Rhodesia/Zimbabwe Independence Movements

Zimbabwe, or Rhodesia, as it was known until 1980, is a landlocked nation of 13 million people occupying the plateau between the Limpopo and Zambezi Rivers, bordered by Zambia to the north, Botswana to the west, Mozambique to the east, and South Africa to the south.

While the rest of Britain’s African colonies, including two of Rhodesia’s neighbors—Northern Rhodesia (Zambia) and Nyasaland (Malawi)—gained independence as part of a wave of decolonization, Rhodesia remained a bastion of minority white rule because of its influential European population. Even after the country gained majority rule in 1980, white control of land continued to be a crucial issue in Zimbabwe.

At midcentury, mostly because of the country’s substantial mineral wealth and fertile soil for tobacco cultivation, Rhodesia’s white population enjoyed one of the highest standards of living in the world.


The country’s black residents, however, who made up over 95 percent of the population, possessed little political power and received just 5 percent of the nation’s income. Having gained control by force roughly a half-century earlier, whites made up one-twentieth of the population but held one-third of the land.

At the end of World War II the political winds began to change. Britain moved to grant independence to many of its colonies in Asia and Africa. Rhodesia, which had been a British-chartered corporate colony at the turn of the century and a self-governing British colony since 1923, took on a new political form in 1953 with the establishment of the Central African Federation. Southern Rhodesia dominated this confederation; it exploited the copper of Northern Rhodesia and the labor of Nyasaland.

The arrival of independent rule in Northern Rhodesia (Zambia) and Nyasaland (Malawi) in 1964 brought considerable anxiety to the white population of Southern Rhodesia, who believed that Britain favored majority rule.

In response, in November of 1965, Ian Douglas Smith, an unabashed champion of white rule, announced the Unilateral Declaration of Independence, which cut the country’s ties with Britain and established the independent nation of Rhodesia. In a referendum, overwhelming numbers of the white population supported Smith. Britain responded by imposing diplomatic and economic sanctions.

The cold war struggle between the United States and the Soviet Union for influence around the world, including in the nations of Africa, complicated these developments. U.S. relations with Ian Smith’s white-ruled Rhodesia at the time shows the ambivalent position of the United States.

On the one hand the United States valued the support of Rhodesia, which contained vast reserves of strategic minerals, especially chromium, and adopted a strongly anticommunist stance. Yet, at the same time, the United States worried that support for Smith’s white supremacist government would cost it needed friends in rapidly decolonizing Africa.

In 1965 U.S. president Lyndon B. Johnson condemned Smith’s unilateral declaration of independence and, following Britain’s lead, imposed economic sanctions. Although these sanctions could have been even stronger, U.S. trade there declined from $29 million in 1965 to $3.7 million in 1968, a real blow to the Rhodesian economy. At the same time, though, Rhodesia received substantial support from some within the United States.

The Byrd Amendment of 1971, which was enacted with the support of the Richard Nixon administration, punched a significant hole in the sanctions against Rhodesia. According to this law, the United States could not ban the importation from a non-communist nation any material needed for national defense if that same material would otherwise be purchased from a communist nation.

Since chromium, a key resource for many modern weapon systems, was also imported from the Soviet Union, the United States was forced to allow trade with Rhodesia. Imports of chromium grew from $500,000 in 1965, to $13 million in 1972, to $45 million in 1975.

Organized black resistance to white rule in Rhodesia took shape in the late 1950s, and the two main oppositional parties, parties that would dominate Zimbabwean politics well beyond independence, were established in the early 1960s.

In 1957 the African National Congress, based in Bulawayo, and the African National Youth League, based in Salisbury (present-day Harare), combined to form the Southern Rhodesian African National Congress under Joshua Nkomo. Banned in 1959, this group was succeeded by the National Democratic Party, which was itself banned in December 1961.

Shortly thereafter, the Zimbabwe African People’s Union (ZAPU) was established. A major split occurred in 1963, resulting in the formation of the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU). ZAPU was mostly Ndebele and Chinese-leaning; ZANU was mostly Shona and Soviet-leaning.

ZAPU and ZANU adopted different strategies at different times. During the 1960s, as white Rhodesians like Ian Smith grew more extreme, African nationalist methods became more militant and confrontational.

Both ZANU and ZAPU began attacking white farms in 1964, but they quickly realized they were outmatched by the Rhodesian military. A more moderate group, the African National Council—organized by Bishop Abel Muzorewa—sprang up during the early 1970s. None of these groups had much success.

