 The Federation ultimately failed because of the shifting international attitudes and rising black nationalist ambitions of the late 1950s and early 1960s , often collectively called the Wind of Change . The idea of " no independence before majority rule " gained considerable ground in British political circles as the UK , France and Belgium vastly accelerated their withdrawal from the continent . Amid a flurry of bloody civil wars , military coups and other disasters , most of the new African countries became autocratic one @-@ party states within a few years . Already wary of black nationalism on racial grounds , Salisbury became increasingly antipathetic towards it as a result of these developments , particularly when the brutal Congo Crisis caused thousands of Congolese whites to become refugees in Northern and Southern Rhodesia . In 1962 , with the Federation in its constitutional death throes amid Nyasaland 's clamours for secession and immediate black rule , Federal Prime Minister Roy Welensky was horrified and outraged to be told by Britain 's Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations , Duncan Sandys , that " we British have lost the will to govern . " " But we haven 't , " retorted Julian Greenfield , Welensky 's law minister . 
