Rupture and Reconciliation

Abstract

The drive for political independence and state power produced not only ethnic nationalism and regionally based political parties but, certainly in the case of the National Council of Nigeria and Cameroon (NCNC), serious conflicts within the party as well. We have already analyzed the intraparty conflict of 1952–1953 that was dramatically played out in the Eastern House of Assembly. In all the intraparty conflicts throughout the 1950s, until he resigned from the party in 1958, Mbadiwe was a central player. Until 1955 he and his close friend Ojike were among the most loyal and trusted lieutenants of Azikiwe. However, from 1955 on, the relationship between Mbadiwe and Azikiwe began to cool, and it deteriorated into a bitter and open struggle for power within the party between early 1957 and mid-1958. This was followed by Mbadiwe’s complete rupture with Azikiwe for about two years.