User talk:Monday Justice Sua

The basis of modern Nigeria formed in 1914, when Britain amalgamated the Northern and Southern protectorates. Beginning with the Northern Protectorate, the British implemented a system of indirect rule according to which they exerted influence through alliances with local forces. This system worked so well, colonial governor Frederick Lugard successfully lobbied to extend it to the Southern Protectorate through amalgamation. In this way, a foreign and hierarchical system of governance was imposed on the Igbos (along with many other smaller groups in the South.) [21] Intellectuals began to agitate for greater rights and independence.[22] The size of this intellectual class increased significantly in the 1950s, with the massive expansion of the national education program.[23] During the 1940s and 1950s the Igbo and Yoruba parties were in the forefront of the fight for independence from Britain. They also wanted an independent Nigeria to be organised into several small states so that the conservative North could not dominate the country. Northern leaders, fearful that independence would mean political and economic domination by the more Westernised elites in the South, preferred the perpetuation of British rule. As a condition for accepting independence, they demanded that the country continue to be divided into three regions with the North having a clear majority. Igbo and Yoruba