Before the elections were held, Action Group & NCNC were making conflicting claims on the membership of the candidates.
In an action to set the records straight, Mr. Harold Cooper, the Government Public Relations Officer, wrote to the parties to furnish a list of the candidates contesting election on their platforms.
Only the Action Group complied with this request and its list of candidates was as follows: Ijebu Remo Division – Obafemi Awolowo and M.S.
Lebi, CA Tewe and SO Tubo; Epe Division – SL Edu, AB Gbajumo, Obafemi Ajayi and C.A.
Odunjo, Alhaji A.T. Ahmed, CPA Cole, Rev S.A. Daramola, Akintoye Tejuoso, SB Sobande, IO Delano and A Adedamola.
Familoni, S.A. Okeya and D Atolagbe; Owo Division – Michael Adekunle Ajasin, A.O.
At the close of polls on 24 September 1951, the Action Group had won 38 of the 72 seats in contention in the Regional Assembly.
SA Adeyefa and SO Olagbaju; Owo – AO Ogedengbe and RA Olusa; Epe – Safi Lawal Edu; Okitipupa – C.A.
At the end of poll, the standing of the parties was as follows: Action Group 38; NCNC/Independents 25; IPP 6 and Ondo Improvement League 2.
The three AG secretaries who had run as independents – Adegbenro, Osuntokun and Hassan, five IPP members, one Etu Edo, and one Ondo Improvement League, Chief F.O.
Awosika; and Chief Timothy Adeola Odutola (Independent, Ijebu Ode) had swollen the number of the AG elected members.
For over a half century, the NCNC is yet to provide evidence to back its claim that it had won the West Regional election in 1951.
Mr Cooper absolved his department of responsibility for the controversy generated by the NCNC after the election.
At a post election news conference in Lagos he said that "Of the winning candidates, the names of 38 were on the list sent to me by the Action Group.
No claim of any kind had reached us about the party affiliation of the remaining successful candidates."
The records of the poll conducted in the West and all over Nigeria by the colonial administration are available at the National Archives and can be accessed by any honest researcher.
Its prescription of Devolution of powers & a Federal system of gov6was what endeared it to the polity, as well as its programme on education, health & infrastructural deficit developments.
The Ibadan electorate did not take kindly to the defection of its elected representatives on the platform of IPP to the Action Group.
In Ibadan, the capital city of the Western Region, the ruling party AG secured just one out of the five federal seats up for grabs.
The loathing of the AG by the Ibadan electorate was further demonstrated in the regional elections, which was held on May 26, 1956.
The battle lines had been drawn; the ensuing mayhem and ruthless machinations that encapsulated the Ibadan political scene, degenerated and continued to spiral out of control until 1966, when the military seized control of the government, and banned all political parties in Nigeria.