In the first half of the twentieth century, Nigerian students who travelled to Britain, the United States, and other parts of the world did far more than obtain professional qualifications. They encountered new political ideas, organised themselves into student unions, and built international networks that helped transform anti-colonial thought into organised campaigns for self-government. Their experiences abroad, in classrooms, hostels, and political meetings, became the foundation for newspapers, political parties, and constitutional negotiations that shaped Nigeria’s journey to independence.
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Mission Schools, Early Travellers, and Intellectual Formation
By the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, mission and government schools in southern Nigeria had produced a small Western-educated elite. Among the earliest of these was Herbert Macaulay, grandson of Bishop Samuel Ajayi Crowther. Sponsored by the colonial government, Macaulay travelled to England in 1890 to study civil engineering and surveying at Plymouth. Although his training was technical rather than academic, his time in Britain exposed him to ideas about self-determination and civic rights that later informed his opposition to colonial rule in Lagos. Upon his return, he became one of the first voices to articulate urban political grievances through the Lagos Daily News (1925) and the Nigerian National Democratic Party (NNDP), founded in 1923.
As more Nigerians travelled for higher education in the 1920s and 1930s, they entered new worlds of intellectual exchange and racial consciousness. In British and American universities, they faced discrimination, but those same experiences deepened their political convictions. Exposure to Pan-Africanist and Black nationalist thought, notably the writings of W. E. B. Du Bois and Marcus Garvey, helped them frame Nigeria’s colonial condition as part of a broader African and global struggle for freedom.
WASU and the Politics of Student Organisation
A major turning point in this intellectual awakening was the founding of the West African Students’ Union (WASU) in London on 7 August 1925. The organisation was spearheaded by Ladipo Solanke, a Nigerian law student, and Herbert Bankole-Bright from Sierra Leone. Initially created to improve the welfare of West African students in Britain, WASU soon evolved into a platform for anti-colonial activism.
The Union established Africa House in Camden Town in 1933, a hostel that provided accommodation and cultural space for African students facing racial barriers in London. It also published the WASU Journal, which criticised British colonial policy and celebrated African history and identity. WASU campaigned vigorously against the colour bar, the system of racial discrimination that limited employment, housing, and social access for Africans in Britain.
Through public lectures, petitions to the Colonial Office, and correspondence with sympathetic British politicians, WASU created a new political language that blended welfare concerns with anti-imperial critique. Many of its members later became leaders of nationalist movements and governments across West Africa. The Union’s unique ability to combine student welfare, cultural solidarity, and political vision made it one of the most influential African organisations in the interwar years.
Pan-Africanism, Wartime Politics, and the 1945 Moment
The global crises of the 1930s and 1940s, from the Great Depression to Italy’s invasion of Ethiopia (1935) and World War II (1939–1945), sharpened the political awareness of African students abroad. Britain’s wartime rhetoric about “freedom” and “democracy” contrasted sharply with its continued colonial rule, inspiring widespread scepticism among colonial subjects.
The defining moment of this transnational awakening came with the Fifth Pan-African Congress, held in Manchester, England, in October 1945. The congress brought together figures such as Kwame Nkrumah, Jomo Kenyatta, W. E. B. Du Bois, and Amy Ashwood Garvey, along with delegates from the Caribbean and African diaspora. The participants demanded immediate self-government for all African colonies and an end to racial discrimination worldwide.
While direct Nigerian participation at Manchester was limited, the event deeply influenced Nigerian students and activists who had passed through WASU and other Pan-African networks. Figures such as H. O. Davies, who had already been active in London student circles, carried its message home. The congress became a rallying point linking West African student activism in Britain to the emerging independence movements on the continent.
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Returnees: Newspapers, Parties, and Constitutional Bargaining
When these students and professionals returned home, they channelled their overseas experiences into political organisation and public advocacy.
Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, educated in the United States at Lincoln University, Howard, and Columbia, returned to Nigeria in the 1930s determined to use the press as a tool of political mobilisation. In 1937, he founded the West African Pilot, which soon became the most influential nationalist newspaper in colonial Nigeria, promoting the slogan “Show the light and the people will find the way.”
Chief Obafemi Awolowo, who studied law at the University of London and was called to the Bar at the Inner Temple in 1946, returned to found the Action Group (1951) and the Nigerian Tribune newspaper. His advocacy for federalism and economic self-reliance reflected lessons learned from his encounters with British legal and political systems.
- O. (Hezekiah Oladipo) Davies, another London-trained lawyer and early WASU member, became a central figure in labour activism and constitutional reform. His experiences abroad made him an effective intermediary between nationalist aspirations and colonial administrators.
Together, these men and their contemporaries transformed international exposure into local activism. They built the infrastructure, newspapers, political parties, and professional associations, that mobilised Nigerians for self-rule. Their familiarity with British institutions and constitutional procedures gave them leverage in negotiations, enabling them to use the tools of empire to dismantle imperial control.
Tensions: Elite Formation, Regionalism, and Popular Politics
Despite these successes, the Western-educated elite faced deep contradictions. Their education and social position often distanced them from the rural and working-class populations whose lives they claimed to represent. While they favoured negotiation, constitutional reform, and parliamentary politics, other Nigerians, especially trade unionists, youth movements, and radical activists, demanded more confrontational approaches.
Back home, they also encountered the regional and ethnic divisions that were less visible in the cosmopolitan spaces of London or America. The rise of regionally based parties, the NCNC in the east, Action Group in the west, and Northern People’s Congress (NPC) in the north, reflected how local political dynamics reasserted themselves, sometimes undermining the unity forged abroad. These divisions would later shape post-independence politics and governance, revealing the limits of elite consensus.
Legacy and Contemporary Relevance
The story of Nigerian students abroad during the independence era highlights the transformative power of education, exposure, and transnational collaboration. Their international experiences provided the ideas, networks, and organisational skills that sustained the nationalist movement.
At the same time, their history reminds us that education alone does not guarantee liberation. The challenge, then and now, lies in translating global knowledge into inclusive, people-centred political action. In an age when thousands of Nigerian students once again study overseas, their story remains a powerful lesson in how intellectual migration can inspire national renewal, but only when it remains connected to the aspirations of the wider society.
Author’s Note
Nigerian students abroad were not mere recipients of Western education; they were catalysts of political transformation. From WASU’s Africa House in London to the constitutional conferences of the 1950s, their journey bridged continents and ideologies. They helped forge a generation that turned learning into liberation. Their legacy endures as proof that intellectual vision, when anchored in national purpose, can change the destiny of nations.
References:
West African Students’ Union (WASU) — The National Archives / Black Plaque Project
The Fifth Pan-African Congress (Manchester, 1945) — Pan-African Congress Project, University of Manchester
Biographical entries: Nnamdi Azikiwe (Lincoln University; West African Pilot, 1937); Obafemi Awolowo (Inner Temple, 1946; Nigerian Tribune); H. O. Davies (lawyer, journalist, political organiser); Herbert Macaulay (civil engineer and nationalist leader).
James S. Coleman, Nigeria: Background to Nationalism (1958)
Toyin Falola, Nationalism and African Intellectuals (2001)
Ayandele, The Educated Elite in the Nigerian Society (1974)
