Times Magazine
February 01 1954

At the House of Representatives in the West African city of Lagos (pop. 250,000), British Colonial Secretary Oliver Lyttelton rapped for order one day last week at a conference of Nigeria's political leaders. "This is one of Churchill's cigars," said the Colonial Secretary, depositing a miniature torpedo in the center of the conference table. "I propose not to smoke it unless we get into difficulties, but if you see me light it you will know that a crisis has been reached."
The Africans round the table took heed: they well understood that if the cigar was lighted, Nigeria's hopes for early independence might easily go up in smoke.

Lyttelton's object at the conference was to devise a new federal constitution that will enable Nigeria's 30 million to achieve self-government along the same lines as their neighbors in the boom ing Gold Coast, without falling out in the process. The Africans too are eager for independence — but divided in factions.

Nigeria divides naturally into three parts: the Moslem north, whose 16 mil lion are ruled by Moslem Emirs; the southwest, where the Yoruba people, led by Barrister Obafemi Awolowo, make their headquarters in the world's largest Negro city, Ibadan (pop. 459.000); and the southeast, which is Ibo-land, presided over by big-eared Nnamdi (Zik) Azikiwe, the flamboyant, U.S.-educated newspaper publisher whose oratory sways the Lagos mob. Usually, Ibo and Yoruba make common cause against the Moslem north; but last week their leaders were feuding over the flourishing port of Lagos.

Zik wants Lagos to become a federal capital, "like Washington," electing its own representatives (whom he would control) without reference to Awolowo, in whose territory it sits.

Lyttelton gave his blessing to the idea of a Nigerian D.C., and the result was that Dr. Zik suddenly proclaimed himself an "I-Like-Lyttelton" man.

Awolowo's reaction was to blast the burly Tory as "a Machiavellian divider and ruler," and to threaten to pull Yoru-baland out of the federation.
Lyttelton's Churchillian cigar brought Awolowo to his senses.

At week's end it was still unsmoked, and the conference had approved: 1) financial arrangements for an all-Nigerian government; 2) a reorganization of its cocoa-marketing board, which has a financial half nelson on the world's chocolate prices. Proposed solution for Lagos: federal status, with its own special minister, independent of both Zik and Awolowo

Zik wants Lagos to become a federal capital, "like Washington," electing its own representatives (whom he would control) without reference to Awolowo, in whose territory it sits. Shocked Shocked Shocked

Lyttelton gave his blessing to the idea of a Nigerian D.C., and the result was that Dr. Zik suddenly proclaimed himself an "I-Like-Lyttelton" man.

Awolowo's reaction was to blast the burly Tory as "a Machiavellian divider and ruler," and to threaten to pull Yoru-baland out of the federation.
Lyttelton's Churchillian cigar brought Awolowo to his senses.

He wanted to control Lagos?? Shame on Nnamdi Azikiwe!!

Even Awolowo Sef should have resisted more, these people Fckd UP!!!!!

But Azikiwe was a tool!! very weak and Stupid Greedy man, He obviously loved himself more than his Igbo people. NO wonder they ignored his grave!!

I feel sorry for Nigerians o!

okada_man:

Times Magazine
February 01 1954

At the House of Representatives in the West African city of Lagos (pop. 250,000), British Colonial Secretary Oliver Lyttelton rapped for order one day last week at a conference of Nigeria's political leaders. "This is one of Churchill's cigars," said the Colonial Secretary, depositing a miniature torpedo in the center of the conference table. "I propose not to smoke it unless we get into difficulties, but if you see me light it you will know that a crisis has been reached."
The Africans round the table took heed: they well understood that if the cigar was lighted, Nigeria's hopes for early independence might easily go up in smoke.

Lyttelton's object at the conference was to devise a new federal constitution that will enable Nigeria's 30 million to achieve self-government along the same lines as their neighbors in the boom ing Gold Coast, without falling out in the process. The Africans too are eager for independence — but divided in factions.

Nigeria divides naturally into three parts: the Moslem north, whose 16 mil lion are ruled by Moslem Emirs; the southwest, where the Yoruba people, led by Barrister Obafemi Awolowo, make their headquarters in the world's largest Negro city, Ibadan (pop. 459.000); and the southeast, which is Ibo-land, presided over by big-eared Nnamdi (Zik) Azikiwe, the flamboyant, U.S.-educated newspaper publisher whose oratory sways the Lagos mob. Usually, Ibo and Yoruba make common cause against the Moslem north; but last week their leaders were feuding over the flourishing port of Lagos.

Zik wants Lagos to become a federal capital, "like Washington," electing its own representatives (whom he would control) without reference to Awolowo, in whose territory it sits.

Lyttelton gave his blessing to the idea of a Nigerian D.C., and the result was that Dr. Zik suddenly proclaimed himself an "I-Like-Lyttelton" man.

