The Republic

Chapter III · Power · Era I

Sir Arthur Richards (Lord Milverton)

Governor of Nigeria

← Every Government of the Republic
Tenure
1943 — 1948
Era
Late Colonial Administration (1929 — 1960)
Mode of entry
Appointed by the Crown
Mode of exit
Ennobled and recalled

Imposed the 1946 Richards Constitution — the first to introduce a federal architecture and to admit a small number of unofficial African members to the Legislative Council.

Sir Arthur Frederick Richards (1885–1978), later Baron Milverton of Lagos and Clifton, drafted and promulgated the 1946 Constitution that bears his name without consulting Nigerian opinion in any meaningful way. It nonetheless created the Regional Houses of Assembly and the unicameral Legislative Council in which Herbert Macaulay, Nnamdi Azikiwe and the NCNC organised their post-war agitation.

His tenure was marked by the Iva Valley shooting of 21 striking Enugu coal miners in November 1949 (under his successor Sir John Macpherson, but in institutions Richards built), and by the rise of organised nationalism in Lagos.

Methodology

Tier 1 · primary

Courts. Gazettes. National archives.

Tier 2 · corroborating

OCCRP. HRW. BudgIT. TheCable.

Tier 4 · tertiary, flagged

Wikipedia only where primary is pending. Always labelled.