USA Africa Dialogue Series - 2015: Present politicians and Awolowo's paradigm

2015: Present politicians and Awolowo's paradigm

KAYODE KETEFE

A senior colleague recently lent me a copy of the Chief Obafemi Awolowo's famous book, "Path to Nigerian freedom"s which was published in 1947. Although I had read the book many years ago, I reread it this time with great satisfaction, trying to extrapolate, infer, analyse and juxtapose the ingenious projections of the legendary Awolowo with actual historical, and more especially, contemporary affairs. Chief Awolowo was not called a visionary for nothing! if we had kept to his paradigm for Nigeria, the situation of the country would most probably have been happier. My object n this piece is to hold up Awolowo, his philosophies and all the principles he stood for against the practices of most of the politicians strutting the political landscape today.
As we approach 2015 general elections, there is no gainsaying the fact that most of our politicians have a lot of things to learn from the great chief's philosophies and standards. Papa Awo was one of Africa's greatest politicians and arguably Nigeria's best known political avatar. He lived a lifetime packed with tremendous accomplishments and left exemplary legacies.
Imaginative ideas, quality thinking, uncanny vision, political sagacity and lateral strategising underlined Awo's political life. He had no equal among his contemporaries.
The sobriquet "the sage", which was bestowed on him in his later years, is the summation of the virtues and attributes people had seen in him.
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.
It is even sadder that in Yorubaland today, many politcians freely use Awo's goodwill as a launching pad for political relevance only to end up betraying the tenets of 'Awoism', as Awolowo's ideology is known.
Who among our politicians today are dedicated to late sage's welfarist policies, developmental politicking and people-focused political economy? Will Nigeria ever produce leaders like Chief Obafemi Awolowo again?










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