Sir Ahmadu Bello could have become Nigeria’s first Prime Minister but chose to instead become the leader of the Northern Region, and handed over the Prime Minister’s chair to the deputy of his party, Northern People’s Congress (NPC), Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa. 

Rightly or wrongly, many Southern politicians viewed Balewa as Bello’s puppet and resented the fact that (in their opinion) the government was being ruled by proxy by a regional ruler and viewed Bello as the real power beyond “the throne”.

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This may have led the Southern politicians to have a disrespectful attitude toward Balewa.

This perception was not helped when Bello referred to Balewa as “my lieutenant in Lagos”.