The situation began to shift during the late 1970s. In 1975, after long wars, two Portuguese colonies in southern Africa, Mozambique and Angola, gained their independence. Black-ruled Mozambique became a safe haven for many of the guerrilla groups opposing the white regime in Rhodesia. In 1975 the two most important of these groups—ZANU, under Robert Mugabe, and ZAPU, under Joshua Nkomo—joined forces to become the Patriotic Front.

Jimmy Carter’s victory in the U.S. presidential election of 1976 also played a role in shifting the context of Rhodesian politics. Concerned about the U.S. reputation in other parts of black Africa, the Carter administration began to push for a settlement to the conflict. In general, the United States supported majority rule with protection of white interests.

The British called the Lancaster House Conference in an attempt to broker a lasting solution. The resulting settlement guaranteed majority rule for Zimbabwe, a transitional period for whites, and a multiparty system.

At the center of the settlement was a new constitution, which gave the vote to all Africans 18 years and older, reserved 28 seats in the parliament for whites for 10 years, and guaranteed private property rights. In the election of February 1980, voting mostly followed ethnic lines. ZANU–Popular Front won a clear majority, making its leader, Robert Mugabe, the prime minister.

ZAPU–Popular Front, which had recently split from ZANU-PF, joined the white members of parliament in opposition. Taking its name from the 14th- and 15th-century stone city of Great Zimbabwe, Rhodesia became Zimbabwe on April 18, 1980. The war for majority rule, which had cost over 25,000 lives, most of them black, was over.

Under Robert Mugabe’s rule, Zimbabwe in the 1980s pursued socialist-leaning policies not unlike those of many other countries in Africa. It expanded social programs that had been denied under white rule. And, although it claimed to want to redistribute land, in reality it moved slowly to break up successful white farms.

This cost the regime politically but it enabled Zimbabwe to continue to feed itself. Overall, during the early 1980s many Zimbabweans saw real improvements in the quality of their lives.

As the 1980s unfolded, Mugabe began to show authoritarian tendencies. Even early on he rounded up opponents, censored the press, and gave broad authority to security forces. At first he was able to get away with this because of his wide support, especially in rural areas.

Mugabe won the March 1996 election with 92.7 percent of the vote, but only a very small number of Zimbabweans bothered to vote. The decrease in voter participation revealed the growing discontent of Zimbabweans with Mugabe. On top of this, in the early 1980s a civil war that would last until 1987 broke out in Matabeleland, a stronghold of the ZAPU-PF.

In the late 1990s Mugabe initiated two very controversial programs. In 1997, he began seizing white-owned land without compensation and quietly encouraging landless blacks to move onto white farms. These farms had previously fed the nation and provided work for large numbers of people, mostly black.

In 2002 Mugabe appropriated the remaining white land and ordered white farmers to offer payments to former workers. Because many of the blacks who moved onto the white land had few farming skills, the nation soon faced a food crisis.

Critics, moreover, claimed that Mugabe handed out the best land to his family, friends, and close supporters. In another controversial move, in 1998 Mugabe deployed the military in the Democratic Republic of the Congo to help its government fend off an armed rebellion.

The situation in Zimbabwe seems precarious. During the 2002 elections Mugabe rigged the voting and jailed opponents, especially the supporters of the Movement for Democratic Change, led by Morgan Tsvangirai. Neighboring nations supported Mugabe but other African nations, such as Kenya and Ghana, condemned his move.

Famine conditions persist in Zimbabwe, and the people struggle with skyrocketing prices and extremely high unemployment. That no system is in place to determine a successor to the aging Mugabe portends a divisive struggle to come.

Mobutu Sese Seko

Mobutu Sese Seko

Mobutu Sese Seko, a member of the Ngbandi ethnic group, was born in Lisala, Belgian Congo, in 1930. After receiving a Catholic education from white missionaries, he began his public life by serving in the Belgian Colonial Army. He was a colonel by 1960 and appointed chief of staff of the Congolese Army by newly independent Congolese prime minister Patrice Lumumba.

The struggle for Congolese independence left behind ethnic fighting and soon civil war. By September 1961 fighting erupted between Congolese troops and the United Nations (UN) forces sent to quiet the growing civil discontent.

