The Way the West Was Won

Every time Nigerians go to the polls, the basic issue is the same: can the Moslem Northern region, with more than half the nation's official population of 55.6 million, dominate the rest of the land? The invariable answer: sort of. One way or another, ever since Nigeria gained its independence five years ago, the North has managed to hold on to the prime ministry, keep itself a sizable majority in the federal parliament and maintain its tenuous, if often disputed, control of other regions.

One of the most strategic holds was in Nigeria's Western region, where Chief Samuel Akintola's pro-North government faced apparently overwhelming opposition. Akintola himself had little popular support; he had been appointed Premier three years ago after a blatant power play that sent anti-North Chief Obafemi Awolowo to jail. But when regional assembly elections rolled around last month, Akintola showed that there was more than one way to win the West. To the surprise of hardly anyone, he rigged the elections.

Key election officials were kidnaped, key opposition candidates kept off the ballots entirely. In heavy Awolowo precincts, polling places mysteriously ran out of ballots, and Akintola's party stalwarts stuffed the ballot boxes in others. "Men became pregnant with ballot papers," chortled one observer. All urns, of course, had to be shipped immediately to the regional capital at Ibadan for Akintola's "official" counting, and when it was all over, the only surprise was the size of his victory: 78 seats to 18. "The West has gone too far," said the nation's leading political commentator Peter Enahoro. "But I do not think one can honestly say that what happened in Western Nigeria is new to electioneering in this country."

Nails in Heads. True enough, but the final word was not yet in. Frustrated at the polls, Westerners looked elsewhere for satisfaction. Playwright Wole Soyinka stormed into the government radio station at Ibadan to demand new elections; he was arrested. Market women closed down their stalls in protest, leaving many towns short of food. Riots in one town left 35 dead. An other town was burned to the ground, and at Abeokuta, Awolowo supporters drove nails into the heads of a pro-Northern judge and his court clerk. All told, more than 70 persons were killed and hundreds injured in three weeks of post-election violence.

Faced with the threat of a major civil uprising, Northerners last week began to look for compromise. Nigeria's Chief Justice Adetokunbo Ademola sped off to Ibadan to try to hammer a coalition government under Akintola together. For Awolowo's cheated followers, coalition left much to be desired, but it would at least be better than nothing. "Any region that does not ally itself with the North will surely fade," said one realistic loser last week. "If we remain in the opposition for five more years, we shall be relegated to the burying grounds."

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