Chief Obafemi Jeremiah Oyeniyi Awolowo -By Benjamin Obiajulu Aduba

Chief Obafemi Awolowo (Awo going forward) has been described as the best president Nigeria never had. This description could be true in one sense and not true in another sense. It will be true since Nigeria never had him as president. In other words it is a statement of fact literally. If as his worshipers mean that he would have been a wonderful Nigerian leader, one can say that the facts belie the statement.

In the first instance Awo was never a Nigerian national leader. He was a regional leader and his peers were Ahmadu Bello, the Sarduana of Sokoto, Premier of the North, Michael Okpara, Premier of the East and Dennis Osadebe Premier of the Midwest. The national leaders were Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, President of Nigeria, Sir Tafewa Balewa, Prime Minister of Nigeria and others like Hebert Macaulay the founder of the National Council of Nigeria and Cameroons (NCNC). Please note that all this national leaders are/were associated with a notional affairs.

Whereas Macaulay founded a national party with Nigeria and Cameroon outlook, Awo founded Egbe Omo Oduduwa, a tribal party not really even a Western Nigerian Party. In NCNC you had leaders like Zik as General Secretary, TOS Benson, and other stalwarts from all the regions, Egbe Omo Oduduwa was not open to all Nigerians who were not the descendants of Oduduwa. And even when the party transformed to Action Group, it still did not attract fellow Nigerians until a decade later when Mr. Enahoro (an Edo Nigerian) became the General Secretary. And much later when Sam Ikoku (an Igbo Nigerian took over from Enahoro).

As premier, Awo performed as well as his other regional peers. Some of his worshipers could say that he performed better but that is sustainable in the sense that he was usually the first to do things such as free education, WNTV, etc. But others eventually got to it. We had ENTV, free education in Eastern Nigeria and in the north there was the TV (initially called Radio Kaduna) and free education.

Other regions had their own firsts also. Zik built the first national university in Nigeria called University of Nigeria Nsukka (UNN).Awo followed up with University of Ife. It is noteworthy that Zik, as he was wont to do, named his University of Nigeria and Awo name his University of Ife, the home of the Yoruba.

The name is not the only difference. At UNN there were heads of departments and full professor from many ethnic nationalities in Nigeria and throughout West Africa. At Ife one did not see such diversity. And when it became popular to name universities after their founders Ife became Obafemi Awolowo University and Zaria became Ahmadu Bello University. But UNN remained UNN. Mr. Jim Nwobodo of old Anambra state had to build one from the scratch to be named Nnamdi Azikiwe University because Zik would not have his Nigerian university dedicated to him personally.

One can go on and talk about many other things like the newspapers founded by Zik (national) and the ones founded by Awo (local) or places lived, Zik (Zungeru, North, Lagos, (West) Enugu (East). Awo lived only in the west (except for a brief time as a prisoner in the East) and spoke just Yoruba.

It is hard to explain why Awo merely just focused on his Western Nigeria. What makes it even harder is that when he left the West to be part of the National government, he did not really leave. He did not let Samuel Ladoke Akintola be the premier of the West, he spent an infinite deal of time undermining him such that Akintola could not compete with Ahmadu Bello in the North or Michael Okpara in the East.

This brings us to the fundamental character flaw of Awo’s: he did not want another shining star in his firmament. Anybody familiar with Nigeria history knows that Bello allowed Balewa to shine, that Zik allowed Okpara to shine and such a historian can name many NCNC stalwarts and APC ones. How many people will remember such names as Ikoku or even Enahoro of Action Group? It was just Awo and nobody else.

Chief Obafemi Awolowo will be remembered nationally for two things:

He organized the first forceful takeover of the federal government in a coup plot for which he was tried, convicted and jailed.

He was primarily responsible for the starvation of 3.5 million dead Biafrans, an act he could have denied and blamed President Gowon for, but he accepted that it was his initiative, because he must be the single shining star and perhaps to make Biafrans know who their tormentor is/was.

This essay is not meant to undermine Chief Obafemi Jeremiah Oyeniyi Awolowo’s achievements for he was a great regional leader. It is meant to restate the facts which his worshipers seem to have forgotten. It is meant to debunk the notion that Awo was a national leader and possibly the best president Nigeria could have.

Nothing is further from the truth.

Benjamin Obiajulu Aduba
Boston, Massachusetts