MacPherson Constitution Introduced

The Nigeria (Constitution) Order in Council was signed by King George VI on 29 June 1951, giving legal force to the MacPherson Constitution, named after the Governor, Sir John Macpherson. It replaced the Richard constitution and was the first Nigerian constitution produced after wide consultation: village, divisional, provincial and regional meetings fed into the General Conference held at Ibadan in January 1950.

The constitution created a central House of Representatives, gave the three regional Houses of Assembly power to make laws on specified subjects, and brought Nigerians into a central Council of Ministers alongside British officials. Friction between the centre and the regions, the 1953 self-government motion crisis and the Kano riots exposed its limits, and it was replaced by the Lyttleton Constitution in 1954, which established a fuller federal structure.