Peer, predecessor or successor, the unequivocal articulation of a clear and consistent political ideology by Awolowo places him above anyone else in Nigeria’s political history.
‘For upwards of 30 years, I have been in politics in Nigeria; during this period, I have operated in various important theatres in the life of this great Federation. I have, with others, fought against British imperialism with all my might, and with all the talents that it pleased God to give me… I have also fought against anything which savours of injustice. It is thus an irony of history that, as one of the architects of Nigeria’s independence, I have spent almost half of Nigeria’s three years of independence under one form of confinement or another.’
— Obafemi Awolowo, September 11, 1963
When, in September 1963, Chief Obafemi Awolowo stood up to address Justice George Sodeinde Sowemimo of the Federal High Court in Lagos, he made three gloomy predictions about what his criminal conviction might portend for the Nigerian polity. First, he said Nigeria would lose his ‘invaluable services’, at least for the period of his incarceration. Second, that his incarceration would heighten political tension and impact negatively on the country’s economy. His final prediction was tinged with his characteristic optimism: that though ‘the present twilight of democracy, personal freedom and the rule of law’ was a harbinger of ‘utter darkness’, it was—as all nights are—also a prelude to a ‘glorious dawn’. Delivered in the lucid, soaring prose typical of him, this was both Awolowo’s denial of the charge of treasonable felony levelled at him by the federal government and the testament of a man fully convinced that he still had a role to play in determining Nigeria’s destiny. In the end, Awolowo was found guilty and handed a ten-year sentence.
Awolowo’s sentence was the climax of a series of events that began when he resigned his post as premier of Nigeria’s Western Region to stand for election into the Federal House of Representatives in 1959. A coalition between the Northern People’s Congress and the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons, ruling parties in the North and East respectively, edged the Action Group, Awolowo’s party, out of the federal calculus. Awolowo opted to remain Leader of the Opposition in parliament.
This story is available paywall-free. Simply register or log-in.