HID in front of the Broad Street Prisons in 1962. She just alighted from the car, as she prepared to take her husband’s meal inside the prison

It was a demonstration of nerve that her husband thought bordered on recklessness.
They were being hounded. He had experienced the “humiliation and degrading treatment” which included being restricted to Ikenne, Lekki and Ikenne, in that order, and now he was under house arrest in Lagos. He could not trust the power – which he later described as “a wicked and ruthless cabal” – that had treated him enough to follow one of its most zealous agents so late in the night to Ikenne from Lagos. And if he couldn’t, why in the world would he allow his beloved wife to follow him? At any rate, he had never met this Irishman and his Nigerian assistant, before that night. Even though he initially appeared “urbane and cordial,” there was no reason to follow him to Ikenne in the night. But Hannah was prepared to follow Lynn and the other police officer who had come with him.

John Lynn was in the official residence of the Awolowos in Lagos in the night of September 8, 1962 for the first time to announce that he had a warrant to search his house and compound in Ikenne. This was barely a month before he returned to arrest him.

Hannah and her husband had just finished their dinner, which, at that point, they used to have between eight and ten in the night. (He would later change while in jail to eating breakfast between eight and nine in the morning and dinner between five and six in the evening, skipping lunch. His wife embraced the same eating pattern when he informed her while still in jail). It was almost eleven in the night when Lynn announced his journey to Ikenne, insisting that he had to be in Ikenne to search their house. It was obviously a plan to “catch” Awolowo unprepared so as to “discover” the “arms cache” he was “hiding” in Ikenne.

So, Lynn asked the Leader of Opposition if he would like to come with him to Ikenne.
“Me? No! Not at this hour of the night!” Awolowo replied.

It was at this point that Hannah offered to go with Lynn.
“You are doing nothing of the kind,” responded her husband….

“My beloved Mama Segun, I learnt that you had been ill. I was upset. But I am happy to hear that you have improved considerably. Your health and your life mean almost everything to me. I must say categorically that life would mean nothing to me without you and our children and grandchildren…”

This was how Obafemi Awolowo began one of the most important letters that he would ever write to his wife, particularly in the darkest hour of tribulations. He wrote the letter as he waited for the judgement of the Supreme Court. He was afraid that if his appeal was dismissed, in the course of his imprisonment, his adversaries might kill him while putting out a story that he was trying to commit suicide. He, therefore, decided to write to HID to “disburse my mind completely to her as to what I thought she might do if certain eventualities occurred.”

If he was unsuccessful at the Supreme Court, Awolowo asked Hannah to “take it like a brave woman that you are,” assuring her that that “would not be the end for me.” “That would not be the end for me. The best is yet to be,” he added.

“This much I want you to bear in mind; if you heard that I died, you could be sure that my enemies had killed me. I say this because after committing this heinous crime, these evil people might issue a release that I committed suicide, or that I died or was killed when I was trying to escape lawful custody…. I have great hopes for the future, and I am determined to live,” Awolowo declared in the letter.

After dealing with political matters regarding what HID should do with the proposed AG/NCNC alliance and the coming elections, while encouraging her to be the “moving spirit” of the organisation of the Women’s Wing of the AG, Awolowo turned to family matters. He implored his HID “not to lose hope at all.” He further entreated her to “concentrate on your business and Church duties.”

He then discussed the four children and grandchildren and what needed to be done about each of them, including their personal prospects and schooling. By this time, Tola was married, Wole had left school and was living in Ikenne, while Ayo and Tokunbo were getting ready for college. The loving father stated in the letter that he was sure her eldest daughter could fend for herself, praying that “it may please God to bless the union between her and Kayode [Oyediran] with undying love and with children.” He acknowledged the crisis in the life of his 20-year old only surviving son, but prayed “fervently that it may please God to direct him aright and help him make a success of his life.” As for Ayo and Tokunbo, he ventured that it should be easy for HID to arrange for admission for them when they are ready at the Universities in Lagos and Ibadan, respectively.

When HID read the letter, though he had urged her “not to be sad about the contents of this letter” or “shed tears,” she broke into tears. But she quickly got over it and braced herself for what the future held in store for her and her “ever devoted and affectionate husband….”

Even though H.I.D.’s campaigns in Ondo Province must have jolted Premier Akintola as the 1964 regional elections approached, Akintola was not comfortable with any suggestion of visiting the Ekiti areas of the Province himself. The Ekiti were diehard supporters of Awolowo – such that Akintola’s biographer, Osuntokun, himself an Ekiti, states that “Awolowo’s hold on the Ekiti-Yoruba, particularly the intellectuals, remains a mystery….”

