National Council of Nigeria and The Cameroons - Party Politics

Party Politics

During a national conference in 1954, the party had opposed a call to include the right of secession-a stance which was later exploited by the North and the West to deny the East the right to secede in the Nigerian Civil War. It had argued that the country was not a league of forced nations and it would be ruinous to include such right. The policies of the party, from its inception favored a countenance of determined expression for self-government and nationalism. The major aims of the party taken on subsequent campaigns at home and abroad were as follows.

• The extension of democratic principles and advancement of the interest of the people of Nigeria and Cameroons under British mandate.
• The impartings of political education to the people of Nigeria in order to prepare them for self government.
• The provision of medium of expression for members of NCNC through which they would endeavor to secure for Nigeria and the Cameroons, political freedom, social equality, religious toleration and economic activity.

The first test of the party came in the 1951 election, the party won majority votes in the Eastern Region of Nigeria's House of Assembly but became the opposition in the western region with Azikiwe as the opposition leader representing Lagos.Although the Action Group won a plurality of the votes in the election, its prospects were uncertain as the NCNC could have secured a majority if it had been able to persuade the third party, which was an Ibadan community party and which had been viewed by the NCNC as its ally, to support it. This it was not able to achieve and the AG therefore formed the government amid accusations of carpet-crossing by Azikiwe and his NCNC. This event is still viewed by some historiographers as the beginning of ethnic politics in Nigeria.Azikiwe later on became the Premier of Eastern Region, Nigeria in 1954. After Nigeria's independence, Azikiwe was Governor-General (1960-1963) and President (1963-1966). In 1966, a military coup ended Azikiwe's term as president, and the NCNC dissolved in the following turmoil.

The NCNC was accused by its adversaries of focusing overly on the interests of the Igbo population. By the late 1940s,the remnant of the Nigerian Youth Movement,now effectively a western Nigeria political organization, had decided to support the Action Group accusing the NCNC of ethnic imperialism. However, the western opposition needed to tactically rev up local sentiments as its base was made up of local elites who depended little on nationalistic sentiment but on the local economic and political activity in their various towns and cities. During the Biafran war of secession, Azikiwe became a spokesman for the republic and an adviser to its leader.