By Kayode Ketefe
Tomorrow, March 6, 2015, is
the 106th posthumous birthday anniversary of one of Africa’s greatest
politicians and arguably Nigeria’s best known political avatar, Chief Jeremiah
Obafemi Awolowo, who died on May 9, 1987. He lived a lifetime packed with tremendous
accomplishments and left exemplary legacies.
It just occurred to me that
at the very point in time in our political journey towards an enduring
democratic civilisation, the present politicians, most importantly, the two
major contestants for presidential office, the incumbent President Goodluck
Jonathan and General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.) will do well to reflect on the life and
times of Awo.
The few summary of Awolowo
I am giving here underscored invaluable virtues which made the late icon such a
political legend and from which our present leaders can learn.
Imaginative ideas, quality
thinking, uncanny vision, political sagacity and lateral strategising
underlined Awo’s political life. He had no equal among his contemporaries.
Unlike many of the present
day politicians who regard power as self-serving, the first premier of Western
Region and first post-independence Federal Opposition Leader had the correct
perspective of the concept of power. He understood it as a means to an end. His
welfarist policy was unexcelled.
What made this remarkable
was that the level of literacy then was far below what obtains today and it was
easier to be selfish and corrupt without detection then than now. But ‘the
sage’ believed that the purpose of governance was for the promotion of the
welfare and happiness of the people.
He believed that power
flowed from the people and that a social contract existed between the leaders
and people which must be fulfilled. Awo was a man possessed of intense passion
for the betterment of his people and he energetically pursued this with
unwavering conviction, translating the ideas into concrete indelible
achievements we can all see even today.
As Premier of Western
Region between 1954 and 1959, he launched free health care for all till the age
of 18, while his famous mandatory free primary education was so hugely
successful that the Western Region became the most literate of the regions in
the Nigerian federation.
The ascendancy of the
Yoruba people today in the areas of education, commerce, arts and the attendant
sociocultural advancement, emanated from Awo’s visionary leadership in the
region.
Convinced of the powers of
information as a veritable tool for education, entertainment and social
advancement, Awo established the first African television station, the Western
Nigerian Television in 1959.
So novel was that feat that
it was reported that some political leaders of newly independent African
countries made “curiosity pilgrimage” to Ibadan, the capital of Western
Nigeria, just to see the television!
It was Awolowo’s blueprints
that led to the emergence of Africa’s first conglomerate, the Oodua Group of
Companies in 1962; founding of the University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo
University) also in 1962, Liberty Stadium (1960) and Cocoa House – then the
tallest building in tropical Africa – in 1965. Through progressive social
engineering and strategic policies, Awolowo government changed the profile of
Western Region forever.
It was in recognition of
his superlative accomplishments that the people of the region formally
installed him as ‘Asiwaju’ (forerunner), thus becoming the second person after
the great Oduduwa, progenitor of the Yoruba race, to be so acknowledged!
A visionary with
penetrative insight and remarkable sagacity, the deceased Yoruba leader would
look at issue beyond the apparent and make pronouncements that invariably
turned out to be prophetic. A case in point was the warning he gave to Alhaji
Shehu Shagari government in 1981 about the way the Nigerian economy was being
run.
He had then warned that the
ship of the Nigerian state was heading for the rock. The potentates in that
government tagged him a ‘prophet of doom’! Two years after the prophetic
statement the Nigerian economy nosedived; the ship of the state tottered
precariously, leading ultimately to a military putsch that swept Shagari out of
power on December 31, 1983.
Today, it is very sad that
a nation that has produced the likes of Awo is brimming mostly with selfish
politicians who are only interested in self-enrichment, evincing egoism, deceit
and callousness.
The leaders are regaling
themselves with state-of-the-art luxuries while the national minimum wage
for famished workers remained a paltry N18, 000 and all human development
indices sliding.
No wonder a bill which
would empower the Federal Government to make some “survival allowance”
available for the teeming unemployed Nigerians as a welfarist gesture was shot
down without much ado by the lawmakers.
In Yorubaland today, most
of the region’s politicians are fond of using Awo’s goodwill as a launching pad
for political relevance only for a good number of them ending up betraying the
tenets of ‘Awoism’, as Awolowo’s ideology is known.
Let any President that
emerges in the March 28 presidential poll imbibe welfarist policies,
developmental politicking and people-focused political economy of late Papa Awo
and it would be well with Nigeria.
Ketefe may followed on twitter @Kestesco
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