Nigeria: Three Years to Go

In the one-party pattern that pervades Africa these days, Major General Johnson Aguiyi Ironsi, Nigeria's strongman since last January's bloody coup that toppled Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, announced on television last week that the job of curing his country's "fatal maladies of the past" will take no less than three years.

Nigeria's biggest malady, of course, has been the regionalism and tribal power blocs that always set one section of the country against another. To help knit Nigeria's parts into a whole, Ironsi abolished the old federation last week, substituted the "Republic of Nigeria," even decreed that "no reference to tribe or place of origin will appear in any official documents." In case anyone missed the point, he also banned the country's 107 political parties and tribal associations and prohibited the formation of new ones until he leaves power. Any of the dispossessed "who has not been found wanting" may continue in public life "not as an ex-politician or politician, but simply as a Nigerian with faith in his country's destiny." Ironsi also centralized the regional civil services and promised to do the same for Nigeria's universities, which are "duplicating rather than complementing each other in almost all courses they offer."

The decrees were stiff, and even stiffer ones would surely follow. Ironsi warned of the "many sacrifices, however painful" that would be required, demanding "not only the cooperation, but the discipline of every Nigerian."