One of the most remarkable things about this book is that it is written
by a daughter about her parents. Carolyn Johnston tells the story of her
father's career in the Administrative Service in Northern Nigeria from
1936 until 1961, his marriage to Berrice and their life together over
five decades. By the time of independence Tim had risen to the post of
Secretary to the Premier of Northern Nigeria and then Deputy Governor.
Tim Johnston was born in Belfast of staunch Northern Irish stock. He was
a man of high principle and firm conviction. "Uncompromising" was the
description he was given in one Annual Confidential Report. He served
with distinction and great bravery in Fighter Command during the war and
was awarded a DFC and bar. In 1941, with the war still raging, Tim and
Berrice were looking forward to marriage when Tim wrote asking whether
it might not be wise to postpone the date of the wedding. He was worried
that marriage might make him softer, more timid, less effective in
aerial combat with the Luftwaffe. Male comradeship, he explained,
encouraged fighting efficiency but female influence was 'negative'.
Later Tim issued bleak warnings about the ordeals and privations that
were the lot of the wife of a junior Administrative Officer in the bush
in Nigeria. But Berrice cleared all hurdles, accepted all conditions,
and lived happily with Tim for more than fifty years.
Berrice was a
stunningly beautiful young woman but she was at the same time
excruciatingly shy and insecure. In her first posting with Tim in a
remote, one-man station named Nsarawa; she was so happy that she was
often referred to as 'The Queen of Laughter'. But postings to larger
stations inevitably involved greater socialising with the wives of
colleagues and other expatriates, and this Berrice dreaded. After one
tour in Kano Berrice confided to Tim that she had come close to breaking
point. One of the leitmotifs of Carolyn Johnston's wonderfully candid
book is Berrice's sad progress from 'Queen of Laughter' to 'Ice Queen'.
Carolyn reminds us of how dedicated were the lives of so many Colonial
Service officers in remote stations and what extraordinary sacrifices
their wives and children were often required to make. So often and for
so long were the Johnston children separated from their parents that
when they were finally reunited Tim and Berrice were mortified to hear
them address aunts and uncles as 'Mummy and Daddy'.
Tim and Berrice do
not hide their feelings towards Southerners in general and Ibos in
particular in debates about Nigerian politics on the eve of
independence. "Those upstart Ibos", writes Berrice in one letter. "How
dare they", she appears to be saying, "question our right to rule?"
Quite. One Emir is quoted as saying that the North might, just might,
ally with the Yorubas but with the Ibos never! In the event this is not
what happened. The North did enter into an alliance of convenience with
the Ibo-led NCNC party but not with the Yoruba-led Action Group. The
famous remark that the Sardauna, whom Tim at that time was serving as
Permanent Secretary, regarded the hurly burly of democratic politics
with 'aristocratic distaste' is quoted with relish.
Writing as Deputy
Governor on the eve of independence Tim warned London that if ever the
NPC were to lose control of the Northern House of Assembly, northern
Emirs could be expected to renew overtures to neighbouring Islamic
emirates in the former French-speaking territories. A Colonial Office
official dryly commented that if the North chose to leave the
Federation, no one in London was likely to lose much sleep. Of course,
by the late 1970s the North was concerned not so much with access to the
sea as with access to the oil that had been discovered in such
prodigious quantities along Nigeria's southern coast. By then
politicians from noble northern families were as eager to get their
hands on a share of the oil loot as any other of Nigeria's politicians.
It is surprising that in a book that takes as its subject the wind of
change that swept through Nigeria in the 50s and 60s, no mention is made
of the two men who were (arguably) the country's most famous politicians
at the time. Obafemi Awolowo and Nnamdi Azikiwe were among the principal
agents of that change which was the subject of Harold Macmillan's famous
speech. Of the two omissions, that of Azikiwe is the more difficult to
understand or to justify. Ahmadu Bello, the Sardauna, cut a majestic
figure in Nigeria in 1960. He and Tafawa Balewa, the country's first
Federal Prime Minister, were widely admired throughout the Eastern
Region. But Azikiwe was every bit as charismatic a figure as the
Sardauna. Zik was born in Zungem, in Northern Nigeria, where Lugard built
his famous railway and not far from Kafanchan where Tim Johnston would
later serve as SDO. Zik spoke fluent Hausa and was always conscious of
the Northern dimension in Nigeria's politics. He never defined his
political agenda or ambitions in the narrowly ethnic terms that
sometimes deemed to circumscribe those of Awolowo. Zik was a peerless
orator. Those of us who have been privileged to witness him working his
magic on an Igbo crowd, whether in the Eastern House of Assembly or in
one of the village gatherings so brilliantly described by Chinua Achebe,
are unlikely to forget the experience.
Finally, we should recall, this
'upstart Ibo', Nnamdi Azikiwe, was, after all, Nigeria's first
President. He would not expect to be applauded by members of OSPA for
his many clashes with the colonial authority. But in his speech to the
Regional House of Assembly, commending the Independence Settlement, he
did say that Britain had handed independence to Nigeria 'on a platter of
gold'. Nnamdi Azikiwe was a great Igbo, a great Nigerian and a great
African.
Carolyn Johnston has given us a fascinating book. One small
point with which we might quarrel is the title. Carolyn's analogy of the
Harmattan does not quite work because in the case of Nigeria the wind of
change that Macmillan spoke about in Cape Town blew not from north to
south but from south to north, from the sea up to the Sahara. I believe
that I speak for many of her readers when I say that we hope not that
Carolyn Johnston will now give us further analysis of the politics of
Nigeria on the eve of independence but that she will tell us how the
story ended; the great love story of Tim and Berrice Johnston that she
has begun so wonderfully in this book.
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