ajuluchukwu as the Editor.
The struggle gathers momentum
That was how we ignited, sustained the fire and set the path on the struggle for Independence. It was then the colonial masters knew that we were serious. Obafemi Awolowo came later to form the AG from the Egbe Omo Oduduwa. The Igbo State Union was also very strong. In fact, it was a government itself as far as we were concerned with N.C. Obi, an Nnewi trader, as the president-general. Any pronouncement from them was the rule throughout the country. Any day they declared as Igbo Day, there would be no market in Kano, Lagos and throughout the whole country. They were so powerful that even in the North, they set up a secondary school – something that was unheard of, in the heart of a Muslim region and one of us was the first principal.
After we served our various sentences, some of our colleagues like Herbert Macaulay and Tony Enahoro had two sentences because they were accused of committing something else in Lagos. I think Enahoro served for nine months again. After that, it was clear that a political system has come into the organisation in Nigeria. We had the AG, which metamorphosed from the youth movement. H.O. Davies was in charge of the group.
Zik succeeded Macaulay
The NCNC decided to have a country-wide tour to sensitise people. Macaulay was to lead the tour as president-general. Zik was the secretary-general. They went to two or three areas in the West before going to the North. Unfortunately, it was somewhere in the West that Macaulay died. After the funeral where Zik made his flowery speech “Beyond the Grave”, he took over as president-general. When he got to the North, we took him round.
It will be good to let you know that the statement from NCNC leadership, that we were a pack of irresponsible people, fired many of us. Everybody wanted to make a success of his life. Many went abroad to read Law. I stayed back to run my newspaper until it became a daily newspaper. At last, we had to prove NCNC leadership wrong that we were not just a pack of irresponsible people, but people who wanted the best for our country and were ready to defend it. We were focused in our struggle because all of us excelled in our different professions, thereby proving them wrong.
Some other things happened in-between. In 1960, we had Independence and in 1963 we became a republic.
Nigeria after Independence
The purpose for our independence was lost and then buried when the army took over. It was army coup that was the issue. Those who planned it could not carry it out; those who inherited it then put us in this mess that we are today. They had no clue on what to do. We then decided to, sort of, disengage. The people that took over had no idea about nation-building. After that, everybody went into his own shell. Nobody seems to be happy with what is going on in Nigeria.