Awolowo's reaction was to blast the burly Tory as "a Machiavellian divider and ruler," and to threaten to pull Yoru-baland out of the federation.
Lyttelton's Churchillian cigar brought Awolowo to his senses.

At week's end it was still unsmoked, and the conference had approved: 1) financial arrangements for an all-Nigerian government; 2) a reorganization of its cocoa-marketing board, which has a financial half nelson on the world's chocolate prices. Proposed solution for Lagos: federal status, with its own special minister, independent of both Zik and Awolowo

Wow!! Azikiwe you fuked up there mehn!!!! You'll see everyone would avoid this init?

this is what they don't understand

ZIK is the cause of nigeria problem

Now what is the solution, we can not divide again

because we have oil blocks and lands in the south and indeed the federaltion

^^ True Nigerians will debate the issue on Nairaland, fake Nigerians like Seun and other happy-go-lucky Ostriches will avoid it or move it to the Tribalism section,

A people afraid to confront history and learn from it will keep repeating the same mistakes.

okada_man:

^^ True Nigerians will debate the issue on Nairaland, fake Nigerians like Seun and other happy-go-lucky Ostriches will avoid it or move it to the Tribalism section,

A people afraid to confront history and learn from it will keep repeating the same mistakes.

true talk,

Zik wants Lagos to become a federal capital, "like Washington," electing its own representatives  without reference to Awolowo, in whose territory it sits.    

i belive this is the correct statement and i see nothing wrong with it, abuja today is nigeria  capital and the federal govt does not need middle belt governors before it can elect a minister for abuja, you people need to get off your tribalist way of thinking.

the same lagos was later made capital , did they consult anybody before they appoint positions in a federal govenment capital?

bunch of tribalist keep going around posting igbo threads all over the place. bad belle people.

bashr4:

Zik wants Lagos to become a federal capital, "like Washington," electing its own representatives  without reference to Awolowo, in whose territory it sits.    

i belive this is the correct statement and i see nothing wrong with it, abuja today is nigeria  capital and the federal govt does not need middle belt governors before it can elect a minister for abuja, you people need to get off your tribalist way of thinking.

If you see nothing bad in it then You are not honest here

Abuja today can not do anything without the hand of Northerners or northern leaders in it.

if that is so, then The same could have been applied to the west.

You need to have an agreement with the leader of the west before you can make such move.

Abuja was donated by a native (Babaginda) Lagos was donated by the british

This is not tribalism , that is if you are honest with yourself

bashr4:

the same lagos was later made capital , did they consult anybody before they appoint positions in a federal govenment capital?

bunch of tribalist keep going around posting igbo threads all over the place. bad belle people.

How can you consider this an igbo bashing thread. Lets discuss

[size=20pt]Igbo blah blah Igbo blah blah [/size]

Very evil dude

alj harem:

If you see nothing bad in it then You are not honest here

Abuja today can not do anything without the hand of Northerners or northern leaders in it.

if that is so, then The same could have been applied to the west.

You need to have an agreement with the leader of the west before you can make such move.

Abuja was donated by a native (Babaginda) Lagos was donated by the british

This is not tribalism , that is if you are honest with yourself

abuja is in the middle belt and when you talk of northern leaders your are refering to hausa/fulani and kanuri who are not indigens of abuja, their infulence on abuja is political and not cultural,

you can keep insulting ZIK but he saw all of us as one ,black people who needed to compete with white people and not tribe vs tribe maybe he was too advanced and detrabalised for a country like nigeria.

[size=20pt]Igbo blah blah Igbo blah blah [/size]

bashr4:

abuja is in the middle belt and when you talk of northern leaders your are refering to hausa/fulani and kanuri who are not indigens of abuja, their infulence on abuja is political and not cultural,

Hausa/fulani and kanuri are also to the middle belt. Hausas are indigenes of abuja and both politically and cultural

http://www.cometonigeria.com/nigeria/peopleandculture/hausas.html

bashr4:

you can keep insulting ZIK but he saw all of us as one ,black people who needed to compete with white people and not tribe vs tribe maybe he was too advanced and detrabalised for a country like nigeria.

Yes even if you see you family as one, who you go to ur brother's land and take it just because he is your relative and you are against some people. No

The proper thing to do is to ask and negotiate.

alj harem:

Hausa/fulani and kanuri are also to the middle belt. Hausas are indigenes of abuja and both politically and cultural

http://www.cometonigeria.com/nigeria/peopleandculture/hausas.html

Yes even if you see you family as one, who you go to your brother's land and take it just because he is your relative and you are against some people. No

The proper thing to do is to ask and negotiate.

