Obafemi, HID and one of their grandchildren

In their future together, Hannah’s ability to take care of the home front not only when her husband was very busy in public life, but also when he was away (in detention or prison) would be critical not only to his psychological health and happiness, but also to the survival and stability of the family.

Obafemi Awolowo was called to the Bar in London on November 18, 1946, as member of the Honourable Society of the Inner Temple. He returned to Nigeria the next year to the embrace of his wife and four children, Olusegun, Omotola, Oluwole and Ayodele, the last of which was born while he was away on December 29, 1944. Tokunbo, was born after his return on February 20, 1948….

By the time Ayodele and Tokunbo were ready to travel to the UK to study, Awolowo was already in jail. Therefore, Hannah was responsible for most of their expenses, while coping with the emotional, social and financial consequences of her husband’s incarceration.

But she didn’t approach taking care of the home and her children as spending “my money.” She explains that “(s)ince we have agreed that whatever we have, we have it together,” whether it was herself or her husband spending money on the family, either was only spending mutually-owned resources. Her fierce loyalty to her husband, which became increasingly evident over the years, even after his death, meant that she regarded her life and possessions as all in the service of her soul-mate.

Chief Obafemi Awolowo coming out of the Black Maria (A black prison van used to transport prisoners) on his way to the High Court in Lagos to answe

As the wife of the Premier, Hannah, as the premier’s wife, was a model of modesty and decency. She took care of the home and concentrated on her business while doing her part to entertain guests and complement her husband during official events. She was conscious of the fact that as a wife of a man in such a strategic position, her conduct must be above board, because people were eager to attribute the failure of her husband to her – while they didn’t attribute his success to the wife. Therefore, she was guided by what she thought a woman in her position should embody.

Odia Ofeimun, poet and public intellectual, who was Awolowo’s private secretary in the Second Republic, says “One of the first things I noticed was that if she and her husband were travelling, Mama would be ready at least an hour plus in advance, waiting by the car or in the car, by the foyer. I had to ask her, ‘you know, Mama, many husbands have to wait for their wives to do such things?’”

“And she explained it to me in such a simple way. She knew her husband was going to be a politician and usually women constitute some kind of obstacles, but she vowed that she will never be the reason for her husband not doing what he had to do. If they had to travel together, she stood by the car and waited for her husband, her husband never had to wait for her. It is a rare woman who organizes herself in such a way because as she is sitting down there by the car, she gives instructions on what is to be done, how to manage the shop,” explains Ofeimun

Hannah also supported her husband morally and financially. Their houses in Ibadan and Ikenne were not places of influence peddling for her. On the contrary, she gladly fed the people, both the distinguished and the hoi polloi, who visited constantly.
“I supported him wholeheartedly,” she says with a sense of fulfilment twenty-eight years after his demise.

She stood unflinchingly by his side for almost fifty years. Hannah’s attentiveness to, or attentive courtesy concerning, the demands and needs of her husband are almost mythical. Hannah Dideolu constantly replenished Obafemi Jeremiah. At the same time, she was a powerful influence on him in many ways. She managed the gulf between Obafemi Awolowo’s public ambitions and his private obligations and stabilized things when the one threatened to challenge the other. Therefore, he could not have succeeded in his public ambitions if she didn’t help to manage and maintain his private obligations. This was what he attested to in his autobiography where he credits her with making their home “a true haven: a place of happiness, and of imperturbable seclusion from the buffetings of life.”

“Mama played a very significant role in papa’s life,” is how Abimbola Awofeso, Obafemi Awolowo’s nephew, describes their relationship. “She was more than a pillar. She was very loyal; she gave papa peace of mind.”

Indeed, while Obafemi Awolowo may have instilled in himself an uncompromising conviction regarding his own potential greatness – which he describes in his memoir as his “great and immortal role” – undoubtedly, it was Hannah, with her abiding fortitude, exceptional devotion, constant encouragement, industry and above all, transcendental love, that pressed Awolowo, without any hesitation, towards, and sustained him in his, greatness. She was the first to identify and nurture Awolowo’s potentials with enthralling care, shrewd awareness and helpful goading. Therefore, when he called her an “ideal wife” and “a jewel of inestimable value” in his autobiography, it was only to capture what he later explained as her “outpouring of her love and devotion” which were, and remain, “beyond words.” The “Grace of God” and his “Spartan self-discipline” added to “a good wife,” confesses the man who is popularly called “the Sage,” were the three factors responsible for his remarkable life.

