Looking critically at the trial, there was a time S.G. Ikoku accused Awolowo of gun-running. How did you view that?
Well, not only SG, who was one of Awolowo’s closest aides, but many of them betrayed him. That was one of the reasons that attracted me to support and comfort Awolowo. It was not only Ikoku. For instance, the chief prosecution witness in Awolowo’s trial was the son of one of his closest aides, Dr. Maja. The chief prosecution witness who gave graphic evidence, so to speak, of his being there, of his being part of those who were sent to Ghana to go and train and to bring in guns. So it was not only Ikoku, many of them betrayed the man.
The media at that time were not as free as you have now. The media were muzzled. There were not many newspapers and there were no magazines. I believe that the British government, if they did not instigate Awolowo’s persecution were certainly giving information to the Nigerian government, led by the northern oligarchs. Things could not be worse for Awolowo.
The only reason I can give for the British interest in the persecution of Awolowo was that, of all the national leaders in the country, Awolowo and, to some extent, Aminu Kano, posed a threat to the colonialists’ economic exploitation. Awolowo, Aminu Kano in the North and of course, his counterpart in Ghana, Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah. These three were seen as likely to derail the exploitative appetite of the colonialists.
How did you feel in court the day Awolowo delivered that moving speech when he was going to prison, especially when the judge said “My hands are tied”. Many people have termed it as a political statement. How do you interpret that?
I was in the court room. It was obvious that Justice Sowemimo was telling Awolowo that it was more than an ordinary judgment. It was a loaded statement. So everyone was telling Awolowo that Sowemimo knew Awolowo well, on a personal level, I think. Well, he couldn’t help it. You could interpret it whichever way you like but you could interpret it as, I have to do my duty under the law. Under the law you are guilty. You can also interpret it in another sense: Sir, I would not have done this but for the pressure on me. But clearly, it was more than its literal connotations.
Sapara Williams was in fact my relation; he was my older brother from my father’s side. He was one of the first lawyers, along with the Kesters. Well, my role model as a lawyer was an English Lord (and I’m sure so many lawyers will agree with me). His name is Lord Denning. He was a great lawyer and he must have inspired 10,000 x 10,000 lawyers across the world. Even in other democracies, like in the United States, they cite Denning.
Apart from being a victim of persecution at that time, did you admire his politics?
Well, I wasn’t a politician; my involvement with Awolowo started purely on legal ground and sympathy. You have to distinguish that because I was not in politics. If I were to be involved in politics, Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe was the one likely to interest me.
Why?
Because Zik himself was a pupil under my uncle. Zik cut his political teeth under two people: Dr. Herbert Macauley and my uncle, S. H. Braithwaite, my father’s brother, who was the publisher of one of the earliest newspapers, called The Advocate. So Zik was very close to my family. He told me this himself. He was very close, you know he spoke Yoruba fluently and he called me by my first name. He was a very amiable person, Dr. Azikiwe. So if I were to choose a political person between Chief Awolowo and Dr. Azikiwe, for those reasons, I would choose Azikiwe. But as I said, my attraction for Awolowo was purely because of sympathy.
When I celebrated my 70th birthday, Mama sent an emmisary, Lawyer Awoniyi, who came here and said wonderful things about my relationship with the Awolowo family.
When you formed the Nigeria Advance Party, NAP, how did Awolowo and Zik take it?
Well, Awolowo took it very very badly for the simple reason that he thought I was with him all the way till his release and after his release he set up his own practice. He later handed it over to one of his nephews, Sogbesan or Odegbesan. I remember that I gave Chief Awolowo, in his professional setting, the first brief, the first case. I invited his chambers to participate in one major case with me and while he was in the Ministry of Finance, his chambers was functioning and Odegbesan or Sogbesan would come to my chambers to brainstorm and to share brief.
He was a lecturer at the University of Lagos. When Chief Awolowo set up his chambers, he brought him out of the university. He didn’t have much experience in practice. Chief Awolowo used to send him to me and we interacted a great deal. And it went on and on until the time of his return to politics. I was very close to him. His surviving associates will testify to the fact that I was a member of Awolowo’s kitchen cabinet, so to speak. I was involved in major political decisions he took. This is why he was shocked when I formed the Nigeria Advance Party, NAP.
