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Know that it was Bode Thomas and his 11 cohorts including S.O. Awokoya, and M.A. Ajasin, Arthur Prest, and Chief Obafemi Awolowo who brought Azikiwe into Western Region politics by their minority report on status of Colony of Lagos in Jan 1950 at the Ibadan Conference With this fact, the tribal narrative that Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, an Igbo, tried to "rule the Yoruba-dominated Western Region in order to entrench Igbo supremacy” is false albeit a politically engineered myth completely debunked by colonial policy and historical timeline. Zik was a democratically mandated representative of Lagos since March 1947 whose federal seat was structurally hijacked by a British administrative merger of Lagos Colony to the Western Region driven by ethnic champions, enacted in June 1951 (with the Macpherson Constitution drafted over preceding months) and strategic regionalist gatekeeping to prevent the most potent anticolonial voice from being in the central/federal Nigeria legislative council. Azikiwe always had a substantive Yoruba and Western political base The Legislative Council Composition (1947–1951) To understand what Azikiwe was blocked from by Awolowo, we must look at the body he had already successfully served in since 1947 under the Richards Constitution. This assembly was a milestone because it gave Africans their first unofficial majority (28 Unofficial vs. 16 Official members), but it was highly restrictive: •The 16 Official Members: The British Governor (presiding), 13 Ex-Officio colonial officers (such as the Chief Secretary and Regional Chief Commissioners), and 3 Nominated Officials. •The 28 Unofficial Members: Only 4 were directly elected by the people—3 representing Lagos (Azikiwe, Adedoyin, and Olorun-Nimbe) and 1 representing Calabar (Chief Nyong Essien). The remaining 24 were either traditional rulers chosen via regional chambers (9 North, 6 West, 5 East) or corporate delegates nominated by the Governor to protect British banking, mining, and shipping interests. Azikiwe did not seek to invade a region; he sought to maintain the rare, directly elected democratic mandate he had secured in the Nigerian legislative chamber since 1947. Below, I have provided a timeline of how the anti-colonial struggle was disrupted by ethnic champions: February 1947 National Elections: Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe did not run as an independent candidate. Leading the Nigerian National Democratic Party (NNDP) alliance—the foundational Lagos affiliate of his national party, the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC)—Zik alongside Prince Adeleke Adedoyin and Dr. Abubakar Olorun-Nimbe crushed Ernest Ikoli’s Nigerian Youth Movement (NYM). Ikoli even resigned before the election. Under the 1946 Richards Constitution, Lagos was administered completely independent of the Western Region. Azikiwe held this central (federal) Legislative Council seat securely for more than 4 years. June 29, 1951: The Macpherson Trap The British colonial government enacted the Nigeria (Constitution) Order-in-Council (The Macpherson Constitution). Yielding to a fierce minority report (1 of 4 reports) submitted at the 1950 Ibadan Conference by Yoruba delegates like Chief Bode Thomas (who later co-founded the Action Group in March 1951), the British arbitrarily merged the Lagos Colony into the Western Region. This constitutional shift drastically altered Nigerian politics: it meant Lagos representatives could no longer advance directly to the central legislature like before; they were forced to clear the Regional House of Assembly in Ibadan. This was how Bode Thomas, Awolowo et al. brought Azikiwe into Western Region politics Post continues in thread below 👇