Sensing growing political disarray in the Congo, Mobutu seized power on November 24, 1965, in a successful coup over President Kasavubu following a power struggle between Kasavubu and his prime minister, Möise Tshombe. Mobutu declared himself president for a five-year term, placed Möise Tshombe on trial for treason, and condemned him to death.


Mobutu took full executive powers into his own hands. The coup marked the beginning of the Second Congolese Republic and the reestablishment of minimal law and order. Mobutu appointed Colonel Leonard Mulamba as his prime minister and inaugurated a campaign of national reconstruction.

This was highlighted by the 1966 establishment of the Movement de la Revolution (MPR), with himself as president. Mobutu went on to eliminate all opposition to his control while centralizing all decision making into his own presidency.

Mobutu’s rule was not made official until 1967 when he instituted a new constitution. However, the years between 1967 and 1970 saw substantial clashes with students who had become disillusioned with Mobutu and his authoritarian rule. Nevertheless he was reelected president in 1970.

Like many African leaders who would follow, Mobutu embarked on a campaign of pro-African cultural awareness, renaming the country the Republic of Zaïre in October 1971. He ordered all Africans to drop their Christian names, and priests were warned that they would face five years’ imprisonment if they were caught baptizing a Zaïrois child with a Christian name.

The Shaba Wars of 1977 and 1978 threatened Mobutu’s constitutionally entrenched presidency. Several thousand soldiers of ex–prime minister Tshombe’s former Katanga army exiled in Angola had become suspicious of Mobutu’s offers of amnesty. In 1977 these same soldiers crossed the border into Shaba province.

The continuing economic slump, combined with the attack by the Katanga troops, forced Mobutu to solicit foreign aid to restabilize the country. France, motivated by the opportunity to defeat Communist-backed troops in Africa, airlifted 1,500 elite Moroccan paratroopers into the Shaba region.

The rebel army retreated but advanced again a year later in greater numbers. Mobutu persisted in his requests for international assistance and this time received helped from Belgium and France, with logistical support from the United States.

The rebels were defeated again. In return for their assistance, France and Morocco urged Mobutu to democratize his increasingly hostile regime. Mobutu responded with pseudo-elections with a secret ballot that allowed 2,000 candidates to contest 270 seats in the legislative council and another 167 candidates to contest 18 elective seats in the political bureau. Mobutu was reelected.

The remainder of Mobutu’s presidency would focus on high-profile foreign relations efforts meant to polish the tarnished image of his nation. He restored relations with Israel in 1982 and sent troops into Chad as part of a peacekeeping mission in 1983. Mobutu went on to suspend Zaïre’s membership in the Organization of African Unity in 1984 in support of Morocco’s walkout over the Western Sahara question.

Recognizing the failing economic situation in Zaïre, in 1990 Mobutu called for a dialogue between the state and the people of Zaïre. The resulting dialogue saw 100 demonstrating students massacred by troops at Lubambashi in May of that year.

Mobutu announced his resignation as chair of the MPR in an attempt to rise above the problems within the party. He went on to establish a special commission to draft a new constitution by April 1991 that finally allowed free operation of political parties.

In January 1993 the High Council of the Republic declared Mobutu guilty of treason and threatened impeachment unless he recognized the legitimacy of the transitional parliament set up by the new constitution of 1991. Strikes and disorder followed while Mobutu attempted to reassert his authority.

He reconvened the dormant national assembly as a rival to the High Council of the Republic and created a conclave that appointed Faustin Birindwa as prime minister. He announced the dissolution of the High Council and the dismissal of the Birindwa government in January 1994.

Mobutu was overthrown in the First Congo War by Laurent-Désiré Kabila. When Mobutu’s government issued an order in November 1996 forcing Tutsis to leave Zaïre on penalty of death, they erupted in rebellion. From eastern Zaïre, with the support of presidents Paul Kagame of Rwanda and Yoweri Meseveni of Uganda, they launched an offensive to overthrow Mobutu.

Ailing with prostate cancer, Mobutu was unable to coordinate the resistance. On May 16, 1997, following failed peace talks, Mobutu went into temporary exile in Togo, but lived mostly in Morocco. Mobutu died on September 7, 1997, in exile in Rabat, Morocco.

Morocco

Map of Morocco

Following the establishment of the French protectorate over Morocco in 1912, numerous nationalist movements emerged; after World War II these parties, especially the Istiqlal (Independence) led by Allal al-Yusuf, mobilized opposition to the French regime. There was also a small urban-based Communist Party led Mehdi Ben Barka.

