Independence & Nationalism in Nigeria
The nationalist movements, leaders, constitutional changes, and events leading to Nigeria’s independence in 1960.
How Garvey’s Ideas and Regional Parties Shaped Nigeria Before 1960
Long before Nigeria became independent on 1 October 1960, Nigerians were already debating power, rights, and representation in print. In the colonial era, newspapers...
Amalgamation and the Road to Regional Crisis in Nigeria, 1914 to 1967
On 1 January 1914, the British government amalgamated the Protectorate of Northern Nigeria and the Protectorate of Southern Nigeria, creating the Colony and Protectorate...
Nigeria as a Political Unit
Nigeria’s emergence as a single political entity is rooted in colonial consolidation, shaped by earlier regional interactions, and sustained through constitutional evolution and institutional...
Nigerian Independence and the Constitutional Foundations of the Federal State
Nigeria’s independence on 1 October 1960 was the result of deliberate constitutional development rather than a sudden colonial withdrawal. Between 1946 and 1954, Britain...
The Making of Nigeria Under British Rule
Nigeria’s emergence as a single political entity was a long historical process shaped by commerce, diplomacy, rivalry, and military expansion. Long before Britain ruled...
June 12, 1993, The Election That Was Cancelled and the Road to Abacha
On June 12, 1993, Nigerians went to the polls to elect a civilian president after years of military rule under General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida....
Kenneth Onwuka Dike and the Rewriting of Nigeria’s Past
In the twentieth century, when Africa’s past was largely interpreted through colonial archives and European assumptions, one Nigerian scholar insisted that Africans must write...
1944, The Year Nigeria’s Nationalist Politics Organised and Abeokuta’s Women Forced a Reckoning
Nigeria’s independence movement gathered strength in the 1940s through organised constitutional agitation and mass based protest. Political leaders in Lagos built national platforms to...
The Richards Constitution and the Regional Reordering of Colonial Nigeria
In 1946, the British colonial administration introduced a new constitutional framework for Nigeria under Governor Sir Arthur Richards, later Lord Milverton. Known as the...
The £865,000 Transfer That Ended Corporate Rule in the Niger Territories
At the close of the nineteenth century, control of vast stretches of the Niger basin shifted from a private company to the British Crown....