Gowon and Awo after his release from prison

The leaders of the AG who survived the attempt at mass incarceration of the leadership of the party and serial arrests and harassments hatched by the ruling parties at the federal and regional levels, the NPC and the NNDP respectively, met in early 1964 and decided that it would be most helpful to the party if Awolowo’s wife led the campaigns across the region. She was already the leader of the women’s wing of the party, called the Action Group Women Section, which organised alongside Mrs. Wuraola Esan and Chief (Mrs.) Olu Solaru. She was a focused, strong-willed and dedicated person who knew the dynamics of the politics of the region. She had also weathered the storm alongside her husband. Among the many acts of intimidation which she had taken in her stride was the tear-gassing of her home in Ibadan on May 27, 1963, about eight months after Awolowo began serving his ten-year sentence. It was a test of the legendary patience that her husband said she possesses in abundance

Together in confinement: The old main house(l) and the outbuilding (below) where Awolowos spent their in restriction in Lekki in 1962. During a visit to the place after the death of her husband, HID points to something with her walking stick

The Lekki house where Awo spent his restriction, now rebuilt

The jailed leader’s wife, Hannah, continued her tour after Eastern Region’s Premier Michael Okpara’s visit to Ibadan. She campaigned in the Ijebu division too. At Ijebu-Igbo, she launched the UPGA campaign for the federal elections on October 20, 1964. In their welcome address, the local leaders of UPGA said “(w)e realise that the battle ahead is tough but we can assure you that by the grace of Almighty God and the support of our Leaders, we shall return the UPGA candidate in Ijebu North East with the opponent losing his deposit.” However, they urged the Federal Government “to check the excessive intimidation by the NNDP Government of Western Region” against their members and supporters. Yet, they asserted that they were sure of a victory “which will obviously lead to the immediate release of our Hero and true Yoruba Leader, Chief Obafemi Awolowo.” The same day, in their welcome address to Mrs. Awolowo, the party faithful in Ago-Iwoye stated that“ the cause of the past Two Dark Years and the great sacrifice made by the members of your family in an attempt to wrench Yorubaland from the greedy clutches of the power-drunk politicians are not unknown to this community, as such we are here to register our approbation to your line of action as well as the ideals of Democratic Socialism.”

The Jewel and the Lion

…should the worst happen, I want you to take it like a brave woman that you are. That would not be the end for me. The best is yet to be, as long as my life is spared…. I take this opportunity to renew to you, my only Darling Wife, my vow of undying love. In God’s good time we will meet again in a most happy reunion, and that before very long…. Your Ever Devoted and Affectionate Husband.
– Obafemi Awolowo, Letter to Wife, May 1964

HER LONG AWAITED DAY OF joy was finally here.
From the splendour and glory of Obafemi Awolowo’s elevation to the position of Premier of the Western Region through the dark disquiet of his days of restriction in Ikenne, Lekki and Ikoyi to the unutterable sorrow of Segun’s sudden death, which was followed by Obafemi Awolowo’s 10-year jail sentence, Hannah had journeyed through them all with grace and self-possession.

Now, the exhilarating bliss of her husband’s release from jail was provoking far greater positive sensations than she had ever experienced in the course of their lives together. Her animated state and the powerful glee that coursed through her mind agitating her limbs this morning of August 4, 1966, were inversely proportional to the numbing emotions and grief heralded by the break of dawn on July 10, 1963.

What was she to do? Where was she to meet her Ever Devoted and Affectionate Husband, as Obafemi Awolowo had described himself to her in his last depressing letter?

She was getting different vibrations. Happiness was overpowering H.I.D. She wanted to travel to Lagos to meet him. But then she received a message that she was to stay back in Ikenne to organise a thanksgiving service at the church which will be of help upon his arrival in their hometown. What would she do when she first beheld him in freedom for the first time since November 2, 1962? He had predicted in his letter to her in May 1964 that “In God’s good time we will meet again in a most happy reunion, and that before very long.” “Before very long” took three years, nine months and one day. Awolowo was pardoned on August 2, 1966. He was flown to Lagos the next day….

Shortly after meeting Gowon, Lt. Colonel Murtala Mohammed, one of the plotters of the coup that made Gowon head of state, personally drove Awolowo to Ikenne. One of Awolowo’s most loyal political associates, Bisi Onabanjo (later Governor of Ogun State in the Second Republic) accompanied him in the car.

He arrived Ikenne to what a newspaper described as the “warm and hearty embrace” of HID. The Lion had come home to his Jewel.

He was also warmly welcomed by two of his children and his grandchildren. Only Tola – who had since wedded Kayode Oyediran in November 1963 – and Wole, were around. Ayo and Tokunbo were studying in England. There were also four grandchildren who had been born while he was in prison. Funke and Omotunde (Segun), Segun’s children were born in 1963, Oluwakemi and Yewande (Yemisi), Tola Oyediran’s daughters, were born in 1964 and 1965, respectively.

“We had lots of hugs,” was how Tola Oyediran described the reunion with their father. “He was filled with a lot of emotions and so was everybody. We were happy that, at last he got his freedom. It was a trying time for every Awolowo. I don’t even know how to describe it…. We kept touching him? Are you the real Papa? Talk to us now, we said to him.”

At the service, Awolowo read the first lesson. In his speech later, he acknowledged his wife’s fortitude and thanked everyone who had come to welcome him. The Lisa of Ijeun said he was particularly grateful to the common people, the men and women who stood by him even when some whom he had assumed will be steadfast “failed….”