Overview
Herbert Macaulay was an engineer, surveyor and newspaper proprietor who organised the first modern political party in Nigeria. He was Yoruba, born in Lagos, in what is now Lagos State.
Biography
Macaulay was a grandson of Samuel Ajayi Crowther and son of a clergyman and schoolmaster. He trained as a civil engineer in England and worked as a surveyor of Crown lands in Lagos before leaving government service and going into private practice and journalism.
He used the Lagos Daily News and the courts to challenge colonial land policy and the treatment of the Lagos chieftaincy, and represented the House of Docemo in a celebrated land case before the Privy Council. In 1923, after the elective principle was introduced for Lagos, he founded the Nigerian National Democratic Party, which won the Lagos seats in successive elections and became the first party of its kind in the country. In 1944 he became the first president of the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons, alongside Nnamdi Azikiwe, and he died in 1946 while touring the country for the party.
Notable achievements
- Founded the Nigerian National Democratic Party in 1923, the first modern political party in Nigeria
- Used the press and the courts to contest colonial land and chieftaincy policy in Lagos
- Represented Lagos interests in litigation that reached the Privy Council
- First president of the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons, from 1944
Legacy
Macaulay is generally treated as the point at which Nigerian nationalism became organised party politics rather than petition and protest. Colonial officials regarded him as an agitator; later Nigerian writing treats him as a founder, and his conduct of Lagos politics has been argued about since his own lifetime.