Obafemi Awolowo, a Yoruba nationalist and politician with missionary training, formulated and, to a considerable extent, successfully pioneered groups that opposed British colonial monopolies of money and power during Nigeria’s decolonization years.
Although Awolowo’s political education began at a young age thanks to his exposure to nationalist politics and culture in southern Nigeria and India, his professional activities as a moneylender, public letter writer, transport and product trader, and more exposed him to the whims of colonial society. He assisted in setting up the Nigerian Produce Traders Association, which was one of his early activism endeavors.
He soon rose to the position of secretary of the Nigerian Motor Transport Organization, and in 1937, he essentially worked alone to organize a successful strike against an unfair colonial law that had threatened the welfare of the union. As a trader and then a newspaper writer, Awolowo utilized his skills to learn about colonial economic practices and to help establish a new liberal media.
In June 1940, the Nigerian Youth Movement (NYM), the country’s largest political organization, designated him secretary of the Ibadan chapter. In 1942, he spearheaded the movement that resulted in the reformation of the Ibadan Native Authority Advisory Board. Awolowo organized a large-scale demonstration involving more than 10,000 farmers in 1944 in opposition to the government’s restriction on the export of palm kernel while serving as secretary of the Nigerian Produce Traders Association’s Ibadan section.
Awolowo was one of the first African politicians to question how the colonial government operated in connection to local political systems and economic obligations. He was also a trailblazer in the postwar intellectual arguments in support of a new and suitable constitution for a modern Nigeria. His groundbreaking book, Path to Nigerian Freedom, which was released in 1951, laid out the importance of a local intelligentsia opposed to colonial conservatism in a post-World War II colonial political and economic environment.
He had been a committed federalist for more than eighteen years by the time the debate over the structure of Nigeria’s constitution started in 1960. His expertise and passion for East Indian politics and political individuals had a significant impact on his federalist outlook. He had assisted in founding the affluent Yoruba intelligentsia-supported Yoruba cultural group Egbe Omo Oduduwa while studying law in London.
To establish a largely Yoruba cultural and political interest organization, these progressive organizations took advantage of the favorable economic and cultural conditions in western Nigeria. Major exploitative colonial economic practices were weakened by the Awolowo-led group and other Nigerian nationalist initiatives.
At the same time, they discovered that using some of those infrastructure’s features to help shape some of their own welfare and development initiatives was beneficial. By winning the backing of significant Yorubaland traditional leaders, their activities challenged the declining colonial policy of “indirect rule.”
The Egbe were able to create a sizable following among the populace with the help of educational, developmental, and humanitarian activities. Awolowo increased his efforts inside the Egbe upon his return to Nigeria in 1947, where he worked as a lawyer. His populist welfare policies were promoted through the Nigerian Tribune, a daily newspaper he founded in 1949 that is still in print.
In the midst of developing postwar interethnic nationalist tensions, the paper was the primary weapon used to protect Yoruban interests. Awolowo’s emphasis on social measures and educational endeavors supported by a blend of traditional Yoruba and Western communication media helped the Yoruba intelligentsia defeat the conservative postwar initiatives of the British Colonial Office.
Awolowo’s ideas from his base in western Nigeria allowed a core group of his supporters to exert their influence on the nation-building effort throughout the country’s transition to political independence. Awolowo founded the Action Group (A.G.) political party in April 1951, and under his direction it exhibited skill and discipline. Awolowo was elected to the then Western House of Assembly on the A.G. platform, and a year later he was chosen the leader of government business and minister of local government.
At its height, the A.G. may have been the most effectively administered party in the annals of contemporary African democracy. With the party’s economic and social programs succeeding, Nigeria’s colonially influenced constitutional changes and the Africanization of the public service underwent a sea change.
Awolowo was appointed the first premier of the western region and minister of finance in 1954, following the adoption of the new constitution. He implemented a ground-breaking scheme for free elementary education when he was in government. Under the postwar impact of British Fabian socialism and what Awolowo referred to as indigenous humanistic-guided obligations and duties, the A.G. developed significant welfare programs focused on elementary education, scholarship opportunities for higher education, free healthcare, and the reduction of urban and rural unemployment.
Awolowo was able to present a high-standard model for public relations management by combining strict and disciplined principles. Later, he and his party’s members came to the realization that they had enormous financial obstacles to surmount, especially in the absence of the political and financial strength of the center of power.
He ran for federal office in 1959 in an effort to establish a centralized government, but he was unsuccessful. Awolowo came to Lagos to serve as the head of the opposition after resigning as the premier of the western zone. Colonial maneuvers, class tensions, and interethnic rivalries within Yorubaland and Nigeria thwarted his attempts to expand his political and economic power and initiatives on a national scale.
He was wrongfully charged with a treasonable offense in 1962 and given a ten-year jail term. On July 31, 1966, he received a pardon and was let out of jail. Awolowo was chosen to serve as the vice chairman of the Federal Executive Council and the federal government’s commissioner for finance in 1967. He resigned from government service in 1971 and went back to practicing law privately after understanding the limits of his ability to influence government decisions. Awolowo established the Unity Party of Nigeria in September 1978 with a social welfareist focus.
He ran for president of Nigeria in the subsequent election, which was marred by scandal, but lost. In 1983, he ran in a second, similarly contentious presidential election but lost. Awolowo ended his political career permanently this time. At the age of 78, he passed away on May 9, 1987. Colonial hegemonic plans in the post-decolonization era were threatened by the success of the nationalist initiatives launched by Awolowo’s Action Group political organization.
On one level, they distanced the Yoruba intellectuals from the colonial rulers and conservative elites, and on another, they alienated them from the less materially or monetarily endowed political groupings. The political landscape of southern Nigeria, a focus on welfare policies of free education as a vehicle for social, democratic, and economic growth, as well as national integration, is where Awolowo’s imprint on Nigerian political and intellectual history is most apparent.
Progressive political organisations and people have evoked Awolowo’s name and ideals in opposition to feudalist unitary and military authoritarianism in Nigerian politics, in addition to the numerous intellectual and political protégés of Awolowo who adopted his policies and became prominent politicians. Conflicts over the distribution of limited resources in a time of competing nationalist ideologies highlight the federation’s capacity to empower the various nationalities so they can shape their own policies independent of a strong center and to carry out discussions on the degree to which foreign capital should be allowed into the country.
These activities demonstrate how Chief Obafemi Awolowo’s vision for the political future of Nigeria and Africa as a whole is still relevant today. His most significant works include: Path to Nigerian Freedom (1947); Thoughts on Nigerian Constitution (1966); The Strategy and Tactics of the People’s Republic of Nigeria (1970); Adventures in Power, Book One: My March Through Prison (1985); Adventures in Power, Book Two: The Travails of Democracy and the Rule of Law (1987).
