THE GOOD AND EVILS OF OBAFEMI AWOLOWO IN THE POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT OF NIGERIA: ROLAND UWAKWE C

Obafemi Awolowo is no doubt one of the greatest leaders in the political landscape of Nigeria who precipitated the development of the Yoruba ethnic group. He is a learned gentleman whose intellectual works I personally enjoy reading. He was also one of the dramatic personnel of pre and post Nigeria civil war, whose idea led to the death of thousands of fellow countrymen and women. If we were in the dark ages when kingdoms subdued kingdoms to assert their dominance within a certain geographical location, Obafemi Awolowo would have been the greatest of all the leaders in Nigeria but in modern societies where unity is the bases for development, he certainly will be a villain, albeit he is the hero of the Yoruba ethnic group and nobody attacks him without invoking their anger. Irrespective of that, the truth must be told because we must know what brought us to the where we are, so as not to make the mistake of the past in our quest to build a united nation.

Obafemi Awolowo laid a solid foundation for the educational development of the Western Region at a time when his mates were busy struggling for dominance at the national level, he understood that development starts from the grass root and that education was the only way to maintain generational chain of leadership, thus he gave free and qualitative education to his people, which paved the way for the progress of the Western region. The result of this is that as at today, the region records the highest number of Universities in Nigeria.  In the Accounting Profession, the Western region has the highest number of Chartered Accountants in Nigeria; the same also goes to the legal profession where they record the highest volume of Senior Advocates of Nigeria.

Again, as the Minister of Finance in the post civil war era, Awo by his policy showed he loved the Yoruba tribe. He laid the foundation for indigenization policy (though it was Murtala/Obasanjo regime that implemented it) which saw to the ownership of most companies by Nigerians at a time when the average person from the east was still managing the 20 pounds policy of his government, again it was the Yoruba’s that bought the shares of these companies because the Hausa’s were only interested in political power and were also not educated enough to understand the implication of the purchase of those shares. The resultant effect of this is that today the Yoruba people own 60 percent of shares in most Nigerian companies.

Above all these, Awo was the one who brought tribalism in Nigeria politics, a point of departure was when Nnamdi Azikiwe won an election in the Western house, which was a remarkable development for an emerging nation, Awo connived with some elements with tribal sentiments to take the seat away from him, again Zik stupidly went back to the East and took power from Eyo-Atta, a man from Uyo, this single act brought enmity between the Igbo’s and their Neighbours.

The average conscious Igbo man has continued to see Obafemi Awolowo an enemy of the Igbo nation because of the role he played during the Nigeria civil war. For instance as a result of the Western Region crisis and the events of the early 60’s, Awolowo was arrested and kept in prison somewhere in northern region. However when information came that some persons wanted to killed him, he was thereafter transferred to Calabar prison which was under the eastern region and because of the pogrom and the killing of the Igbo’s in the north, Chukwuemeka Ojukwu who was the Governor of the Eastern Region had a parley with Awo that he should be released. The condition was that Awo will go and back and declare the Oduduwa nation while Ojukwu declares an independent state of Biafra. Awo reneged; he went back and became part of the instrument that fought on the Nigerian side.

At the middle of the war, Gowon was very sympathetic to the Igbo’s owing to the fact that he believed that Nigerians were fighting their brothers, in fact Gowon was unaware of most of the atrocities that was committed by the Generals in the war front, hence it was the same Awolowo, a  learned gentleman who against the rules of engagements during wars that asked Gowon to block the means through which food came to Biafra side, thus majority of Biafran children and women died as a result of hunger and starvation.

In bid to keep the Igbo people perpetually poor, as the Minister of Finance, Awo introduced a policy that gave the Igbo people 20 pounds, no matter the amount of money they had in their bank accounts during and after the war. As we mentioned elsewhere in this work, it was after this, that the government introduced the indigenization degree which gave Nigerians the opportunity to own majority of the shares in the nation’s companies.

One very important point to make is it that among all Nigerian politicians Awo seems to be the best, because if other leaders were passionate about their regions like Awo, Nigeria will not have been in the present condition of despondency, as least every region would have developed evenly. The position is that as at today we no longer have national and tribal leaders, what we see at best are individuals who think about themselves, their families and maybe some times their relatives. However, it is better to have leaders who are nationalist rather than men like Obafemi Awolowo in a country like Nigeria.
PHOTO CREDIT:INTERNET