But the truth of the matter was that, all along, the people from the Middle Belt approached me, they came to this house. When they approached me and said we should form a party – this was in the wake of the return to politics in 1977-78 – I was not thinking of forming a political party. But these people came from the North, the Middle Belt.
They were in some form of alliance with Action Group in the First Republic. They said, what was needed in the next dispensation was just not an ordinary party but the political culture must be revolutionised and that the pre-coup political culture would be inadequate for the next dispensation. And that was a formidable proposal. In other words, they said the next politics would require someone with a revolutionary bent, someone with courage. They were thinking about their situation vis a vis the deep North, as they used to call them.
The politics of that time was dominated by the Caliphate; they called them the hegemonists. They believed that it was their natural and divine right to dominate Nigeria. This was one of the reasons Cameroun seceded; they thought that Nigerian politics was dominated by the Northern hegemonists.
So this group of people came from Middle Belt, they came to invite me to form the Nigeria Advance Party and throughout the discussions, I was reporting to Chief Awolowo, everything. Chief Awolowo told me to listen to everything they were saying. I was reporting every conversation, I was reporting everything to him faithfully because they had an alliance with his party. Joseph Tarka was jailed alongside Awolowo, but later released. As I was reporting everything to him, at some stage he warned me to be careful, maybe those people were looking for money, that I should be careful but go along and listen out. I was giving them all the papers exchanged. Politics gathered momentum.
It got to a point that relating to Awolowo was dangerous, in the sense that the powers that be, led by the Northern oligarchs, controlled the Federal Government which had the power of life and death, so to speak. Distribution of patronage was in their hands and they could arrest and detain people without trial for days. And here was I, a young lawyer – I was under 30 years – going publicly in the open to relate to this man and to the annoyance of the powers that be. I was threatened with detention.
To underscore my deep connection with Chief Awolowo, I even invited some bright, radical lawyers like Alao Aka-Bashorun and others. I took them to Chief Awolowo because Alao Aka-Bashorun was a socialist, involved with workers’ union. I took them, they were not within the Action Group but I brought them and introduced them to Awolowo and they were very happy. Later, when we formed, NAP, Aka-Bashorun told people that he could not understand Tunji; that Tunji brought them to Awolowo and then he left them there to form NAP!
I forgot to tell you this. There was one young man, Dasuki, he was a young civil servant in the Ministry of Internal Affairs. I also introduced him to Chief Awolowo. When politics was to restart, Dasuki died. He was a Sokoto Caliphate prince. He was a rallying point for some bright northern youths and I had known him in the course of my profession. His boss at the Ministry of Internal Affairs was the late Sunday Awoniyi, who was permanent secretary. We used to interact at Expatriate Quarters because there were not many expatriates in the country. This Dasuki, too, got northern boys round to support Amino Kano. I said to them: Let us do Awolowo-Aminu Kano coalition, and that it was a coalition that could help the country against the feudalists from the North.
They bought it. So I said that to Dasuki and some of his friends, including one young Colonel or Major called Ibrahim Babangida. I introduced Babangida to Awolowo.
So when eventually, out of ideals, I became convinced that we must begin the process of revolutionary change in Nigeria, then with my own resources, I founded NAP. It was a truly socialist-political party because I brought out from the universities some young, radical, socialist thinkers.
There was a bright, young man called Jide Alao who was Nigeria’s ambassador to, I think, Brazil. He was a member of the founding team. Young Turks, rugged men, I brought them together to form the truly socialist political party called NAP. It was too much for the military junta. It was perceived by the military as dangerous, so they refused us registration. Instead, they registered the parties from the old governments because they believed they could manipulate the older ones into obedience.
In spite of the non-registration, we continued until we got registration in 1982 under the civilian regime. And that was how I contested. Chief Awolowo found me across the table whenever political parties had to meet. But he took it in good stride. You know, he got over the initial shock and then he said, ‘Well, you know Tunji is too idealistic.’ So that’s that.
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