nwabobo:
As I had forecast,the NPC won the majority of seats in the House of Representatives.The NCNC came next in the number of seats won and the Action Group came last.There followed political manoeuvres for the formation of a new federal government.

The Action Group sent emissaries to the NCNC and a four man team of the Action Group arrived at my home in Asaba at about 2 O'clock one morning, informing me that they had been sent by their party to meet Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe and the NCNC to discuss a coalition government between the NCNC and Action Group.

I was to lead them to Dr Azikiwe who was then at his home across the River Niger at Onitsha.I telephoned Dr Azikiwe and at about 6am ,the Action Group delegates and I crossed the Niger by ferry to Onitsha (the Niger Bridge had not yet been built).

After a short discussion with Zik in his home at Onitsha an NCNC Central Working Committee was summoned to meet at Onitsha.During the ensuing discussion on a possible coalition with the Action Group in the Federal Parliament,Sir Ahmadu Bello,Sardauna of Sokoto and the leader of the NPC phoned Dr Azikiwe from Kaduna and informed him that he had with him Action Group emissaries who were asking to form a coalition government with the NPC.

Dr Azikiwe informed Sir Ahmadu that the Action Group were at Onitsha with us too.That was too much for the NCNC and NPC and it was decided that the coalition must be between the NPC and NCNC.The NPC/NCNC coalition government was accordingly formed.

The Action Group became the Opposition in the Federal Parliament and Chief Obafemi Awolowo became the leader of the Opposition in the House of Representatives.

Building a Nation by Dennis C.Osadebay

Page 79-80

That sounds flimsy as any dumb excuse laid. The NPC and NCNC called themselves to notify each other of a potential alliance formed with opposition groups. Who does that? Common sense is needed.

See Igbos already saying rubbish about the Yorubas. Thinking the AG members were trying to be threacious not knowing it was the Awolowo faction and Akintola faction that went to NPC and NCNC separately to form a coalition.

I'm shocked SE just found out about this today.

Natufe made a comment of regarding this particular history a while back ago. The only thing he didn't say it in details like osadebe.

You can't help but love the internet, all the lies is getting exposed one by one.

Why do you Flattheads like to pummel our yoruba muslim skulls.
Some one cannot lie in peace with out being busted.

The way u potopoto people bust our lagos ibadam expressway gutter media propaganda and lies..


We yoruba muslims need to go back and hit our head harder 5 more times so allah will make Igbos gullible like before the internet

Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe betray Chief Obafemi Awolowo, and what is the end of that coaliation government.

abimbolayekeen:
Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe betray Chief Obafemi Awolowo, and what is the end of that coaliation government.

When they messed up its politics, when they got served its betrayal, bunch of isi ewus.

This is Yoruba political treachery for you. Unfortunately, the Yoruba peeps were caught on the act.

jargo89:
That sounds flimsy as any dumb excuse laid. The NPC and NCNC called themselves to notify each other of a potential alliance formed with opposition groups. Who does that? Common sense is needed.

Because they came 1st and 2nd,and either party potentially could form a government.
Govt 101

nwabobo:
As I had forecast,the NPC won the majority of seats in the House of Representatives.The NCNC came next in the number of seats won and the Action Group came last.There followed political manoeuvres for the formation of a new federal government.

The Action Group sent emissaries to the NCNC and a four man team of the Action Group arrived at my home in Asaba at about 2 O'clock one morning, informing me that they had been sent by their party to meet Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe and the NCNC to discuss a coalition government between the NCNC and Action Group.

I was to lead them to Dr Azikiwe who was then at his home across the River Niger at Onitsha.I telephoned Dr Azikiwe and at about 6am ,the Action Group delegates and I crossed the Niger by ferry to Onitsha (the Niger Bridge had not yet been built).

After a short discussion with Zik in his home at Onitsha an NCNC Central Working Committee was summoned to meet at Onitsha.During the ensuing discussion on a possible coalition with the Action Group in the Federal Parliament,Sir Ahmadu Bello,Sardauna of Sokoto and the leader of the NPC phoned Dr Azikiwe from Kaduna and informed him that he had with him Action Group emissaries who were asking to form a coalition government with the NPC.

Dr Azikiwe informed Sir Ahmadu that the Action Group were at Onitsha with us too.That was too much for the NCNC and NPC and it was decided that the coalition must be between the NPC and NCNC.The NPC/NCNC coalition government was accordingly formed.

The Action Group became the Opposition in the Federal Parliament and Chief Obafemi Awolowo became the leader of the Opposition in the House of Representatives.

Building a Nation by Dennis C.Osadebay

Page 79-80

Reasons why the visit of a part of AG to the NPC leadership to broker a deal could not have been at Awolowo's instance:

1.The AG delegation that went up North to negotiate with NPC was at the instance of Akintola and led by him without Awolowo's approval. As at 1957 (two years before the 1959 elections) the about-to-depart colonial government had already set up a precursor independece government for which they made Balewa the pseudo Prime Minister with Akintola being offered a ministerial portfolio which he accepted. By that development it was clear that Akintola already had always been in engagement with Northerners against Awolowo's approval even before independece. So obviously Akintola and his minority supporters within the AG had already had a taste of the filthy lucre of power positions sharing with the North and therefore could not afford to be out of power post independece, hence their preference for the apparently more promising dominant North which, knowing would not sit well with Awolowo, they had to seek without his approval.