The Sultan Muhammad Ben Yusuf, the king of the old Alaouite dynasty, supported the nationalist demands. In 1947 he gave a rousing speech in the international city of Tangier in which he pointedly did not declare his loyalty to the French. This was seen as support for the nationalist cause and was a turning point in the struggle.

After riots broke out in the major port city of Casablanca, the French promptly appointed a hard-line military man to restore order. As discontent continued to escalate, the sultan demanded the establishment of his own government. In 1953 the French sent Muhammad into exile, but he did not abdicate.


The French attempted to install the highly unpopular Muhammad Ben Arafa, a prince of the Glawi house, as their puppet ruler, but he barely escaped an assassination attempt by Moroccan nationalists. Violence increased, and Arafa fled. Faced with mounting violence and an ongoing war in Algeria, the French granted Morocco independence in 1956. Muhammad returned to become King Muhammad V in 1957.

Morocco gradually reasserted its authority over Spanish-held territory in the north but the Spanish retained control over a small enclave and several offshore islands that they hold until the present day. In 1959 Tangier lost its special status and was integrated into Morocco as a free port.

Although the Istiqlal remained a key force in the Cabinet, Muhammad V had widespread governmental authority and enjoyed popular support as well as religious respect based on baraka, or good fortune. After his death in 1962, his son succeeded as King Hassan II.

Hassan instituted a new constitution in 1962 but continued to exercise wide executive powers. The Istiqlal split in 1959, and a new group, the Union Nationale des Forces Populaire (UNFP), supported by Ben Barka, emerged. Following increased political opposition, Hassan proclaimed a state of emergency with full legislative and executive powers in 1965.

Ben Barka went into exile in France, where he was kidnapped and presumably killed with the complicity of the Moroccan government in 1965. Political demonstrations against the regime continued in major cities throughout Morocco in the late 1960s, but Hassan remained in power owing to a combination of loyal courtiers, army officers, and security police.

In 1971 armed cadets stormed the royal palace during Hassan’s birthday party, but when they failed to kill the king the attempted coup collapsed. In 1972 Hassan survived an airplane attack orchestrated by the formerly loyal general Mohammad Oufkir. The coup plotters, including Oufkir, were killed or imprisoned. In spite of ongoing charges of corruption and nepotism, Hassan remained in power.

Economically, Morocco was predominately an agricultural country but phosphates were its primary export and source of hard currency. Tourism was another major source of income. With a growing young population, Morocco, like many poor countries in the global south, found it increasingly difficult to provide adequate education or jobs for its youth.

Many attempted to flee the poverty of the countryside by moving to the cities, where they joined the ranks of the unemployed, or by traveling to Europe as migrant workers. In the 1990s and afterward, these disaffected youth often sympathized with or joined Islamist movements.

In 1975 Hassan claimed the territory of the Western Sahara, formerly held by Spain, as part of Morocco and launched the so-called “Green March” of hundreds of thousands of Moroccans to take the territory. An ongoing war ensued; although the United Nations demanded a referendum to settle the issue, Morocco has consistently delayed the election and the matter remains unresolved until the present day.

Although Morocco has had some success in furthering education and welfare projects and modernizing its economy, wide disparities between urban and rural areas and differing population and tribal groups remain. Following Hassan’s death in 1999, his oldest son succeeded as King Mohammed VI.

Well educated, Mohammed VI was keen to modernize the country; he also liberalized the political system, releasing many political prisoners from his father’s regime. In 2004 he also instituted a new family code to grant women more power.

Islamists, many of whom opposed Morocco’s close ties with the West and the modernizing programs, remained the major opponents to King Muhammad VI’s regime.

Robert Mugabe - Zimbabwean President

Robert Mugabe - Zimbabwean President

Robert Mugabe was educated in mission schools and earned a degree in higher education from Fort Hare University in South Africa. As a young man, he joined the Zimbabwe African People’s Union (ZAPU) with Joshua Nkomo, but split off to form the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU), which led a guerrilla warfare struggle against the white-dominated Ian Smith regime in Rhodesia.

After protracted negotiations with Great Britain, Zimbabwe finally attained full independence under a one-person, one-vote rubric in 1979. Mugabe initially led a coalition government with his rival Nkomo, but gradually evolved a one-party state under his sole rule.

In the 1980s Mugabe was hailed as an African statesman by Western governments. Zimbabwe had a biracial government and made economic progress; Mugabe’s regime also was successful in raising educational levels for boys and girls, with one of the highest literacy rates in Africa.


