Banji Akintoye

First then, I urge you to learn this first thing about Chief Awolowo. He was only a youth like many of you in my audience today when he started to give his life to great exploits. The decisions he took then any of you can take today. At a tender age, he tried his hand at a business of his own, and he also gave some of his time to the emerging nationalist politics of Nigeria. His first great achievement was his founding of the pan-Yoruba organization, EgbeOmo Oduduwa, in 1945. He was only a student in London when he did this, and he was only 37 years old. At only 37, he thus stepped boldly into greatness. Then, two years later, he published his first book proposing the best direction for the constitutional development of Nigeria.

Any youth who chooses to do something like these along lines of his or her own interest has a fair chance of achieving success. World history is copiously dotted with stories of youths who stepped out early and achieved greatness early. Develop interest in such stories – and then boldly choose your own line of action, instead of just roaming the streets for job opportunities that do not exist, or following and yelling after politicians, or attaching yourself to a group of ‘area boys’, or even blindly rushing away to other countries. To your surprise, you may acquire some highly valuable skill, or become the owner of an enterprise of your own, your own kind of enterprise. Though things are tough in Nigeria today, roads to success still exist for those who would decide and launch out with serious dedication – as our father, Awolowo, did.   

And then, one of the most impressive features Chief Awolowo’slife was his love of learning, his dedication to finding information and knowledge. His central interest in this was to find out how a country is developed, how this country called Nigeria can be best developed, how to improve the quality of the lives of his countrymen, how to make himself a better and more informed servant of his people. Of course, he gave some time to other kinds of study – for instance, he engaged in some scientific researches, and he set up a small laboratory for that purpose. But the subject of development and progress was his main interest, and he always went at it with almost superhuman energy, zeal and concentration. I and others of my age were only school boys during most years of his revolutionary premiership of the Western Region in the 1950s, but when he came back from his unfair political incarceration, followed by some years of service in the federal war cabinet, and after he returned to full politics in the 1970s, we were already fairly mature intellectuals, and we were among the closest persons in his circle for the rest of his life.

He relentlessly pushed himself and us in the search for knowledge – and that meant that he was constantly reading, constantly demanding clearer explanations and new writings and books, constantly doing very incisive writings of his own, constantly drawing us into discussion, frequently asking us to travel to other lands where there might be development information that could help to make our plans for Nigeria better, frequently urging us to take advantage of our academic travels to acquire information about our great central charge – the development and beauty of our Nigeria. It is true, as he said in one of his most famous statements, that while other men slept, he kept working into the deep hours of the night, delving deeper and deeper into knowledge about how to make Nigeria a great country. He was truly the deep calling to the deep.

I believe that Chief Awolowo knew Nigeria more comprehensively and more deeply than any other Nigerian of his time. He was not merely another Nigerian politician. He understood more of Nigeria’s problems, and Nigeria’s economic and political life and prospects, and had clearer and more constructive ideas about the development and future of Nigeria. He fully deserves the deep respect, and the gravity, that he is receiving from us his children and from generations of other Nigerians. Again, I say to my youthful audience of today: any of you can start from this moment to include in your lives a search for knowledge in some field of interest of yours. Any of you who does that stands a fair chance of acquiring at least some of the kind of respect and immortality that Chief Awolowo now enjoys.

I now direct my youthful audience to one special issue over which Chief Awolowo never stopped writing and explaining till his last days. I refer to the issue of a rational and harmonious federation for this country – and the fact that a terribly warped and over-centralized structure has been gradually foisted over our federation since 1966. This over-centralization is the root of all the evils that are now wrecking Nigeria, and the root of all the sufferings of all Nigerians, especially our youths. Our youths must not leave the fight against this destructive federal structure to scattered politicians and intellectuals. You must all rise up and fight it relentlessly, until the advocates and supporters of it yield to the demands for the rational restructuring of our federation.

As part of this war, it is crucial that the nations of Nigeria must be defended by all Nigerian youths. Some people who want a more or less unitary state in this multi-ethnic country have been perversely claiming that Nigeria’s nations are mere myths, that there is no Igbo nation or Yoruba nation or Igala nation or Ijaw nation or Urhobo nation, etc. Some treatises written in 2000-2001 under the auspices of a federal agency (Centre for Democratic Development Research and Training) stated these things explicitly and strongly. They are wrong; and they are deliberately propagating a dangerous falsehood. The youths of Nigeria must confront them powerfully and force them to give up their falsehood.
 