[b][b]
Before you are fooled once more, let me use this forum to refresh the memories of the easterners with the history of our past relatedness with the rest of other major and minority groups of the country. In 1967, Gowon was adviced by Awolowo shortly after his release from the Calabar prisons and taken home to Ikene by Ojukwu's aids, to diminish the powers of the Igbos by creating two states out from the Eastern region. There came the birth of Rivers and south eastern states and these states were used as an easy access into the Biafran main base through Calabar and Portharcourt. In return, some sabotuars like Ken Saro Wiwa lead other like minds from the River state to negociate an accord with the Gowon lead government, and that was to hand over all what the Igbos left behind in River state to them should the war end to the favour of Nigeria. Of-cource at the end of the war, even when it was described as "No victor, No vanquished" still all what the Igbos had worked for all their life in River state were baptized "ABANDONED PROPERTIES

Meanwhile, while the war was going on Pa Awolowo, then the fedral commissioner for finance,a gift from Gowon for denouncing his earlier stand to declare the Odu-Dua republic should the easterners declare the Biafra republic. i will for ever respect him for his undieing patroitism to the Yoruba race, irrespective of his involvement in the war, He had announced a total naturalization of all the companies Igbos had so much interests in, in the Nigerian side. Then when he negociated the loan from the IMF to help fund the war, he made sure that some persentage of it was paid into the National bank, a bank solely owned by the westerners, which then made it easy for the Yorubas to have direct access to loans for the purchase of the share interests taken away from the Igbos.


[/b][/b]

well i guess awolowo got his revenge, funny how topics that insult igbos and their leader are never locked or moved but once you mention awolowo they move or lock the topic.

https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-718352.0.html

bashr4:

Zik wants Lagos to become a federal capital, "like Washington," electing its own representatives  without reference to Awolowo, in whose territory it sits.    

i belive this is the correct statement and i see nothing wrong with it, abuja today is nigeria  capital and the federal govt does not need middle belt governors before it can elect a minister for abuja, you people need to get off your tribalist way of thinking.

Bros Nna, you missed this part :Zik wants Lagos to become a federal capital, "like Washington," electing its own representatives (whom he would control) without reference to Awolowo, in whose territory it sits


How is this an Igbo Bashing thread? stop that nonsense!! this is an historical thread.

Awolowo was correct, the Capital should have stayed at Calabar, Lagos was not important just because of money or population, apart form the port, Ibadan was more vital, Ibadan was twice the size of lagos size and we were all depending on Cocoa anyway, Ibadan was the goldmine.

Awolowo wanted to keep the regions in line with its ethnic composition, Nigeria was still very fragile, strong regionalism was sensible, very sensible.  Zik and the British got it wrong!! of course the British did not care.

Zik played into British hands because of greed, now see the results? Imagine if Calabar was capital in 1966? it would have been easy to dislodge the North, Igbos had enough men in the army unlike Yorubas. No wonder Ojukwu never liked Zik.

Awo sef should have resisted further, See how the North kept quiet, they initially wanted to leave Nigeria, I'm sure they realized they will lose Cocoa money, Oil is now the new cocoa, different product today but same problem.

nwannem, Zik bleeped up jor!!!

okada_man:

Bros Nna, you missed this part :Zik wants Lagos to become a federal capital, "like Washington," electing its own representatives (whom he would control) without reference to Awolowo, in whose territory it sits


How is this an Igbo Bashing thread? stop that nonsense!! this is an historical thread.

Awolowo was correct, the Capital should have stayed at Calabar, Lagos was not important just because of money or population, apart form the port, Ibadan was more vital, Ibadan was twice the size of lagos size and we were all depending on Cocoa anyway, Ibadan was the goldmine.

Awolowo wanted to keep the regions in line with its ethnic composition, Nigeria was still very fragile, strong regionalism was sensible, very sensible.  Zik and the British got it wrong!! of course the British did not care.

Zik played into British hands because of greed, now see the results? Imagine if Calabar was capital in 1966? it would have been easy to dislodge the North, Igbos had enough men in the army unlike Yorubas. No wonder Ojukwu never liked Zik.

Awo sef should have resisted further, See how the North kept quiet, they initially wanted to leave Nigeria, I'm sure they realized they will lose Cocoa money, Oil is now the new cocoa, different product today but same problem.

nwannem, Zik bleeped up jor!!!

what greed ? what is there to gain from COCOA MONEY when the east had palm oil and coal which powered nigeria energy?? zik wanted nigeria to be one and your mad at him ok now we say lets not be one again and your still mad at ojukwu , you people are confused i swear.

Palm oil didn't generate very much cash, FYI.

Eastern Region was very poor before oil. As poor per capita as the north

ekt_bear:

Palm oil didn't generate very much cash, FYI.