In the 1990s Mugabe became increasingly dictatorial and refused to cede power even in face of the 2000 elections, when the opposition electoral vote was clearly the majority. Amid widespread charges of corruption and vote rigging, Mugabe’s ZANU party declared victory in the spring 2005 elections.

Mugabe also retained the right personally to select two dozen members of parliament. He also ordered the confiscation of white-owned land that was then distributed to his supporters. On the pretext of urban renewal, he also tore down urban shanty towns that were centers of political opposition to his regime.

The resultant political crisis contributed to economic chaos and declining productivity as well as wide-spread condemnation from European nations, but, in spite of his advanced age, Mugabe announced his determination to remain in power, despite on apparent victory by the opposition in the national March 29, 2008, elections.

Namibia

Namibia Flag

Namibia spent much of the 20th century under colonial rule. As South West Africa, it was a possession of Germany. From 1904 to 1906 the Namibians rose against their German rulers. The rebellion was crushed, and most of the indigenous people were stripped of their land.

On July 19, 1915, the last German troops surrendered to the South African expeditionary corps at Khorab, and the South African military occupation of Namibia began. Namibia was seen as a valuable asset to whoever controlled it because of its mineral wealth and agricultural potential.

On December 17, 1920, South Africa received official approval from the League of Nations to rule Namibia under a “C” mandate. This type of mandate was designated for former German territories that were not considered to be likely to pass into independence in the foreseeable future. It led to decades of tension.

Although the South Africans publicly claimed that the mandate should be viewed as a position of great trust and honor, in practice it offered profits and advantages to South African nationals. For all essential purposes, Namibia had been annexed to South Africa, with the interests of Namibians subordinate to those of whites.


The South-West Africa People’s Organization (SWAPO), a Marxist guerrilla group founded in 1960, began fighting for Namibia’s independence in 1966. In 1966 the United Nations (UN) passed Resolution 2145, which revoked South Africa’s mandate and changed the country’s name to Namibia.

The UN brokered a peace agreement in 1977 in which South Africa accepted UN control over Namibia. Only in 1988, however, did South Africa agree to withdraw from Namibia. The new government held UN-supervised elections in 1989, which SWAPO won decisively.

Sam Nujomo, one of the leaders of the independence movement, became Namibia’s first president. After independence, the government pursued a policy of compromise with opposition groups and worked to address racial inequalities.

Map of Namibia

There is an extreme disparity between the income levels of blacks and whites. However, the living standards of blacks have been steadily improving, and the major economic resources in the country are no longer controlled exclusively by whites.

The country’s modern market sector produces most of its wealth, while a traditional subsistence agricultural sector supports most of its labor force. The principal exports are diamonds, copper, uranium, gold, lead, cattle, and fish. Ranching is still controlled largely by white citizens and foreign interests.

In other industries—notably mining, fishing, and tourism—the participation of indigenous entrepreneurs has been increased to provide economic opportunities for blacks. The unemployment rate of nearly 40 percent in 2000 primarily affected the black majority.

Namibia struggled to bring equality to its indigenous population. Racially, in 2005, black Africans made up 87.5 percent of the population, with white Africans numbering 6 percent and people of mixed race making up 6.5 percent.

By law, all indigenous groups participate equally in decisions affecting their lands, cultures, traditions, and allocations of natural resources. However, Namibia’s indigenous citizens were unable to fully exercise these rights as a result of minimal access to education, limited economic opportunities under colonial rule, and their relative isolation.

Virtually all of the country’s minorities are represented in Parliament, in senior positions in the cabinet, and at other levels of government. The San, also known as Bushmen, are particularly disadvantaged. The government took numerous measures to end societal discrimination against the San. However, many San children do not attend school, making advancement difficult.

The future of Namibia remained in doubt at the start of the 21st century. The spread of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) held the possibility of devastating the country. Over 20 percent of Namibian adults were infected with HIV.

Additionally the presence of numerous refugees from nearby war-torn nations held the potential to drag down the economy and involve Namibians in cross-border conflicts. Desertification, land degradation, and wildlife poaching were likely to remain issues of concern in the foreseeable future.

Kwame Nkrumah

Kwame Nkrumah

Kwame Nkrumah was born in the British-controlled Gold Coast (present-day Ghana) in West Africa. He trained as a teacher and studied in both the United States and England. Nkrumah helped to organize the 1945 Pan Africa Congress and remained a staunch supporter of African union and cooperation.

