Suchergebnisse

Boys shook their heads a number of times while girls covered their faces with white handkerchiefs as the pathetic story of Congolese first Prime Minister, Patrice Lumumba, was read out to a crowded audience by PYC dramatic group at the Lagos City College, Yaba, last Sunday.This notice, describing the staging of a play by a youth club run by a Lagos newspaper, the West African Pilot, appeared in that newspaper on 31 March 1962.1 All over Africa Patrice Lumumba's meteoric rise and tragic death caught the imagination of men and women in all walks of life, and more especially that of the young. In Nigeria, however, this reaction is of particular interest. First of all, the news of Lumumba's murder in February 1961 provoked 'anti-white' rioting in a country where race relations had not been an overt issue for a decade. Demonstrations outside the United States Embassy in Lagos, the Federal capital, led to indiscriminate attacks on Europeans resulting in much damage to cars and serious injury to several individuals.2

The papers reproduced here were prepared for discussion at a seminar at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies of the University of London, held during April-May 1966. The seminar arose out of reflections upon the coups in Nigeria and Ghana earlier in the year and the aim of the discussions was to see whether, on the basis of general considerations, relevant experience elsewhere and knowledge of local conditions, there could be discerned the factors which would influence the future direction of political change in those countries