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Awo as solution to Nigeria’s problems

By Yahaya Balogun
02 August 2016   |   3:43 am
Late Chief Obafemi Awolowo was a political enigma who has shaped the political structure of Nigeria. His robust contributions to national conversation ...

awolowo

Late Chief Obafemi Awolowo was a political enigma who has shaped the political structure of Nigeria. His robust contributions to national conversation had been ignored for a long time. It is imperative, therefore, to re-emphasise his contributions to national discourse and development.

Our people need to be educated or conscientised to understand the futility of their mindsets about the Nigerian state. Awolowo had long time predicted the current nuance of globalisation, as it is related to the Nigerian current situation.

His insightful mind had long time discerned the world as a global village and saw Nigeria as one of the major players. He saw Nigeria as a mere geographical expression that needed restructuring. He believed that no ethnic group in the geopolitical structure of Nigeria can act alone or in isolation. Our unique diversity and talents are too integrated to be discountenanced or disintegrated.

People will not read historical books because of their intellectual laziness. When you read Awolowo’s books, you’re completely engrossed in sublimity of a man who was a demi-god to some of us who are worshippers of the Muse. His books are references on every single thing that is wrong with Nigeria. If Awolowo’s books are consumed religiously, our minds will not remain the same again. Chief Awolowo is a demi-god and a political genius. He lives forever in some of us.

What should be the national discourse now is a true restructuring of Nigeria to disabuse the minds of the aggrieved and disgruntled citizen. My submission is that the imagined separate entities detached from the present structure will be unmanageable, considering how leadership of each state has engaged in the mismanagement of the Federal allocations in the past. One understands the importance of the agitation of the aggrieved members of the union. The perceived or obvious marginalization of the ethnic minorities is an opportunity missed by the Jonathan administration to restructure the country. Goodluck Jonathan’s administration should be our last collective punishment. The country should be on its road to prosperity and peaceful coexistence after curing the national terminal disease called corruption from the system.

Right now, Nigeria needs a leader who will re-orientate, re-order a corruption-free-society. It is pertinent to start observing/studying and create this Buhari administration with keen interest in its war against corruption. My evolving position is that it is becoming an un-inclusive fight. The President needs to bring other corrupt party members in APC to book just like he’s doing to other opposing party members in PDP. There shouldn’t be any sacred cow if this onerous war on the looters and economic saboteurs must succeed.

Recent revelations indicated that a prominent member of the Buhari government was economical with the truth on how he got his multi-billion dollar mansion in Dubai. The revelations seem to have been swept under the corrupt carpet of Nigeria.

It will be unethical to rob “Peter to pay Paul” and expect everyone to keep quiet. President Buhari’s efforts and determination to rid Nigeria of corruption must be addressed without nepotism. It must be all-inclusive. Ordinary people of Nigeria have suffered enough. If Peter or Okorocha or Bode of PDP can be questioned on how they sauntered into affluence with their meagre salaries, it will be an injustice and inequitable treatment if Ajayi or Muhammed or Sulaiman in APC should be absolved of the same offence.

It is imperative for the President to note that justice without equity, fairness and consistency will jeopardise the administration’s anti-corruption stance. Justice must be seen to have been dispensed without fear or favour. Otherwise, our famished collective journey to the unknown will be difficult to reverse or veer.

The President should note that wailers have the right to wail if they perceive any injustice and unfairness in the inequitable distribution of their national wealth. The advocates of national disintegration should go to Awo’s museum of knowledge to enrich themselves.

Apart from Chief Obafemi Awolowo of blessed memory, which of the Yoruba leaders has advanced the unity and prosperity of the Yoruba? As an avid and fanatical reader of anything by Chief Obafemi Awolowo, I can testify for that Awolowo was a visionary. He was maligned, cursed, imprisoned and humiliated; yet he remained focused and determined to see a nation succeed as a true federation. Unfortunately, as we all now say, Awo was a president Nigeria never had.

The fifth columnists and their collaborators in the Western Region, with the assistance of the cabal in the other parts of Nigeria conspired to prevent Chief Awolowo from modernising the whole country, the nauseating results of which we are witnessing today.

It is undeniably true that Awolowo has told us that federalism remains the solution to our problems in Nigeria.

The war on Corruption by Buhari is an opportunity that must not be missed. Nigerians should jettison resentment and bigotry, come together in unity to advance the course of nation building.

We should criticise this administration constructively to move the country forward

Chief Obafemi Awolowo’s sacred political spirit should however, be invoked. We must learn more about his political ingenuity, explore his museum of knowledge and apply the lessons in order to bring sanity into Nigeria.
Balogun writes from Arizona, United States.

