Hubert Maga - Early Political Career

Early Political Career

Maga was elected a general adviser for the Atakora region in 1945, and, two years later, was appointed to the Grand Council of French West Africa, in which he served until 1952. Following his election to the Dahomey territorial assembly in 1947, Maga resigned his teaching post. He subsequently became vice president of the assembly until his resignation in 1957.

Roger Peperty, the French chef de cercle of Natitingou and a close acquaintance, encouraged Maga to form an alliance among northerners in early 1949. He wrote in a political report later that year:

I have suggested to Maga that he constitute a separate group with his Northerners. He liked the idea ... Later I repeated the question. It seems again possible that Mr. Maga might constitute the group in question.

He feared that Maga would lean "toward the R.D.A. " and wanted the young politician to form a different group. The party was to become the Groupement Ethnique de Nord (Northern Ethnic Group). Maga, in an April 1968 interview, denied that Peperty ever played a part in the establishment. He claimed that he and his friends came up with the idea.

In the legislative elections of June 17, 1951, when Dahomey was allowed an additional representative in the French National Assembly, Maga ran for that office. The fact that two seats were allotted to Dahomey was only known in the last week of April. As per a May 1951 electoral law, each candidate had to give the names of another who would occupy the second seat in the event that the other party's first candidate came in third or below. Maga decided to run with Paul Darboux, a wealthy northern merchant. Capitalising on growing cynicism regarding southern Dahomey dominating the French colony's politics, he allied himself with the northern tribes.

The May 1951 law also enlarged the electorate from 61,958 to 333,693. Some dead people were even counted as electors due to the mishandling of election cards. The Cotonou newspaper L'Etoile du Dahomey noted a man who gave an unlimited number of cards as long as they promised to vote for Maga's main opponent, accountant and deputy Sourou-Migan Apithy. Altogether, however, only 44% of the population voted on election day. Apithy was reelected a deputy with 53,463 votes out of 147,350 cast, while Maga captured the second seat with 49,329 and third candidate Emile Derlin Zinsou received a mere 18,410 ballots. Several smaller parties hosted several other candidates, which received the rest of the votes. Only 0.5 percent of Maga's votes came from the coastal region, while 98 percent came from northern towns and villages. The 1951 election has been cited as when regionalist parties arose, and it was the first whose pamphlets mentioned ethnicity.