Chief Jeremiah Obafemi Awolowo
(Yoruba: Ọbáfẹ́mi Awólọ́wọ̀; March 6, 1909 – May 9, 1987)
Jeremiah Obafemi Awolowo (Yoruba: Ọbáfẹ́mi Awólọ́wọ̀; March 6, 1909 – May 9, 1987), commonly known as Awo and often referred to as the sage, was one of Nigeria's founding fathers.
A Yoruba and native of Ikenne in Ogun State of Nigeria, he started his career as a nationalist in the Nigerian Youth Movement
like some of his pre-independence contemporaries and was responsible
for many of the progressive social legislation that have made Nigeria a
modern nation.
After earning a Bachelor of Commerce
degree in Nigeria from a London University through correspondence, he
went to the UK where he earned a law degree from London School of Economics. While there, he founded the Egbe Omo Oduduwa, a pan-Yoruba cultural society, which set the stage for the formation of the Action Group,
a liberal and nationalist political party. As Leader of the Group, he
represented the Western Region in all the constitutional conferences
intended to advance Nigeria on the path to independence. He was the
first Leader of Government Business and Minister of Local Government and
Finance and first Premier of the Western Region under Nigeria's parliamentary system, from 1952 to 1959, and was the official Leader of the Opposition in the federal parliament to the Balewa
government from 1959 to 1963. In addition to all these, Awolowo was the
first individual in the modern era to be referred to as Leader of the
Yorubas (Yoruba:Asiwaju Omo Oodua), a title which has come over
time to be conventionally ascribed to his direct successors as the
recognised political leader of the elders and young members of the Yoruba clans of Nigeria.
Awolowo was Nigeria's foremost federalist. In his Path to Nigerian Freedom(1947)-the
first systematic federalist manifesto by a Nigerian politician-he
advocated federalism as the only basis for equitable national
integration and, as head of the Action Group, he led demands for a
federal constitution, which was introduced in the 1954 Lyttleton
Constitution, following primarily the model proposed by the Western
Region delegation led by him. As premier, he proved to be and was viewed
as a man of vision and a dynamic administrator. Awolowo was also the
country's leading social democratic politician. He supported limited public ownership and limited central planning in government. He believed that the state should channel Nigeria's resources into education and state-led infrastructural development.
Controversially, and at considerable expense, he introduced free
primary education for all in the Western Region, established the first
television service in Africa in 1959, and the Oduduwa Group, all of
which were financed from the highly lucrative cocoa industry which was
the mainstay of the regional economy.
From the eve of independence, he led the Action Group as the Leader of the Opposition at the federal parliament, leaving Samuel Ladoke Akintola
as the Western Region Premier. Serious disagreements between Awolowo
and Akintola on how to run the western region led the latter to an
alliance with the Tafawa Balewa-led NPC federal government. A
constitutional crisis led to a declaration of a state of emergency in
the Western Region, eventually resulting in a widespread breakdown of
law and order.
Excluded from national government, Awolowo and his party faced an
increasingly precarious position. Akintola's followers, angered at their
exclusion from power, formed the Nigerian National Democratic Party
(NNDP) under Akintola's leadership. Having previously suspended the
elected Western Regional Assembly, the federal government then
reconstituted the body after new elections that brought Akintola's NNDP
into power. Shortly afterwards Awolowo and several disciples were
arrested, charged, convicted and jailed for conspiring with some
Ghanaian authorities under Kwame Nkrumah
to overthrow the federal government. He was later to claim in a letter
written to General Aguiyi Ironsi in 1966, how he had been approached in
the Calabar Prison by emissaries of the government a number of times and
asked to among others dismantle his own Action Group in exchange for
his release and a deputy prime minister's position - an offer he refused The remnants of the Action Group fought the National election of 1965 in alliance with the largely and south-eastern NCNC.
Amid accusations of fraud from the NCNC-AG camp, the NPC-NNDP won the
election; the AG supporters reacted with violent riots in some parts of
the Western region. Awolowo was later freed and pardoned by the military
administration. He was much later appointed the Federal Commissioner of
Finance and Vice-President of the Federal Executive Council, by Yakubu
Gowon's military administration. This took place in the unsettled
circumstances immediately preceding the Civil War.
Awolowo pioneered free health care till the age of 18 in Nigeria in the
Western Region and also free and mandatory primary education. Although,
Awolowo failed to win the 1979 and 1983 presidential elections
of the Second Republic, he garnered the second highest number of votes
and his polices of free education and health were carried out throughout
all the states controlled by his party, the Unity Party of Nigeria.
Awolowo is remembered for his remarkable integrity, ardent
nationalism, principled and virile opposition and dogged federalistic
convictions. His party was the first to move the motion for Nigeria's
independence in the federal parliament and he obtained internal
self-government for the Western Region in 1957. He is credited with
coining the name 'naira' for the Nigerian standard monetary unit and
helped to finance the Civil War and preserve the federation without
borrowing. He built the Liberty Stadium in Ibadan, the first of its kind in Africa; established the WNTV, the first television station in Africa; erected the first skyscraper in tropical Africa: the Cocoa House (still the tallest in Ibadan) and ran a widely-respected civil service in the Western Region.
Awolowo was reputedly admired by Ghana's Kwame Nkrumah,
and some of his disciples in the South-West have continued to invoke
his name and the policies of his party, the Action Group, during
campaigns, while his welfarist
policies have influenced politicians in most of the other geopolitical
zones of the nation.He was a Senior Advocate of Nigeria and Chancellor
of the University of Ife (his brainchild) and Ahmadu Bello University.
He held many chieftaincy titles, including the Losi of Ikenne, Lisa of
Ijeun, Asiwaju of Remo, Odofin of Owo, Ajagunla of Ado-Ekiti, Apesin of
Osogbo, Odole of Ife and Obong Ikpa Isong of Ibibioland and was also
conferred with the highest national honour of Grand Commander of the
Federal Republic. Many institutions in Nigeria honoured him and some regional and national institutions are named after him, including Obafemi Awolowo University in Ile-Ife, Osun State (formerly University of Ife) and Obafemi Awolowo Stadium (formerly the Liberty Stadium). His portrait is on the ₦100 naira
note. He was also the author of several publications on the political
structure and future prospects of Nigeria, the most prominent of which
are Path to Nigerian Freedom, Thoughts on the Nigerian Constitution, and Strategies and Tactics of the People's Republic of Nigeria.
However, his most important bequests (styled Awoism) are his exemplary
integrity, his welfarism, his contributions to hastening the process of
decolonization and his consistent and reasoned advocacy of
federalism-based on ethno-linguistic self-determination and uniting
politically strong states-as the best basis for Nigerian unity. Awolowo
died peacefully at his Ikenne home, the Efunyela Hall (so named after
his mother), on May 9, 1987, at 78, amid tributes across political and
ethno-religious divides.