That demands also that our youths must all begin to propagate respect for the many nations of our country, large or small. Our youths must give up old tendencies whereby persons of one nation denigrate other nations. It is true that, in the complex and confusing politics of Nigeria, some of our nations have hurt one another in some ways in the past. But we must resist the temptation to keep wallowing in the mud-pits of the past; we must give concentration to the fight for a great future for our peoples. Every one of our nations must feel respected and wanted in our country. Every nation in our country, no matter how small, must feel confident in the assurance of protection by the collective will of Nigeria. That is what Chief Awolowo lived much of his life seeking the structural environment for. The kind of genocide now going on in parts of South Kaduna and other parts of the Middle Belt should be met with stout resistance by youths who call Chief Awolowo their father.  
 
To achieve such noble purposes, our youths must develop very strong confidence in themselves, as Chief Awolowo developed great confidence in himself. You must stop the habit of thinking that you are weak, that you are weaker than, and subordinate to, the present class of politicians. Much of Chief Awolowo’s success was due to his confidence that the British white rulers of Nigeria were not superior to Nigerians, and that Nigerians can indeed achieve great things that the British rulers cannot. You are much stronger than you think. Sure, you do not have the kind of money that the corrupt politicians of these days have; but if you use your head, mobilize your huge numbers and your education sensibly, and if you operate purposefully and with discipline as Chief Awolowo would do in circumstances such as these, you can change the destiny of your peoples for the better – even in a country like Nigeria.  

Well, at any time, I can speak about Chief Awolowo for hours on end. He means that much to us, and much more. But I must remember my promise to make this a brief speech. Therefore, I will now round this speech up by bringing the youths of my audience to this final subject which Chief Awolowo always stressed very much in our circle.

Chief Awolowo always gave emphasis to the need for leaders and rulers to respect their people. In conversations with the young ones like me, he would often say, “You must always take care to respect our people. If any of you find yourself in a governing position over any part of our people, your first line of survival and success is to respect them. They may be illiterate and poor, but they are members of ancient civilizations and they are more understanding than you think. If you are arrogant and overbearing, they will find ways to stop you – and those ways may hurt your further chances. You must take care to explain things to them, and you must not falsely promise them what you know you cannot do. It is disrespectful to do that. Whatever you do as ruler, do it with our people, don’t merely do it for them. We are not foreigners ruling our people, we are their kith and kin. Make sure to enhance their feeling of self-respect”.

Because Chief Awolowo had such respect for our people, they trusted him. In many towns and villages in Yorubaland, there were old folks whom the local people called Awolowo’s father or Awolowo’s mother. In the 1970s when some of us “Awolowo’s children” were scattered all over Nigeria putting the Unity Party of Nigeria together, we were often surprised to find friends of his in even remote places. In a village called Ankpa in the then Benue State, one such old friend of Chief Awolowo took care of me like a son; and in Uyo in the then Cross River State, another old friend of his received me the same way. Many of my friends had similar experiences in the field.

And, now, I will close this with a story about this wonderful respect of our father for our people. In 1983, in preparation for the 1983 presidential election, Chief Awolowo was doing a campaign tour of Kano State, and I was leading a small team on a special part of our campaign in the then Plateau State. Chief Awolowo sent for me to come and see him for some information he needed to pass to me.  I started off that afternoon with my team and, after a night in Kaduna, we reached Kano next morning. Papa had gone out on his campaign in parts of Kano State before we arrived, and he was scheduled to return to Kano City at about 4pm to address the people of the city. Huge crowds were already gathering by noon. But 4pm came and Papa did not arrive; then 5pm, 7pm, 9pm, and he still had not come.

Obafemi Awolowo

Finally, between 9pm and 10pm, he and his large entourage arrived. What had happened is that at many villages along his way, where he had not been billed to stop, the villagers had come to the road and asked him to stop and speak to them. And each time he so stopped, he took his time to speak fully to the villagers and to answer their questions. He respected them too much to do any less. But the result of such strenuous exertion is that he looked fearfully tired when he arrived in Kano City. I went to his room in the house provided for us by the governor of Kano State; but he looked so terribly weak that I quietly gave up the attempt to discuss with him. Some medical doctors were always in our group, and these were hurrying in and out to attend to him. That night, many of us feared that we were going to lose our leader and father. It was a hard and sleepless night for many of us. Mercifully, however, he revived considerably before morning – and was strong enough to talk with me and my team, and to address the large cheering crowd of Kano City people.

That is our father. His life is a whole book of instructions and lessons for us his children. I urge you all to take full advantage of the lessons and instructions.

THANK YOU. I LOVE YOU ALL. 

Professor (Senator) Banji Akintoye delivered this lecture at the Awolowo Birthday Lecture, Lagos, March 6, 2017