2. Had Akintola told Ahmadu Bello that his visit had Awolowo's approval and backing, Ahmadu Bello, blunt and frank as he was, would have later mentioned it when Awolowo continued to reject all olive branches extended to him by the Balewa Government during the times of crisis which later came.

3. The fact that Akintola himself in all his later speeches laid on Awolowo all the blame of Yorubas' loss of portfolio opportunities in the Balewa administration to Igbos logically testifies to Awolowo's anti-North position. Had Awolowo approved of the visit of those AG members to Ahmadu Bello and it had failed all the same, then Akintola would not have later accused Awolowo of being responsible for Yorubas' loss to Igbos.

4. Given his consuming quest to drive home his anti-Awolowo propaganda through any available means, Akintola could not have missed the opportunity of telling the whole world that Awolowo was a hypocrite for feigning anti-North overtly after covertly delegating him to broker a deal with the same North.

5. Zik was not only a professing Christian but also read Comparative Religious Studies together with Anthropology in the University. Therein he learned of fair hearing as exemplified by God who, even though actually saw Adam eat the fruit courtesy of His omnipresence and omniscience, did not pass judgement until He had asked Adam whether he had eaten from it. What just stopped Zik therefore from just putting a phone call to Awolowo to confirm his knowledge and approval of Akintola's visit before believing Ahmadu Bello?

6. It usually reported by the pro-Zik elements that on being told on phone by Ahmadu Bello that some AG delegates were with him in Kaduna to ask for an AG-NPC alliance, Zik started moving downstairs and while in transit he said to himself, "So this snake we are trying to kill even has two heads?" This means that even before the issue post 1959 election alliances ever came up, Zik and his followers had been trying to kill Awolowo politically only that they just discovered at the point of alliance that he was more "dangerous" than the reason why they ever had to kill him in the first instance. That meant they were already prejudiced against him and had already closed their minds to any objective assessment of any accusation that that would later be leveled against him from any quarters. Is it not now clear why they, without any leading, chose to see Awolowo's hand in Akintola's visit to Ahmadu Bello even though Ahmadu Bello did not explicitly or implicitly say that Akintola confirmed Awolowo's knowledge and approval of it? It was simply a case of giving a dog a bad name in order to kill it.

7. The fact that 4 years later, the same Zik later sent Okpara to visit Awolowo's wife with the task of mending fences with incarcerated Awolowo through his wife towards forging the AG-NCNC alliance which he (Zik) had rejected 4 years earlier was a development that made nonsense of the claim that Awolowo' played double game to inspire Zik's preference for the North earlier on. It would be recalled that while Zik was proposing the UPGA (AG-NCNC) alliance to Awolowo through Okpara's visit to his wife, Tafawa Balewa was simultaneously proposing to release Awolowo from prison on the single condition that he rejected Zik's UPGA and accept for once a merger of AG and NPC towards the 1965 Federal Elections which Awolowo turned down again and preferred to remain in prison rather turn Zik down. If Awo were double dealing as Zik's appologists would have us believe, he would have at least accepted Balewa's terms of release but joined UPGA on regaining freedom or better still accepted Balewa's release and really joined NPC to pay Zik back in his own coin especially given the fact that Zik had become politically destitute, used, disgraced and dumped by the North so much that he and Balewa were no longer in talking terms at that moment.
If Zik was truly convinced that Awolowo played double game in 1959 alliance proposals, then why did he turn round just after 4 years to even make conscious efforts in search of alliance with the same man at a time when the same Northerners were courting him with release from jail. Was it not a repeat of the same scenario as that of 1959 that was playing out again? Why did Zik not suspect this time that he, being a snake according to them, could play double game again?


8. The Five Majors, four of whom were Igbos, were averse to the Northern Oligarchy and their Southern Collaborators, and that was their main source of impulse for the coup. As young army officers who keenly followed the events from the swearing in of the NCNC-NPC Government, they knew quite well that Awolowo was wholeheartedly anti-North hence he was not in their hit list unlike Zik, Okpara, Osadebe and Akintola whom they penned down for liquidation for being Southern Collaborators to the Northern Hegemony.

Interesting
Now we know who are the real saboteurs

MayorofLagos:
Thats how politics is played all around the world. This took Dennis Osadebay by surprise because his total political history and perspective is narrowed to the NCNC.

Who were the NCNC Central Working Committee they got into the meeting that fast? They must be located in Eastern region, and of Ibo stock.

A party formed in Lagos by Yorubas accepted Ibos to build a national coalition but Ibos usurped it and hijacked it to East but were perturbed in the event of a Yoruba man trying to hijack government.

Ibos u see ya life!

Oga stop all these lies. It was the cross carpeting of Yorubas in the Western House of assembly that affectively gifted NCNC to the igbos. No igbo man Hijacked the party. TOS Benson, Okotie Eboh and Adeniran Ogunsanya were all top men in NCNC and apart from Okotie-Eboh the others were Yorubas so please easy with the lies abeg.

Nigeria unity has never existed, Southern unity has never existed... The only close thing to unity was between the SE and SS and that wasnt absolute