The Journal of Modern African Studies

Table of Contents - 1970 - Volume 8, Issue 04  

Article

Separatist Agitations in Nigeria Since 1914

Tekena N. Tamuno*

Abstract

During the 1960s, Nigeria's stability was so severely threatened by such factors as reckless politics, military coups d'etat, refugee problems, and secessionist movements that foreign observers predicted the failure of a hitherto glorified model of a newly independent, democratic, multinational state in West Africa. In February 1966 pessimism about Nigeria's political future was so great that some observers inside and outside Nigeria believed that such a British-created federation as Nigeria's could not survive after the failure of the similarly launched Central African Federation, the West Indian Federation, and Malaysia (after Singapore's separation) 1.