Hubert Maga
Hubert Coutoucou Maga was a politician from Dahomey. Born a peasant in 1916, Maga served as a schoolmaster from 1936 to 1945, during which time he gradually gained considerable influence among the uneducated. He rose to power despite regionalist politics in Dahomey, and was elected to Dahomey's territorial assembly in 1947 and founded the Northern Ethnical Group, later renamed the Dahomey Democratic Rally. In 1951, Maga was elected to the French National Assembly, where he served in various positions, including premier from 1959 to 1960. When Dahomey gained its independence from France on August 1, 1960, Maga was appointed to the presidency, and was officially elected to that post on December 11.
During Maga's term of office, Dahomey's economy collapsed; there was little foreign investment and unemployment rose. In response, he launched a four-year plan in January 1962, the basis of which was to increase agricultural production by forcing the nation's youths to work on the land. Maga also faced a national crisis of unity, culminating in a failed assassination plot against him in May 1961 led by the main opposition leader, Justin Ahomadegbé-Tomêtin. Ahomadegbé-Tomêtin was jailed, and by the time of his release in November 1962, a one-party state had been established and the opposition press had been restricted. In 1963, convicted murderer Christophe Bokhiri was released from prison, prompting riots around the country, but the focus of the rioting soon shifted toward Maga's problems as president. The riots became so serious that the Chief of Staff of the Dahomeyan Army, Christophe Soglo, took control of the country in October to prevent a civil war. After forcing Maga to resign, Soglo gave him, Ahomadégbé-Tomêtin, and vice president Sourou Migan Apithy, the titles of Minister of State.
Shortly afterwards, Maga was convicted of plotting to assassinate Soglo and of corruption, for which he was incarcerated. Following his release in 1965, he took refuge in Togo before moving to Paris. In 1970, he returned to Dahomey to serve as head of a rotating three-man Presidential Council, which included Ahomadegbé-Tomêtin and Apithy. On October 26, 1972, Mathieu Kérékou was installed by a coup, overthrowing then-chairman Ahomadegbé-Tomêtin. Maga and the other members of the council were imprisoned until 1981. Maga retired from public life after his release, only making an appearance at the National Conference of 1990, which gave amnesty to all Beninese political refugees. He died on May 8, 2000.
Education and teaching career
Maga was born on August 10 or August 19, 1916 to a peasant family in Parakou, northern Dahomey. Maga claimed he was a descendant of the Kingdom of Bourgou's royal family. His Bariba mother and Voltaic father raised him in the Islamic faith.His education began at Parakou, where his teacher was Emile Derlin Zinsou's father, followed by schools in Bohicon and Abomey. Maga moved to Porto Novo to be educated at the Victor Ballot School, where he remained for three years. During his subsequent schooling at the Ponty Normal School in Dakar, Maga became friends with Hamani Diori, the future president of Niger.
In his twenties Maga converted to Roman Catholicism which, according to journalist Ronald Matthews, "was not so common for a northerner". He became a teacher at Natitingou in 1935. In 1939, he married a fellow Christian, a nurse by profession, and the daughter of a prominent Brazilian of Fon origins from Ouidah.
Marriages between northern and southern Dahomeyans were uncommon at the time.
Maga was appointed director of the school in 1945. Along with his new wife, he began to increase his influence among uneducated citizens. He worked for trade unions after World War II, and led the Syndicat des instituteurs du Dahomey.
Political background
Maga's rise to power occurred during a period of intense regionalism, spurred by the historical resentment shared by members of the former kingdoms of Abomey, Porto Novo, and disorganised tribes from the north. Its result was the creation of three de facto tribal zones: the north, southeast, and southwest, which were led by Maga, Sourou Migan Apithy, and Justin Ahomadégbé-Tomêtin, respectively. Maga's Ethnic Group of the North, which merged into the Dahomeyan Democratic Rally in 1957, received little support outside his northern headquarters. Even then, most of his backing came from the Bariba, while Apithy was mostly backed by the Yoruba and Ahomadégbé-Tomêtin, the Fon and Gouns. Regionalistic attitudes would only intensify during the rest of the political careers of the three men, collectively known as Dahomey's triumvirate.Early political career
Maga was elected a general adviser for the Atakora region in 1945, and, two years later, was appointed to the Grand Council of French West Africa, in which he served until 1952. Following his election to the Dahomey General Council in 1947, Maga resigned his teaching post. He subsequently became vice president of the assembly until his resignation in 1957.Roger Peperty, the French chef de cercle of Natitingou and a close acquaintance, encouraged Maga to form an alliance among northerners in early 1949. He wrote in a political report later that year:
He feared that Maga would lean "toward the R.D.A.
In the legislative elections of June 17, 1951, when Dahomey was allowed an additional representative in the French National Assembly, Maga ran for that office. The fact that two seats were allotted to Dahomey was only known in the last week of April. As per a May 1951 electoral law, each party list was required to include two candidates for the two seats, and the candidates whose names appeared first on the two lists receiving the most votes were elected. Maga decided to run with René Deroux, an African medical officer. Capitalising on growing cynicism regarding southern Dahomey dominating the French colony's politics, he allied himself with the northern tribes.