Eastern Region was very poor before oil. As poor per capita as the north

you must be high eastern region was developed with both palm oil and coal , if east was poor then how was calabar ,ph,onitsha ,enugu , aba uyo, eket, developed? the east have never been a poor region and never will even today am sure you know the poverty statistics in nigeria.

^^

Don't mind that dude.

@alj harem

I will soon withdraw the certificate of intelligence I gave you in the thread you argued with ZNO.
You are sounding dumber and dumber by the day, I will soon add you to my list of certified m0r0ns on nairaland. 

Abuja is the Federal capital territory, and the FG does not consult with northern leaders before appoint an FCT minister.
Stop chewing grass.

ZIKs only crime which i also accuse him of is uniting us during independence. unfortunatley for all of us especially his own people he was a man that saw thing beyond tribal lines, he was more interested in the unity of black people in other to compete with white people then. like someone said he was a dreamer but there is no room for dreamers in third world nations  like nigeria.

bashr4:

you must be high eastern region was developed with both palm oil and coal , if east was poor then how was calabar ,ph,onitsha ,enugu , aba uyo, eket, developed? the east have never been a poor region and never will even today am sure you know the poverty statistics in nigeria.

Wrong. Eastern Region was as poor per capita as the North. See this post: https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-699581.64.html#msg8641378

I also have a book on Nigerian economic data from 1960-1975. I could type out the table on palm oil revenues like I did for cocoa and rubber in this thread (https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-688547.32.html), but I don't really feel like doing that right now.

As they say. . . "Men lie, women lie, but numbers don't."

Hehe.

Anybody else with notions they need me to disabuse them of?

@Onlytruth, that dude @ekt is telling you the truth, Even the report confirmed it, Cocoa was the mainstay then, it you have different data present it.

In any case, this is not about Igbos, it is about a very stuuuupid man called Azikiwe with inferiority complex, thinking he's smart, that Zik man probably pushed Ifeajuna and co to plan the 1966 coup after the saw that he messed up.

Ojukwu was probably encouraged then deserted by that Zik. Azikiwe had no love or respect for Igbos, he only loved his own ego, the same problem is still there today with Obasanjo and all these other fake nationalists. We need to SNC or a referendum, we are managing a nation founded on lies and deceit with the same deceitful divide and rule method, that's why it's not working.

bashr4:

Lyttelton gave his blessing to the idea of a Nigerian D.C., and the result was that Dr. Zik suddenly proclaimed himself an "I-Like-Lyttelton" man.

This only proves that Zik was a whitie a.s.s liker, he was suffering from inferiority complex, (maybe America did that to him ) Zik went the easy way to do the bidding of his whitie massa, Pan Africanism shouldn't have relied on the whitemans stupid method, Zik failed woefully he should have negotiated for a better looser union, we can see the results today, clear and true. Even Awo sef, kai!!

ekt_bear:

Wrong. Eastern Region was as poor per capita as the North. See this post: https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-699581.64.html#msg8641378

I also have a book on Nigerian economic data from 1960-1975. I could type out the table on palm oil revenues like I did for cocoa and rubber in this thread (https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-688547.32.html), but I don't really feel like doing that right now.

i didnt see any proof that the east was poor , you must be joking  i guess. anyways my family owns a big history library in enugu dating as far back as mid 1900s guess its time i take interest in them cus you people want to start rewritting history.

Awo tried his best, he threatened to secede when faced with this notion, but the Brits didn't allow it.

We'd have been better off going our 3 ways in the 50s rather than the present mess, imo

bashr4:

i didnt see any proof that the east was poor , you must be joking  i guess. anyways my family owns a big history library in enugu dating as far back as mid 1900s guess its time i take interest in them cus you people want to start rewritting history.

Stop being a fool. Take some time to read and comprehend what is written there. If you doubt what I say, then go buy a copy of that book mentioned and read through it. Or do some research of your own. Why do you think Awo could afford free education in the West but a similar measure failed in the East?

All boils down to money.

okada_man:

This only proves that Zik was a whitie a.s.s liker, he was suffering from inferiority complex, (maybe America did that to him ) Zik went the easy way to do the bidding of his whitie massa, Pan Africanism shouldn't have relied on the whitemans silly method, Zik failed woefully he should have negotiated for a better looser union, we can see the results today, clear and true. Even Awo sef, kai!!

keep insulting him he is the reason Nigeria exists that he made us one does not mean he will be around forever to ensure we don't derail. your mad at him because he wanted Lagos to be like washington but i bet your in a white mans land right now licking their Bottom. which is better for you a Nigeria that is developed as Zik wanted or a pan African nation like the one you have now or Somalia that keep depending on handouts from white people. stop sounding silly even the western world got most of its civilization from the Muslim east east and African civilization , guess they are also licking Bottom.