During the 1950s, the Action Group emerged as the dominant political party in Western Nigeria. Founded in 1951, the party quickly built a strong organisational structure and became the principal vehicle of political mobilisation in the region. Chief Obafemi Awolowo served as the party’s leading figure and the region’s premier, while Chief Samuel Ladoke Akintola rose within the party hierarchy as a trusted lieutenant and influential political voice.
Their collaboration helped shape the Western Region’s political direction during the late colonial period. The Action Group established a reputation for disciplined party organisation and ambitious regional programmes, including policies that emphasised education and economic development.
However, as Nigeria approached independence, the party’s internal balance of power began to change. Following the political realignments that accompanied the 1959 federal elections, Awolowo moved into national politics as leader of the opposition in the federal parliament. Akintola assumed the premiership of the Western Region during this period, creating a new arrangement in which the party leader operated at the federal level while the regional government was controlled from Ibadan.
This separation of authority soon produced tension within the party.
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Disagreements that split the Action Group
The conflict between Awolowo and Akintola gradually expanded beyond personal rivalry into a broader struggle over the direction and control of the Action Group.
One issue concerned the internal authority of the party. The Action Group had been built around a highly structured leadership system, and disagreements emerged over how much independence the regional premier should exercise from the party leadership.
Another major point of dispute involved relations with the federal government. Nigeria’s central government at the time was dominated by the Northern People’s Congress under Prime Minister Abubakar Tafawa Balewa. Within the Action Group, differing views emerged on whether cooperation with the federal administration could strengthen the Western Region’s position or weaken the party’s identity as the leading opposition force in Nigeria.
These disagreements intensified factional divisions inside the party. By 1962, competing groups within the Action Group were openly challenging each other’s authority and seeking control of the regional government.
Crisis in the Western House of Assembly
The political conflict reached its most dramatic stage in 1962 when the struggle for control of the Western Region government moved into the House of Assembly in Ibadan.
Attempts to remove Akintola from the premiership produced intense confrontation inside the legislature. The Assembly chamber became the centre of the political crisis as rival factions attempted to demonstrate majority support. The proceedings descended into disorder, and the breakdown of parliamentary procedure created uncertainty about which group legitimately controlled the government.
The crisis in the legislature reflected a deeper collapse of political consensus. Instead of resolving disputes through established parliamentary procedures, the contest over authority became increasingly confrontational, undermining confidence in the region’s ability to maintain stable governance.
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The federal state of emergency in 1962
With the political situation in the Western Region deteriorating, the federal government intervened. On 29 May 1962, Prime Minister Tafawa Balewa secured the approval of the federal parliament to declare a state of emergency in the Western Region.
The emergency placed the region under federal administration and suspended the normal operation of regional government institutions. Dr Moses Adekoyejo Majekodunmi was appointed administrator to oversee the region during this period and restore political order.
The declaration of emergency transformed the Western Region crisis into a national issue. What had begun as a conflict within a regional political party now required direct federal involvement to stabilise governance.
Constitutional battle in the courts
Even after emergency administration was introduced, the political dispute over leadership in the Western Region did not disappear. The crisis moved into the judicial arena and became the subject of constitutional litigation.
The most significant legal contest arising from the crisis was the case Adegbenro v Akintola, decided by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in London in 1963. At the time, the Privy Council served as the highest appellate court for Nigeria.
The case addressed the constitutional question of how it could be determined whether a premier continued to command the support of a legislative majority. The decision became a landmark in Nigerian constitutional law because it clarified the powers of a governor and the conditions under which a premier might be removed from office.
Political realignment in the Western Region
When emergency rule ended, political divisions within the Action Group had become permanent. The party that once dominated Western Nigeria now existed as rival factions with competing alliances and strategies.
Akintola’s supporters eventually organised their political base under a separate party platform that adopted the name Nigerian National Democratic Party, often abbreviated as NNDP. The name had originally been used by Herbert Macaulay’s political organisation founded in Lagos in 1923. During the First Republic period, the historic name was revived for the Western Region political movement associated with Akintola and his allies.
The emergence of this new alignment reshaped political competition in the Western Region and intensified rivalry between different political coalitions in Nigeria.
Awolowo’s imprisonment and the weakening of opposition
While political realignments were taking place in the Western Region, Awolowo faced a major legal challenge at the federal level. In 1963 he was convicted of treasonable felony and sentenced to ten years imprisonment following a high-profile trial.
The imprisonment of Awolowo removed one of the most prominent opposition leaders from Nigeria’s political landscape. His absence significantly altered the balance of political power during the early 1960s and contributed to an increasingly tense national political atmosphere.
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A crisis that reshaped Nigeria’s First Republic
The Western Region crisis left a lasting mark on Nigeria’s political history. What began as a dispute within a single political party developed into a constitutional confrontation involving the legislature, the federal government, and the courts.
The emergency declaration, the legal battles over constitutional authority, and the realignment of political forces in the Western Region all reflected the growing strain on Nigeria’s parliamentary system during the early years of independence.
By the end of 1963, the conflict between Akintola and Awolowo had reshaped the political landscape of the Western Region and contributed to the broader instability that characterised the final years of the First Republic.
Author’s Note
The struggle between Chief Samuel Ladoke Akintola and Chief Obafemi Awolowo began as an internal dispute within the Action Group but quickly expanded into a major constitutional and political crisis. Disorder in the Western House of Assembly, the federal state of emergency declared on 29 May 1962, the appointment of Dr M. A. Majekodunmi as administrator, and the Privy Council decision in Adegbenro v Akintola all became defining moments of the conflict. The split permanently altered political alignments in the Western Region and weakened the balance of power that had sustained Nigeria’s First Republic during its earliest years.
References
Richard L. Sklar, Nigerian Political Parties: Power in an Emergent African Nation
James S. Coleman, Nigeria: Background to Nationalism
JSTOR, Adegbenro v Akintola (Privy Council, 1963)
JSTOR studies on emergency powers and the Western Region crisis
TIME Magazine Archive, Nigeria: Verdict in Lagos (1963)