An ardent nationalist, Nkrumah served as general secretary of the United Gold Coast Convention but split from the party to establish the Convention People’s Party (CPP) in 1949. His book, I Speak for Freedom, was an impassioned defense of African independence.

Nkrumah was jailed by the British for his activist campaigns but was freed in 1951. He led the Gold Coast to complete independence in 1957. The newly independent nation of Ghana had a sound economy and under Nkrumah’s leadership was looked to for direction by other African states. Nkrumah championed the Organization of African Unity (OAU), formed in 1963. He also was an outspoken opponent of the apartheid white-dominated regime in South Africa.


However, Nkrumah became increasingly dictatorial and established Ghana as a one-party state in 1964 when he took the title of president for life. A cult of personality arose around Nkrumah, and a musim of one-party states under dictatorial “rulers for life” emerged in many African states during the 1970s. Nkrumah was overthrown in a military coup d’état in 1966; in subsequent years he lived in exile and died in Romania in 1972.

Nigeria

Map of Nigeria

Nigeria is located in western Africa on the Gulf of Guinea between Benin and Cameroon. It occupies 923,768 square kilometers (356,667 square miles), making it one-third larger than the U.S. state of Texas. Nigeria stretches 1,600 kilometers (1,000 miles) from north to south, and is 1,100 kilometers (700 miles) wide from the Atlantic coast to its eastern border.

Nigeria’s population has grown extremely rapidly from 35 million to over 137 million in 2004. It is home to one out of every six Africans. The population is extremely diverse and contains as many as 250 separate ethnic groups and a reported 500 languages.

The major population divisions include the Hausa (29 percent), who live in the north; the Yoruba (21 percent), who occupy the southwest; the Igbo or Ibo (18 percent), who are in the southeast; and the Ijaw (10 percent), who reside in the east.


The Fulani (9 percent), found primarily in the north, along with a large number of smaller groups, complete the essential Nigerian ethnic matrix. This societal complexity makes for enormous governing difficulties.

There is also the divide of religion, with the north heavily Muslim and the south largely Christian. One attempt to foster better unity was the adoption of English as the nation’s official language. Fifty percent of the population now has a basic command, although there are many more who speak a smattering of broken or “pidgin” English.

Administratively the nation is currently divided into 36 states and one capital territory. Abuja, located in the center of the country, became the nation’s capital in 1991, replacing in this capacity the large port city of Lagos with its over 13 million people.

National Mosque in the capital Abuja

Modern Nigeria is a product of the late 19th-century British Empire builders. Before this time it was part of a wide-ranging section of West Africa made up of many peoples and territories, all occupying much smaller tribal areas. Lagos became a full British colony in 1861.

The country’s name is taken from the river Niger. The actual official designation of Nigeria is often attributed to the wife of a colonial official who in 1898 merged Niger with “ia” to create today’s identity, which means literally “black area.”

All of West Africa, including Nigeria, was the subject of even earlier European interest. The Portuguese came to the area in the late 15th century, attracted by the lucrative slave trade with local tribes.

The profits were such that the Portuguese slave trading monopoly was broken in the 16th century as other Europeans, including the British, wanted a share of the riches. Lagos and Badagry became important markets for the exchange of a variety of products, particularly gin and firearms.

Although the slave trade was abolished in the British Empire and in the United States after 1807, British commercial interest in the area didn’t decline, and the penetration of the interior rivers by steamships began in earnest after the 1840s.

Lagos became a key base and, in 1886, the National African Company, later the Royal Niger Company, received a royal charter to oversee trade in the Niger Delta, which included governing rights. The company’s interests also expanded northward.

These operations became too expensive and, in 1897, the company’s governing provisions were removed, and the British government asserted its authority, creating in 1900 a North Nigeria Protectorate. By 1902 after a time of armed resistance, the Sokoto Caliphate and Kano submitted to British authority.

Frederick Lugard, Governor-General of Nigeria (1914–1919)

Lugard, who had become governor-general, now combined all the protectorates with Lagos to form, in January 1914, the Federation of Nigeria. A policy of indirect rule followed during which local tribal leaders, emirs, and sultans administered their areas in conjunction with the colonial civil service.

As late as the 1930s only a few hundred British officers were in country. Infrastructure was improved, including railroad construction to the north, but education in the Muslim areas lagged behind Christian-led efforts in the south. The north remained essentially a distinct enclave.