Dancing time: (L-R in front row) Obafemi and Hannah Awolowo, Ooni of Ife, Oba Okunade Sijuwade and the Ataoja of Oshogbo, Oba Oyewale Matanmi, dancing during HID’s birthday thanksgiving in the church in Ikenne

However, while most people who have written and spoken about the love between Hannah and Obafemi Awolowo which led the latter to describe his wife as “a jewel of inestimable value” often repeat that golden phrase, what they fail to account for is the fundamental challenge to his psychological and mental – and, by that implication, physical – health which Hannah helped Obafemi overcome. Even Hannah herself has never articulated this publicly. It is perhaps one of the reasons why people, including even some members of their immediate family, fail to understand the deep and abiding love between the two and their unbroken bond, a space on mutual love and enduring trust into which not even their children and grand-children could intrude.

All the surviving children and the grandchildren all attest to this, affirming what Ofeimun articulates. “You don’t get between Papa and Mama,” Ofeimun says, “because between them there was something nobody could enter into.” Their last child, the medical doctor, Tokunbo Awolowo Dosumu, corroborates this. “They complemented one another,” she says. “You could not find solace with one against the other. If they took a stand on something, they both subscribed to whatever it was. Mama wouldn’t allow you to come behind Papa’s back or vice versa.”

One of the grandchildren, Ayotola Ayodeji, Oyediran’s youngest daughter, also confirms that the grandchildren understood the symbiotic love between their grandparents. Even if you loved “grandma” Hannah on her own terms, she explains, you still had “to love Mama if you loved Papa.”

A Couple and the Politics of Turmoil

“BABA SEGUN, OKUNRIN ONIJOGBON YEN tun ti de o” (“Segun’s dad, that troublesome man is here again”).

Hannah Awolowo quietly announced to her husband around eight in the morning on November 2, 1962. He was shaving at a wash-basin just by the side of the door to his bedroom. He still had shaving foam on his chin.

“Lynn?”
“Yes, Lynn.”

Hannah went down the stairs to fetch Lynn after her husband asked her to lead him upstairs. He was accompanied by one Ezekwem, also a police officer.

At this point in 1962, some British officers remained in the police force. They and their Nigerian colleagues were all in the service of Her Majesty’s Government, because Nigeria was yet to become a Republic. Most of these British police officers and the other British officers in the civil service who were holdovers from the colonial era saw themselves as agents of the imperial order charged with ensuring the perpetuation of British interests in Nigeria. Awolowo was generally regarded by these officers as a major stumbling block to the continuation of British suzerainty in Nigeria at the end of colonial rule. Few holdovers of the colonial era had greater loathing of Awolowo than Lynn. He was therefore an enthusiastic tool in the hands of those Awolowo accused of having committed themselves to “nothing but the death of the Action Group and the political liquidation of Action Group leaders.”

This morning, the insolent operative of the ascendant order in immediate postcolonial Nigeria, Lynn, carried a malicious smirk on his face that even his nervous smile could not conceal.

“What bad news have you for me this morning?” The former Premier of Western Region and Leader of Opposition asked Lynn to make light of the national tragedy that was unfolding in Nigeria.
“I have never brought you bad news!” Lynn shot back resentfully.

Brazen liar, Hannah Awolowo must have thought as she listened to the conversation! She had not labelled him “okunrin oni wahala” for nothing. He had been harassing the couple and their family incessantly for many months now.
In fact, Lynn had brought bad news.

As Awolowo ushered him and Ezekwem into his office, the latter laid his hand on the Leader of Opposition’s left shoulder and said “In the name of Her Majesty, the Queen, I hereby arrest you, on a charge of treasonable felony, conspiracy to commit a felony, and conspiracy to effect an unlawful purpose. You are not obliged to say anything, but whatever you say will be taken down and may be given in evidence at the trial.”
This was the good news the cowardly Lynn brought!

Mrs Ayo Soyode (l) and Awo (r) discussing law with her father

As he prepared to follow the policemen to the High Court at Tafawa Balewa Square, Awolowo reflected on the “catalogue of… acts of humiliation…directed against” him since May 1962….

Hannah too was reviewing the events of the last few months in her mind since the declaration of a state of emergency in the Western Region on May 29, 1962 when her husband was restricted within three-mile radius of their house in Ikenne. Upon hearing the bad news of the restriction, they both drove to Ibadan to pack a few things before heading to Ikenne on May 31. Twenty days later, he was restricted to Lekki….

It turned out to be the first step into the ploy to destroy Awolowo politically and, if possible, physically liquidate him. Through it all, Hannah followed her husband and stayed with him in restriction and house arrest.

“Why are they doing all these things to us,” Hannah asked her husband as he prepared to leave with those who had to arrest him.

For her, it was not only Obafemi who was experiencing the succession of humiliation and harassment. They were experiencing it together. They were indissoluble; thus, whatever happened to one, happened to the other.

But she was determined to weather the storm. She was also unbending in her trust in God.
“By God’s grace,” she declares to her husband, not to console, but to encourage him, “we will prevail over the wicked ones and all those who do evil to us.”

Obafemi Awolowo didn’t want his wife to follow him to court that morning. But she insisted and drove behind the convoy of police vehicles that led her husband to court….
“I will go with them,” Hannah volunteered.