Nigerian students as Pan-Africanists and African liberators, By Ahmed Aminu-Ramatu Yusuf 

The Nigerian state and people have a tradition of morally, politically, diplomatically, materially, financially and militarily supporting the struggles of peoples for independence against foreign invaders and colonisers.

The government provided arms to national liberation movements in Guinea Bissau and Cape Verde, Mozambique, and Angola. They gave all-round support to  the South West African Peoples Organisation (SWAPO) of Namibian and, the African National Congress (ANC) and Pan-African Congress (PAC) of South Africa.

In the 1970s, the Nigerian government gave scholarships to many Southern Africans and donated over N25 million (not today’s naira) towards the liberation struggles in Southern Africa. A Southern African Relief Fund (SARF) was specifically formed and tasked to coordinate educational, material and financial assistance to liberation movements. The children of Soweto who found themselves in Nigeria were specially welcomed, accommodated and educated.

A major factor underlying Nigerian government support to the national liberation movements in Africa was the Student Movement. The students  support for liberation organisations in fact, predated the independence of Nigeria. In March 1960, students in Enugu, Lagos, Ibadan, and Zaria embarked on protests against the Sharpeville Massacre in South Africa. They wanted  an end to racial discrimination and segregation throughout Africa. They also demanded  the expulsion of all White Southern Africans working in Nigeria.

Earlier in 1959, students had organized demonstrations against the visit to Nigeria of then British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan. They argued that British policies were hostile against Black People and African nationalism, and demanded the expulsion of South Africa from the Commonwealth.

The struggles paid off when on 5 April, 1960, a bill calling for the ban of all trade with South Africa was adopted in parliament. Also, in 1961, Nigeria’s Prime Minister, Sir Alhaji Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, pushed for the expulsion of South Africa from the Commonwealth.

The Student Movement felt that the liberation of Africa is organically linked with the struggle against Western imperialism. This  was why they organized massive public protests against the crude and barbaric murder of Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba of Congo Kinshasa by forces of Western imperialism.

They also protested against French government anti-independence terrorism in Algeria, as well as its testing of atomic bomb in the Sahara Desert. In 1965, they demonstrated against the Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) from Britain.

But the Students Movement equally felt that the struggle for African liberation is inseparable from the that  against Western militarism in Nigeria. So,  in November 1960, about 800 students began peaceful demonstrations against the Anglo-Nigeria Defence Pact. They carried placards, which, amongst others, read: ‘Away with Anglo-Balewa Pact’, ‘Down with Colonial Mentality’, and ‘Keep us out of NATO’.

Police attempted  to suppress the protests and in reaction,  students broke into the Cabinet Office, manhandled Ministers, and invaded the Federal  Parliament. As a compromise, they were allowed to present a petition to the Governor-General. In it, they asserted, amongst other things, that the Defence Pact  negated Nigeria’s independence and  violated  the nation’s policy of Non-Alignment. The Pact, they argued,  would weaken the Nigeria’s  international credibility and role in Africa.

The British government was consequently compelled to abandoned the Pact, positing that it was an “embarrassment” to the Nigerian government, “useless” to Britain, and injurious to Anglo-Nigerian relations.

From the mid-1970s, Nigerian students became radically anti-West. They insisted and demanded that they be militarily recruited, trained and armed  to fight side-by-side with the various armed wings of the liberation movements. Nigerians sometimes insulted and, occasionally  assaulted Europeans on the streets on the grounds that their people are exploiting and oppressing their Black brothers and sisters in Southern Africa.

This era marked the height of the national liberation struggles against Portuguese colonialism in Africa. The highlight of that  was the struggle for Angolan independence. This struggle almost tore the Organisation of African Unity (now African Union) apart, but for General Murtala Ramat Mohammed’s rallying statement, “Africa Has Come Of Age”. Also, Nigeria’s support for Angola sped up the independence for Zimbabwe.

The formation of the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) in 1980, radicalised students’ anti-imperialism, Pan-Africanism and support for the Southern African national liberation movements. There were constant student protests against British positions during the Lancaster House Conference on Zimbabwean independence between 1979 and 1980.

Western support for Apartheid South Africa, the  apartheid praxis in itself including the  imprisonment and execution of freedom fighters, its constant attacks on the Frontline States, and Shagari’s government subservience to the West, attracted hostile criticism and occasionally, protests within and outside the campuses.

In its December 1982 Charter of Demands, NANS demanded that the Nigerian government pursued a clear-cut, radical and anti-imperialist, anti-Zionist and anti-racist foreign policy that would lead to the liberation of Namibia, South Africa,  Western Sahara and the Palestine. It organized protests against United States (US) support for apartheid South Africa; the latter’s denial of Namibian independence; South Africa’s belligerence against the frontline states (Angola, Mozambique, Zambia, Tanzania and Zimbabwe); and the US-Apartheid violation of U.N. Resolution 435 on Namibia.

NANS equally believed that the best way to fight imperialism was to oppose its agents, policies, and practices in Nigeria. Therefore, it staunchly opposed the country’s foreign policies, exemplified in their standoff with the Shagari administration on its policy and actions towards Flight Lieutenant John Jerry Rawlings 31 December, 1981 overthrow of  the civilian administration of Liman in Ghana.

The Western countries had reacted to the coup by organising a multi-national force to invade Ghana, using Nigeria as the staging post. The NANS leadership, under Chris Mammah, courageously exposed it in the press and demanded that Nigeria should refuse to participate. Nigeria subsequently did, and the invasion fell through.

Student leaders and activists similarly condemned the abortion of the OAU Heads of State Summit scheduled for 5 August, 1982 in Tripoli. The Summit was aborted primarily to stop the admission of the Western Sahara (also known as the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic) into the OAU and, to stop the emergence of the Libyan President, Muammar Gaddafi, as OAU Chairman. President Shagari played a leading role in the abortion of the Summit. NANS denounced the abortion as being: “in line with the design of America and world imperialism.”

NANS equally demanded that Nigeria should  have no  diplomatic relations with Israel, grant the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) official recognition, and support it in all international fora. In 1984, General Muhammadu Buhari played a decisive role in the admission of Western Sahara as a full member of the OAU.

The imposition of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank neoliberalism by General Ibrahim Babangida administration led to a cycle of confrontations between students and the military from 1986 to 1991. In these confrontations, students linked their demands for the termination of the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) and the development of Nigeria with the release of all political prisoners and termination of White-minority rule and colonialism in Africa.

It was a glorious era, sadly with no glorious inheritors as the NANS today, lacking in pro-people ideology and bereft of cherished values, has become like chaff blown around by the wind.

Ahmed Aminu-Ramatu Yusuf worked as deputy director, Cabinet Affairs Office, The Presidency, and retired as General Manager (Administration), Nigerian Meteorological Agency, (NiMet). Email: aaramatuyusuf@yahoo.com