The history of voting rights in Nigeria mirrors the complexity of the nation itself. Beginning within the country's colonial period, elections in Nigeria began in 1923 by the direction of British colonial administrator Hugh Clifford through a legislative act known as the Clifford Constitution. However, reflecting the variety of people groups and distinctive cultures confined with the nation's borders, the ethnolinguistic groups and colonial authorities that dominated the northern, eastern, and western regions of Nigeria (namely, the Hausa-Fulani, Igbo, and Yoruba people respectively) often offered vastly different perceptions into suffrage qualifications— notably including differences in gender, nationality, residency, age, tax, and income requirements— in Nigeria's early years. Though the qualifications that assured voting rights eventually became standardized under the Federal Constitution of Nigeria of 1960, just as quickly as voting rights were clarified, they were wholly revoked at the onset of several military coups beginning in 1966 and lasting until 1999. Though there were intermittent republican governments, only four elections took place from 1966 to 1999. The electoral process has differed within the many of governments of Nigeria's history and their corresponding constitutions. Though women of the southern and eastern regions of the nation gained their voting rights in 1954, women of the northern region of Nigeria earned their right to vote in 1979. The suffrage movement was headed by several groups such as the Women's Movement of Nigeria and the women's wing of the Action Group. Currently, there is an ongoing struggle regarding the role of members of the diaspora in electoral processes. Though several inroads have been made in the form of bills introduced in both the House and Senate, no concrete successes have been made. Milestones of national franchise changes 1923: Adult males who accumulate a minimum income of £100 in the year preceding the election, are residents of Lagos or Calabar for at least 1 year, are above the age of 21, and are British subjects or natives of the Nigerian protectorate are granted suffrage under Clifford Constitution. 1946: Adult males who possess £50 in property, are residents of Lagos or Calabar for at least 1 year, are above the age of 21, and are British subjects or natives of the Nigerian protectorate are granted suffrage under Richards Constitution. 1951: Adult males who have paid taxes somewhere in Nigeria within the year preceding the election, have resided in the electoral area in which they wish to