Nationalism became an increasing factor during the 1930s and was essentially motivated by the notion of Pan-Africanism. Yet a Nigerian sense of nationalism was made more difficult by the area’s many regional and tribal divides.

The end of World War II left Britain weary of the demands and costs of empire, and moves toward change occurred as early as 1946. At this time a constitutional reform was introduced that created in the first instance three regional legislatures. A fourth midwest regional legislature was added in 1963. Full self-government came to these regions in the 1950s.

The desired goal was the formation of a federal legislative structure for all of Nigeria, a system that the north finally agreed to join in 1959. Direct elections occurred in 1959, and a federal government was founded. This new government, meeting for the first time in 1960, declared Nigeria’s independence on October 1.

Princess Alexandra opens the newly independent Nigerian Federal Parliament
in Lagos on 3 October 1960

This sense of national hope proved short-lived. Old antagonisms emerged and threatened any idea of lasting unity. The conflicts came quickly with the Yoruba opposing western regional reorganizations.

This lack of stability undermined the national government, creating a pattern for the future that would include ethnic fighting and massive corruption. In 1963 Nigeria became a federal republic with an elected president in an effort to strengthen central authority. The elections in 1964 produced more arguments and rioting over suspected electoral fraud.

The Nigerian National Alliance took control of parliament, and the United Progressive Grand Alliance of eastern and western groups became their main opposition. This unsettled situation led eastern Igbo-dominated army officers to stage a coup in January 1966.

Major General Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi took command and instituted bloody purges of the political establishment. Fighting broke out within the army itself. After only four months in charge General Ironsi was dead, and Yakubu Gowon, a lieutenant colonel soon to be general, had taken over as leader of the military government.

The situation failed to settle, particularly after the Hausa murdered approximately 20,000 Igbo who lived in the north. Retaliations led to more discord, motivating the eastern region’s military governor, Lieutenant Colonel Odemugwu Ojukwu, to declare on May 30, 1967, the eastern region an independent entity called the Republic of Biafra.

Lieutenant Colonel Odemugwu Ojukwu

This situation led to a bloody civil war, perhaps the worst in modern African history. The war lasted three years and cost numerous lives. At war’s end the victorious Federal side declared a period of reconciliation and launched a campaign to reconstruct the devastated area.

Nigeria was now firmly in the hands of Gowon’s Supreme Military Council, which did promise a return to civilian rule in 1976. Efforts were made to transform the economy from its agricultural base to a more modern mixed economy. There were serious attacks on corruption and moves to control the government’s role in the expanding oil industry, which from the late 1960s saw Nigeria become one of the world’s largest exporters.

Criticism of Gowon’s rule was steadily mounting. While attending a 1975 Organization of African Unity conference, Gowan found himself the victim of another coup led by the Sandhurst-trained brigadier general Murtala Mohammed.

General Mohammed consolidated his authority, purged government offices, created more administrative states, and put military governors in control of the media. He also imported new Soviet aircraft for the military. His time in office, though, proved short-lived.

He was assassinated by fellow officers in 1976. His replacement was General Olusegun Obasanjo, a Yoruba, who would years later become Nigeria’s president. In 1979 Obasanjo produced a new constitution based on the U.S. model and prepared for elections to return the country to civilian rule.

The fall in oil prices in 1981 brought problems for the new government as debts mounted. The result was a poor business climate. Blame was projected onto many quarters, violence was frequent, and foreign workers were expelled. The unrest also brought an end to the Shehu Shagari presidency, which again saw a disgruntled military react, cancelling Shagari’s 1983 election.

Mohammed Buhari, the chief of the army, took over the government with the standard promises to end corruption and reverse the fortunes of the state. However, Buhari didn’t last long, and in August 1985 he was overthrown by General Ibrahim Babangida. General Sani Abacha gave his support to this coup, and in 1990 he positioned himself for later rule when he became minister of defense.

General Sani Abacha, 10th President of Nigeria

Army control did not reverse the economic crisis, which was now dire. Currency devaluation was demanded as a term for continued International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank financial support in the form of loans. Again a return to civilian rule was planned, and state elections were scheduled for 1991, with a presidential election to follow in 1993.

To the military’s surprise, Moshood Abiola won. The military, however, rejected the result, Babangida imprisoned Abiola, and in the midst of continuing confusion General Sani Abacha took over as military president.