Nyasaland almost universal rejection of Federation. Finally, it suggested that the British government should negotiate with African leaders on the country's constitutional future. The Devlin Commission's report is the only example of a British judge examining whether the actions of a colonial administration in suppressing dissent were appropriate. Devlin's conclusions that excessive force was used and that Nyasaland was a "police state" caused political uproar. His report was largely rejected and the state of emergency lasted until June 1960. At first, the British government tried to calm the situation by nominating additional African members (who were not Malawi Congress Party supporters)
Nyasaland Emergency 1959 a list, originally prepared in June, of those to be arrested if a State of Emergency were declared. The Colonial Office's rejection of Armitage's very limited proposals for reform and, from late October, increasingly aggressive Congress demonstrations directed against Europeans and Asians and intimidation of African opponents increased tensions. At the end of 1958, Banda and other Congress leader attended an All-African People's Conference in Accra, in recently-independent Ghana and they returned to Nyasaland determined to press for constitutional change When the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland was set up in 1953, provision had been made for the Federal constitution