In the fifties, the West African Students Union was a veritable nightmare for officialdom. The contribution of this body formed by a Nigerian from Abeokuta, Chief Oladipo Solanke, to the socio-cultural and political awareness of African nationalism-cum Pan Africanism was enormous. Kwame Nkrumah, Udo Udoma, Rotimi Williams, Bankole Akpata, Ayotunde Rosiji, Adenekan Ademola, Joe Appiah, Sobo Sowemimo, Willie Bosma, Ademola Thomas, Femi Okunnu, Alao Bashorun, Jomo Kenyatta, Kojo Bostio, and the writer, to mention but a few once held courts in the organisation at different times. Kola Balogun was also a valued member of the Nigerian Union of Great Britain and Ireland, an organisation which embraced all Nigerian nationals in the United Kingdom particularly students. It was non-partisan but unabashedly partial and partisan to the territorial oneness and the unity of Nigeria. On account of the broad and nationalistic outlook imbibed in both the Nigerian Union and WASU, of which the writer is a past president and vice-president respectively, Balogun was at first diffident and reluctant when he was prodded by Luke Emejulu to form the London branch of the NCNC. In the end, he succumbed to the middling. It would be recalled that Emejulu was sponsored by the Nigerian Railway Workers Union to study law in the UK, but later abandoned trade unionism on his return to Nigeria for legal practice.
Not long after the formation of the London branch of the NCNC, the police fatally shot 21 miners and injured some 50 others at Udi colliery, Enugu, as a result of a labour dispute. Hardly any event, even the Ivor Cummings Bristol Hotel incident was comparable in the bitter and widespread reaction of Nigerians to the cold-blooded murder of their fellow nationals. According to Nduka Eze, "a broad spectrum of Nigerians, the radicals and the moderates, the revolutionaries and the stooges, the bourgeoisie and the workers closed ranks to form the National Emergency Committee which rallied financial and legal support for the workers. The bitterness amongst the nationalists disappeared as they jointly adopted "Self-Government Now" as their battle cry. Historians may conclude that the slaying of the coal miners by the police at Enugu was the first subjective reality of a Nigerian nation.
Whilst this ferment of emotive nationalist sentiments and activities prevailed, Zik was away in London and had also visited Caux, Switzerland. Akinola Maja, Mbonu Ojike, Rotimi Williams, Ozumba Mbadiwe, Akanni Doherty, Bode Thomas, Hezekiah Oladipo Davies, and Mokwugo Okoye, were in the thick of events. In the UK, Balogun as Secretary of the NCNC was busy in collaboration with WASU and Nigeria Union of Great Britain and Ireland, members of the British Parliament, galvanising public opinion in support of nationalist efforts at home, for the miners. A protest manifestation was planned to the Colonial office. It took a stiff letter from Balogun to Azikiwe to bestir the latter from the seeming coolness to the Enugu protests at home and in the UK. Zik had first distanced himself from the planned protest to the Colonial office.
Indeed, in spite of the dynamic turn of political alignment and activities in Nigeria, while reaction to the Enugu shooting incident was still on the boil, Zik, the President of the NCNC and Zaad Zungur, NCNC Federal Secretary, were planning a wil-o-wisp visit to Prague. Thanks to the pressure of Balogun and his colleagues in the UK, the visit was abandoned. In other words, this was the period when Zik was more or less abandoning the speedboat of radical nationalism. However, Balogun's formation of the London branch of the NCNC, his role in the Iva Valley shooting agitation in London and the letter of complaint to Zik in London was vintage, Kola Balogun, a committed and thorough bred nationalist through and through, an activist, principled and outspoken, (although with reverence) no matter whose ox was gored.
On his return to Nigeria as a barrister in 1951, Balogun threw his body and soul into active politics again. The NCNC, as he remarked, was "in the doldrums". Ill health and disillusionment had more or less forced Zaad Zungur, a highly political Mallam and "effulgent poet" to relinquish the Secretaryship of the NCNC. Azikiwe appointed Balogun into the NCNC cabinet and at the Kano Convention of the party in 1952, he was elected Secretary. At this time, the National Emergency Committee had receded, yielding place to the National Rebirth Committee of which H.U. Kaine, the educationist and lawyer turned politician and Balogun became the Chairman and Secretary respectively of the organising committee. The Trade Union Movement that had collaborated closely with the nationalists after the lightening and highly successful United African Company Workers strike led by Nduka Eze, founder of the left wing Nigeria Labour Congress, went their own way.
The NYC wing of the NEC particularly the provincial members became unenthusiastic about the formation of the National Rebirth Committee. Not long after in 1950, the Area Councils alliance, as a distinct political interest group opposed to the Nigeria National Democratic Party and the Labour Market Women, came into being as another cluster of interest groups, emerged to contest the Lagos Town Council elections which the latter group won hands down. This was the first election in Nigeria to be conducted on the basis of Universal Adult Suffrage. With the introduction of the MacPherson Constitution and the ensuing elections into regional and central Houses, the national front was again factionalised. Thus, confirming the hypothesis that constitutional developments in colonial countries tend to weaken nationalism.
Balogun remained undaunted in his nationalist zeal. After the debacle of the National Rebirth Committee that had advocated self-government for Nigeria in 1956, with the objective of a "socialist commonwealth", Balogun almost became a task deliverer of the NCNC. The writer was a frequent visitor to him at the NCNC Secretariat, Yaba at that time. He was genial, charming, unassuming, absolutely loyal and committed to the cause of Nigerian emancipation, Pan Africanism and of course, the NCNC. He seemed to have enjoyed the confidence of the great Zik, whom he referred to as his political father, on whose laps he learnt journalism and politics, and the rank and file of the NCNC. One can still recall the resonance of his shrill voice at campaigns proclaiming, "The NCNC is the party of the common man". He had an abiding faith in the pivotal role of the youth in the emancipation project.
As Secretary of the NCNC, he spearheaded an attempt to reincarnate the Zikist Movement as an NCNC Youth Association, in Lagos in 1952. The Trade Unionist cum politician, Mbazulike Amaechi and Nduka Eze were very much in evidence. Although the organisation was formed amid dissention, it was but a ghost of the Zikist Movement of old.
Concluded.
•Chief Akpata, the Ogiesoba of Benin, was Secretary of the defunct Petroleum Trust Fund
