National Congress of British West Africa

Visit of His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales to the Gold Coast Colony 1925. The Prince of Wales shaking hands with the members of the Ladies' Branch of the National Congress of British West Africa.

The National Congress of British West Africa (NCBWA), founded in 1919, was one of the earliest nationalist organization in West Africa, and one of the earliest formal organizations working toward African emancipation. It was largely composed of an educated elite in the Gold Coast, who felt under threat from the incorporation of 'traditional authorities' in the colonial system. The cofounders included Thomas Hutton-Mills, Sr., the first President, and J. E. Casely Hayford, the first Vice-President. Other co-founders and early officials included Edward Francis Small, F. V. Nanka-Bruce, A. B. Quartey-Papafio, Henry van Hien, A. Sawyerr and Kobina Sekyi.

Founding

Inspiration

The idea of the creation of the National Congress of British West Africa (NCWBA) as first conceived in 1914 by J. E. Casely Hayford.

Regional Influences

The founding of the NCBWA was based, in part, on the existing legacy of resistance and nationalist movements throughout the British colonial holdings in West Africa. Some of the resistance movements that influenced the development of the NCWBA were those by “King Aggrey of Cape Coast in the Gold Coast in the 1860’s” and “King Kosoko of Lagos & Jaja of Opobo in the nineteen century”. The previous nationalist movements that sparked the creation of the NCWBA included the Gold Coast Aborigines' Rights Protection Society (ARPS) and the Fante Confederation. The NCWBA was influenced not only by nationalist movements in the region but also by the works of key African nationalist scholars, such as Dr. Africanus Beale Horton, Dr. Edward Wilmot Blyden, and John Payne Jackson.

International Influences

The emergence of the NCWBA can also be contextualized within the larger, international nationalist movements of the early twentieth century that occurred on behalf of Africans and people of African descent specifically, as well as amongst subjugated peoples around the globe more broadly. Some of the events that paved the way for the development of the NCWBA were the First Universal Races Congress of 1911, the International Conference on the Negro in 1911, the creation of the African Progress Union and Union of Students of African Descent in the United Kingdom in 1917, as well as the end of World War I.

Internal Motivations

While it is important to note the regional movements, the international movements, and the people who helped to shape the environment in which the NCWBA was able to thrive, it is crucial to note that the emergence of the NCWBA was most fundamentally shaped by a belief by members of the NCWBA that the West African people did not deserve to continue to live under the “ «injustices» of the colonial regime”. 

Throughout the nineteenth century, educated West African elite were permitted to serve as government officials throughout the regions in West Africa of British domain, as the British colonial leaders saw the educated elite as necessary allies. However, by 1902, the favor that the British colonial leaders had previously given to the educated African elite began to diminish through the use of discriminatory policies, such as one issued by the “West African Medial Service” that stated that educated Africans could only participate in the service if they  were of “«European» parentage”. In addition to the use of discriminatory policies, the British colonial government began to favor “preserving traditional authority”, under the guise of wanting to protect the native populations from what they perceived to be the tyranny of “a small minority of educated Europeanised natives who have nothing in common with them, and whose interests are often opposed to theirs”. The growing alienation of the educated African elite by the British colonial leaders and the growing irritation of the educated elite in response to this alienation provided the backbone for the formation of the NCWBA.

Formation

A combination of regional, international, and internal influences and motivations culminated in the formation of the National Congress of British West Africa (NCBWA) in March 1920. The NCWBA was originally headed by Joseph Ephraim Casely Hayford. The foundation of the NCWBA was solidified with its first meeting in Accra, a meeting which drew participants from Nigeria, Sierra Leone, the Gambia, and the Gold Coast. The agreements that were reached by the inaugural meeting of the NCWBA are given below:

Agreements from the First Meeting of the NCWBA

" i. that half of the members of each of the Legislative Councils in British West Africa should be elected Africans, and that there should be in each colony a new House of Assembly consisting of all the members of the colony's Legislative Council and six other elected representatives, with control over finance; ii. that municipal government should be developed to the extent that corporations with a majority of elected members and with full powers of local government are established in each principal town of each colony; iii. that there should be no discrimination against Africans in the civil service; iv. that executive and judicial functions should be separated and that only « duly qualified and experienced legal men should hold judicial appointments; v. that a British West African Court of Appeal duly constituted should be established; vi. that certain « obnoxious » ordinances and those objectionable ones relating to land should be repealed or modified as the case may be; vii. that a West African university should be established and compulsory education introduced in all the four colonies; viii. that foreign immigration should be controlled and « undesirable » Syrians repatriated; ix. that the partitioning of African countries should not be done without first consulting the wishes of the peoples concerned; x. that indigenous co-operative enterprises, to be directed by a « British West African Co-operative Association », should be promoted; xi. that a British West African Press, with an organ to be called the British West African National Review, should be established and xii. that laws that threaten « the liberty of the Press » should be repealed "

Branches of the NCWBA

The Gambia

The growth of the Gambian branch of the NCWBA came about as a result of organizers of the movement taking over an existing organization with similar aims, known as the Gambia Native Defensive Union. One of the major players of the Gambia Native Defensive Union who played a role in the development of the Gambian branch of the NCWBA was a man by the name of E. F. Small. With the aid of E.F. Small, the Gambian branch of the NCWBA was able to carry out some of the economic aims of that the NCWBA had originally set forth by creating the Gambia Co-Operative Union.

Some of the he key figures that made up the Gambian branch of the NCWBA were John A. Mahoney, M.S. Oldfield,  J. J. Oldfield, Jatta Joof, Benjamin J. George, M. S. J. Richards, S. J. Forster, Issac J. Roberts, and L. J. Roberts, who was the president of the Gambian branch.

Sierra Leone

One particularly unique aspect of the Sierra Leonean branch of the NCWBA was its duration -- outlasting the branches of the NCWBA in Ghana, Nigeria, and The Gambia by about 10 years, as the Sierra Leonean branch declined in the late 1940s.

Criticism of the Branches of the NCWBA

A common theme of dissent towards the formation of the branches of the NCWBA were claims by opposition groups, including other elite, educated Africans and the representative colonial governments, was that the local committees only represented the views of the elite and not those of the native peoples.