The National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC) later changed to the National Convention of Nigerian Citizens, was a Nigerian nationalist political party from 1944 to 1966, during the period leading up to independence and immediately following independence. Foundation The National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons was formed in 1944 by Herbert Macaulay. Herbert Macaulay was its first president, while Azikiwe was its first secretary. The NCNC was made up of a rather long list of nationalist parties, cultural associations, and labor movements that joined to form NCNC. The party at the time was the second to take a concerted effort to create a true nationalist party. It embraced different sets of groups from the religious, to tribal and to trade groups with the exception of a few notable ones such as the Egbe Omo Oduduwa and early on the Nigerian Union of Teachers. Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe became its 2nd president and Dr. M.I. Okpara, its 3rd president, when Dr. Azikiwe went on to become the first indigenous President of Nigeria. The party is considered to be the third prominent political party formed in Nigeria after a Lagos-based party, the Nigerian National Democratic Party and the Nigerian Youth Movement formed by Professor Eyo Ita who became the Deputy National President of NCNC before he left the party to form his own political party called the National Independence Party. The NCNC was primarily associated with the Igbo. Pre-independence The first test of the party came in the 1951 election. The party won majority votes in the Eastern Region of Nigeria's House of Assembly but became the opposition in the western region with Azikiwe as the opposition leader representing Lagos. Although the Action Group (AG) won a plurality of the votes in the election, its prospects were uncertain as the NCNC could have secured a majority if it had been able to persuade the third party, which was an Ibadan community party and which had been viewed by the NCNC as its ally, to support it. This it was not able to achieve and the AG therefore formed the government amid accusations of carpet-crossing by Azikiwe and his NCNC. This event is still viewed by some historiographers as the beginning of ethnic politics in Nigeria. Azikiwe later on became the Premier of Eastern Region, Nigeria in 1954. During a national conference in 1954, the party opposed a call to include