The May 1951 law also enlarged the electorate from 61,958 to 333,693. Some dead people were even counted as electors due to the mishandling of election cards. The Cotonou newspaper L'Etoile du Dahomey noted a man who gave an unlimited number of cards as long as they promised to vote for Maga's main opponent, accountant and deputy Sourou-Migan Apithy. Altogether, however, only 44% of the population voted on election day. Apithy was reelected a deputy with 53,463 votes out of 147,350 cast, while Maga captured the second seat with 49,329 and third candidate Emile Derlin Zinsou received a mere 18,410 ballots. Several smaller parties hosted several other candidates, which received the rest of the votes. Only 0.5 percent of Maga's votes came from the coastal region, while 98 percent came from northern towns and villages. The 1951 election has been cited as when regionalist parties arose, and it was the first whose pamphlets mentioned ethnicity.
Deputy to the French National Assembly
In Paris, Maga affiliated himself with the Overseas Independents, a political organization led by Leopold Sedar Senghor of Senegal. However, he was not an ardent supporter of this organization; this lack of commitment was typical of Maga in the following years. He was named the secretary of the Finance Committee, a member of the committee on national education, and a member of the committee on parliamentary privileges. During his first term in the Assembly, he accomplished little apart from proposing a bill on May 13, 1954, that concerned the election of counselors of the Republic from its overseas territories and Trust Territories. With the support of his new party, Maga ran for the renewal of his mandate at the legislative elections held on January 2, 1956. Standing for an "active federalism within the French union", Maga chose Gaustin Gbaguidi as his running mate. Of the 179,119 votes cast, Maga won 60,601 and Apithy won 64,344.Later that year, he resigned from his position on the Grand Council of French West Africa. Shortly afterwards, Maga became a member of the committees on national education and on justice and legislation, and was named Secretary of the Assemblée on January 25, 1956. When Félix Gaillard became Prime Minister of France in November 1957, he appointed Maga to the position of Secretary of State of Labor, a post he served in until the end of the Gaillard ministry on April 15, 1958.
Before the territorial elections of 1959, Maga agreed that the R.D.D. would field candidates only in the north of the country if in return Apithy's Republican Party of Dahomey ran only in the south. The result of the elections was that the P.R.D. received 37 seats with 144,038 votes, the R.D.D. received 22 seats with 62,132 votes, and Justin Ahomadégbé-Tomêtin's Dahomey Democratic Union received 11 deputies for its 162,179 votes. What followed was described by Matthews as "an immediate explosion". Supporters of Ahomadégbé-Tomêtin took to the streets in rioting so severe that French soldiers were called in to restore order. Following mediation by Félix Houphouët-Boigny, Apithy and Ahomadégbé-Tomêtin agreed to divide between them 18 contested seats in a southwest constituency. However, Ahomadégbé-Tomêtin made it clear that he would not agree to let Apithy retain the office of Prime Minister of Dahomey. Maga was chosen as a compromise for the premiership, and was voted into this post on May 22, 1959.
Premier of Dahomey
Maga's election coincided with a collapse of the colonial economy. There was little foreign investment in the country, and unemployment was rising. He thus felt that a consultation with the trade unions was necessary before selecting a Minister of Labor, and eventually appointed Paul Darboux to the office. Although Apithy wanted to return to his former position as Prime Minister, he was instead appointed Minister of State without responsibility for any specific department.In his policy speech upon receiving the premiership, Maga asked his fellow Dahomeyans to end the tribalism that had characterised his country's politics. He appealed for unity among Apithy and Ahomadégbé-Tomêtin supporters and encouraged investments into the economy. Foreign affairs dominated Maga's first months in office, but at home the desire for an independent Dahomey was mounting. Apithy announced on September 2, 1959, that he would remove all P.R.D. deputies from the government if Maga did not establish referendums on Dahomey's political status. Maga reacted by dismissing Apithy from his cabinet on September 18, and warning P.R.D. deputies that the same would happen to any of them who opposed him on the matter.
Nevertheless, a referendum on independence for Dahomey was held on September 28. It offered Dahomeyans three choices regarding the preferred political status: become a French département, join the French community and become a semi-autonomous state, or obtain full independence. The Dahomeyan people chose the second option, semi-autonomy, and full independence was scheduled for 1960. The premier announced on January 1, that:
Popular opinion was soon behind Maga instead of Apithy. Maga began to form an alliance with Ahomadegbé-Tomêtin, especially after Apithy voted in favor of joining the short-lived Mali Federation, an idea that Maga opposed. In response, the premier added more U.D.D. deputies to his government in a January 1960 cabinet reshuffle. However, they became more vocal in trying to take over Dahomey. Maga began to ally with Chabi Mama and Arouna Mama, who became his closest colleagues.
On August 1, 1960, Maga traveled to Paris to discuss Dahomey's political future with Houphouët-Boigny. Following their negotiations, Dahomey was granted its independence. On Maga's return to his home country on June 13, he claimed that he had personally requested autonomy. Maga was chosen as Dahoomey's first president.