BRITISH AFRICA: With Malice from Some

It was a proud and colorful moment in British colonial history. Flocking into swampy Lagos to hear visiting Prime Minister Harold Macmillan address the first session of Nigeria's new Federal Parliament, turbaned chiefs from the Moslem north swept past legislators wearing the billowy white and indigo gowns of the western Yoruba country or the rainbow hues of the east. The Emir of Kano arrived at the entrance of the Parliament in a glittering Rolls-Royce, its horn blaring. In walked the popular Finance Minister, Chief Festus Samuel Okotie-Eboh, wearing a straw boater and a figured scarf that trailed 4 yds. behind him. A jovial group of eastern M.P.s drove up in a red Dodge convertible with a big stuffed toy tiger propped up on the back seat. Finally the Speaker, in his legislative robes and wig, strode majestically into the chamber, followed by the sergeant at arms bearing the golden mace of authority. "Extraordinary," said Macmillan with pleasure. "Nigeria has come to the threshold of independence without strife or bitterness between our two peoples."

The transition to self-rule of Nigeria's black 35 millions, due next October, was as close to perfect as Britain could hope to achieve in Africa. But the achievement was not complicated, as it is in British East and Central Africa, by deeply entrenched white settler populations. There the rising pressures for independence were giving the British a harder time. Britain's first Prime Minister ever to tour Africa south of the Sahara would find two key trouble spots:

Kenya, whence last week African leaders flew off to London to renew their fight for control of the colony. Minimum demands of tough young Tom Mboya, the brains of the African delegation: internal self-government for Kenya's 6,000,000 Africans this year, a common voting roll with universal suffrage, and only a brief transitional tutelage period in which Britons would remain in charge of Kenya's justice, defense and foreign affairs.

At Mboya's elbow during the talks will be Thurgood Marshall, general counsel of the N.A.A.C.P., who flew to Kenya from the U.S. to advise on tactics. Kenya's white settler extremists firmly reject the idea of an African government and insist that Britain remain in control indefinitely. Last week Governor Sir Patrick Renison signed a red-ribboned document formally ending the seven-year Mau Mau state of emergency. In Nairobi's African locations, thousands of natives celebrated on a native beer called pombe, and burned the hated identification passbooks they have had to carry.