The New P. M.

Less than a month after Queen Elizabeth II proclaimed self-government for Eastern and Western Nigeria, the tropic Federation got its first Prime Minister and installed its first all-Nigerian Cabinet in the capital of Lagos, beside the tepid green waters of the Bight of Benin.* Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, a Northern Moslem, became Nigeria's first Prime Minister. In a graceful speech opening Parliament, Balewa paid tribute to British statesmanship and the service of Christian missionaries, spoke of the "tremendous good will" that existed between Britain and Nigeria, but emphasized that he and his ministers are" "irrevocably committed" to complete independence for Nigeria's 33 millions by 1960.

Prime Minister Balewa, who wore the red ribbon of a Commander of the British Empire, pleaded for unity among Nigeria's diversified tribal unities. On hand to approve his plea were the King of Lagos, resplendent in purple robes and a helmet-shaped crown of gold beads; turbaned Alhaji Ahmadu, leader of the Northern People's Congress; and Chief Festus Okotie-Eboh, who made a spectacular entrance clad in a bright blue satin blouse, a draped skirt with a ten-yard train and a straw boater bedecked with 2-ft.-high feathers. Conspicuously absent was Eastern Leader Nnamdi ("Zik") Azikiwe, the flashy, U.S.-educated Ibo tribesman who had fancied himself rather than Balewa as the Federation's first Prime Minister.

* Lagos was best known to 19th century Britons as "the white man's grave," inspired the old couplet: "Beware and take heed of the Bight of Benin, / There few come out, where many go hi."

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