In spite of welding the Nigerian regions together in 1914, it may be argued that the British Government never lived under the illusion that a country having such a vast land mass and consisting of ethnic nationalities with disparate backgrounds, languages and cultures could live under a centralized government for long. It was thus that the then Governor of colonial Nigeria, Sir Arthur Richards, broached somewhat obliquely the issue of federalism before the proclamation of the Richards Constitution of 1946: “To create a political system … within which the diverse elements, may progress at varying speeds, amicably and smoothly, towards a more closely integrated economic, social and political unity, without sacrificing the principles and ideals in their divergent ways of life.”
https://independent.ng/the-cla....mour-for-true-federa
