Sardauna began to make several excuses about the unreadiness of the North to cope with the challenges of doing it alone. Awolowo replied: “The North should not underrate their own ability.” When it was proposed at the Constitutional Review Conference in Ibadan that Nigerians not the British should be central ministers, the North opposed it on the ground that Nigerians were not yet competent. But now there were four ministers of Northern origin doing an excellent job at the central level, Awolowo told him. Sardauna’s reply was iconic. He said the reason for such an earlier position was because when they went for executive council meetings in Kaduna, they do not “thoroughly discuss the subjects on the agenda and take a concerted line of action”, whereas the white officials always did, which made it appear they were superior to them. And when he visited Awolowo in Ibadan, he observed that they, too, thoroughly exhaust the agenda before going to meet with the colonial executives and that did not make them look foolish at the meetings. That night, Sardauna gave Awolowo two unnamed “valuable” presents as tokens of “the dependability of his words and bond of his friendship”.

And so after the joint walkout over Zik’s treatment of Eyo, Awolowo decided to take his friend into confidence. He told him in the visiting ministers’ room of the Central House, that the AG had tabled a private bill for self-government to be debated before the business sitting closed.  Sardauna, left to hold consultations with the emirs and other members of the Northern delegation came back and rejected the idea. He even asked for the bill’s withdrawal. Awolowo said never, ever. “To withdraw the motion would be a political suicide for the Action Group. It would be a strong weapon in the hands of the NCNC to discredit us by showing us up to the politically conscious element in the South that we are imperialist stooges.” Furthermore said Awolowo: “the white officials would never take us seriously again.”

The motion was introduced by Enahoro, 4 AG central ministers resigned their posts in order to debate it. The House erupted in pandemonium. “The mistake of 1914 has come to light,” Sardauna said resignedly. The Northern legislators were humiliated, their turbans stripped off outside the House and at every stop till they reached home, their train was mobbed with sticks and stones. The North became radicalised and demanded secession from Nigeria or a very, very loose association with the South. Zik who was at the gallery on that fateful/historic day, set aside his differences and went straight  down to hug Awolowo. The cameras had a field day. They started an East-West pact that had never happened before even though they were both Southerners. It lasted only seven months. NCNC then went to form an alliance with the North.

Why were the Southern regions eagerly seeking an alliance with the North? Because at the Ibadan Constitutional Conference, the North argued that given their size and population, they were entitled to half of the seats in the upcoming Central House. They were right.  The North was three times the size of the Western and Eastern regions put together. As regards population, they were more numerous too. Bola Ige once disputed this claiming throughout West Africa population decreases as you go upwards toward the desert. But unlike all other countries, as you go upwards Nigeria’s population increases . Also the annual tax receipts per head from the North were far more than South’s. The North therefore held the majority vote in the House. And so however brilliant or beneficial your policies were, to have them authorised by the Central Government, you needed the votes of those the South were still sending clothes to cover their nakedness. Even today, Southern senators sit shamelessly in the same chamber with incorrigible paedophiles and child rapists discussing ’progress’ for the nation.

The amalgamation of 1914 was not the mistake. The mistake was in Lugard allowing the North to keep their traditions and ways of life. Education and civilisation came to the South due to the uncompromising efforts of Crowther and the other Christian missionaries backed by the British government. Whereas after the conquest of the North through the 1903 Sokoto and Kano wars, the emirs came to Lugard and said, ‘We will give you no more trouble in so far as you prevent those missionaries already gaining grounds in Bida and Lokoja and beyond from corrupting our ways of life. In return we will give you an unflinching loyalty.’ This suited Lugard just fine as he confirmed on 22 March 1903 during the installation of Muhammadu Attairu II as the new Sultan of Sokoto. The colonial regime never spent much in collecting taxes in the North anymore. The emirate did. Using native enforcement schemes, they dutifully brought the collected taxes to the colonial treasury every month in huge numbers. In the East for instance, up to the 1951-1953 census, the women were still resisting being counted because they saw it as a step towards making them pay taxes like their men. Whereas in Lagos, Herbert Macaulay was campaigning furiously for the government to increase Eshugbayi Eleko’s £300 per annum “compassionate allowance” when the 6 August 1862 Treaty of Secession put his salary at a percentage of the total exports from Lagos. That would have been £5 million out of £16 million export revues from Lagos then. Yet the Sultan of Sokoto was paid a total of  £9,000 annually from the colonial coffers, even higher than £8,000 being paid to Sir Clifford, the colonial governor of Southern Nigeria. The respect for a people starts from the respect shown their rulers.

At the start of the 1st World War, the Ottoman Empire called for all Muslims to wage jihad against Britain. Lugard jittered and started contingencies against any armed insurrection in the North. But Sultan of Sokoto and other emirs told him not to worry. They said besides treating them well, when Lugard defeated them in 1903, they thought they would lose their culture and religion. Because when they conquered the ‘Yoruba ‘down South, they imposed Islam and their custom on them but Lugard had ensured they kept their religion, morality and customs even after conquest. Hence no call for jihad against the British from Turkey would happen in the North. The Shehu of Borno even wrote in a handwritten letter to Lugard that he had an array of Imams in his courtyard praying for the success of British army. The letter is worth further quoting: