Gold Coast nationalist reaction to the controversy over higher education in Anglophone West Africa and its impact on decision making in the colonial office, 1945-47, The

Journal of Negro Education, The, Spring 1997 by Charles Peter Emudong

On October 1, 1945, Secretary of State Hall ordered that the findings of the Minority Report be put into effect as soon as possible. By this time, however, Gold Coast nationalist opinion had begun to move away from the Minority Report and toward the Majority Report. This shift in support rekindled the whole debate with such vigor and emotionalism, not only within the CO but also outside it among interest groups in London and West Africa, that, at the height of the controversy, Secretary of State Hall warned: "If emotion and parochial views are allowed to cloud our thinking at this critical stage much harm will be done and probably the educational, political and economic development of West Africa will be seriously hampered" (CO, 1945e, unnumbered page). However, it was the mounting and concerted nationalist resistance of the West Africans, especially those from the Gold Coast and to some extent Sierra Leone, that resolved the matter.

THE IMPACT OF GOLD COAST NATIONALIST PRESSURE ON THE RESOLUTION OF THE CONTROVERSY

By 1943, the year the CO established the Asquith and Elliot commissions, West African nationalist agitation for an unofficial African majority on the colonial legislative council had precipitated a "situation of crisis" in the region (T. L. Hodgkin, quoted in Twumasi, 1972, p. 122). Spearheaded by the middle-class Gold Coast Youth Conference, concerted nationalist activity dissipated in 1944 when this demand was met in principle. It was revived in July 1945 with the publication of the Elliot Commission's two conflicting reports on higher education. Initially, Gold Coast nationalist opinion was decisively behind the centralist Minority Report. However, this opinion changed suddenly and uncompromisingly in favor of the federal-type Majority Report.

What were the underlying reasons behind this shift? Initially, the Gold Coast nationalists believed that the single university recommended by the Minority Report was going to be located in Achimota. Additionally, the Minority Report was to a degree compatible with the views of West African nationalists who looked toward broad-based programs patterned after the American rather than the elitist British system (Howard, 1982). However, when the Gold Coast nationalists later learned that the university was to be established in Ibadan in Nigeria, and given their own appreciation of developments in West African educational policy since 1943 that made the provision of a university college in their country an urgent necessity, they threw their support behind the arguments of the Majority Report.

The colonial governor of the Gold Coast noted that the country's nationalists had originally supported the Minority Report blindly due to the delay in the arrival of sufficient copies of both reports for circulation. Once they had acquired and scrutinized the contents of both reports, he noted, they asked that he should notify the CO that Gold Coast opinion was solidly in favor of the Majority Report's recommendations and strongly opposed to the Minority Report's recommendations. Even in Nigeria and particularly Sierra Leone, nationalist opinion was reported to have hardened in favor of the Majority Report. This was hardly surprising, as the latter colony already had an institution, Fourah Bay College, with almost an independent university status of international recognition.