7 Comments

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    No way could the ‘sage’ have saved Nigeria – not with his canny political machinations, which his opponents were quite prepared to challenge him or take him on! So, Kayode Balagun i don’t know where you were in the 50s and into 60s about Nigeria’s political trajectory! Even his problem with the ‘Obas and Chiefs’ in the West was intense that he even forced one to abdicate – in fact he spearheaded his banishment! Then his problem with Akintola and his supporters all that and worse his campaign strategy to fly over the North with German organised ‘areal’ photography of Northern women whatever the images collected showed or threw up – that action was despicable! And he could not see (think/ recall of all that) when Ojukwu offered him a (rear) window of opportunity to make amends and escape from that ‘obnoxious’ transgression! The fact is that he is no more with us, your best bet now would be to try as they did for Dr. Kwame Nkrumah in Ghana (in fact, for Dr. Nkrumah the Ghanaians went to bring her back from Egypt to contest election and she won) and Dr. Nyerere in Tanzania his son was drafted and get one of his children to be Governor of one of South-Weest States and we hope he/ she’ll translate what you have in mind into practical terms for Nigerians to see than all these rhetoric that pay no dividends now in Nigeria unless you have his ‘pedigree’ in a supervisory manner in office to be able to demonstrate what I have just suggested!

    All the above notwithstanding, please let them read my first comment!! I want Balogun’s attention drawn to this in particular the solutions provided (proffered) for Nigeria in my website: http://www.virgo-enterprised.com – I mean in the French political history, we learnt that they had about 7 ‘revolutions’ before they settled down into DEMOCRATIC tenets – reminds you about Montesquieu’s role in that history so in the same manner Nigeria’s past political history could well be regarded as failed ‘revolution’ by the Military inspired unwittingly by the actions of Nigerian politician in Western Region! So, post my comment tro remain vis-a-vis corruption you’re talking about in Nigeria!

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    Contrary to the notion that his postulations and represented solutions to Nigerian’s problems, Awolowo was rather culpable to the many problems that Nigeria is facing today, because he was responsible for prolonging these problems by advising the Gowon administration to repudiate and reject the Aburi accord which was agreed and signed by top functionaries of the administration, it was ironical that awolowo could so easily deviate and repudiate his long held philosophy of real federalism and autonomy of the federating units, he was guilty of wrong judgement and mischief by placing immediate parochial interest far above the future peace and prosperity of Nigeria, it is important to note that the Aburi accord as proposed by Odimegwu Ojokwu represented a full confederacy for Nigeria but that opportunity was thrown away because of Awolowo’s advise to Gowon.

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    Where is my first comment about this article – talking about corruption in Nigeria! Even fair comments you don’t want to post them and we are hoping to get ‘visionary’ leadership for country Nigeria, folks! Dunia na che Allah itamake mu ageli Nijeria! Bami se’o Olu wa jor! Olu wa jor bawa tun Nigeria seoo! Chi zoba anyi nime Nigeria!

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    TO SAY THAT THIS PART OF MY COMMENT IS MORE OF HISTORICAL EVENTS THAN POLITICAL GOSSIP – i.e. it is true historical facts!

    Balogun and others compared or likened the ‘sage’s’ contribution – political status or sagacity with that of Church-hill of Britain, Roosevelt and George Washington of America and you wonder a leader whose economic policies in that ‘indigenization’ Act and the obnoxious £20.00 ‘stabilization/ rationalization fund’ for people coming out of the civil war not least the starvation strategy, which he owned up, was aimed at stifling the progress of his fellow human being – a despicable and diabolic policy moreover, the policy to ban the importation of 2nd-hand clothing (Okrika- sawanje) in local parlance, and the stock fish for the section of the country all these policies come under the Int. Court at the Hague Charter as crime against humanity and will go for the purvey of the Court to determine, should earn the kind of attribute! I mean Awolowo did all that in spite (regardless) of the reprieve offered him by Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe – an Igbo person, in that ‘fiat’ to transfer his prison tenure and place (location) to serve it to Calabar rather than in Northern Nigeria, where they would have had him for the ‘pound of flesh – that was the fear then’ in retrospect of his despicable 1959 campaign strategy in the Northern Nigeria! I mean I don’t think Balogun and the present youths of 40 year-olds in Yoruba-nation/land know much about the political history of Chief Awolowo as these groups want to portray him! Like I said we had Dr. Zik – if you recall Dr. Nelson Mandela requested to visit Nigeria in 1992 so as to see the man Dr. Zik (he travelled to Onuyi- Nsukka in Enugu State for this purpose) to thank him for helping to ‘preserve/ protect’ his life during the apartheid struggle, we had Ahmadu Bello, then Tafawa Balewa and Aminu Kano even Alhaji Waziri Ibrahim proponent of campaign without bitterness against (Do or die of OBJ) – all these played their invaluable roles in Nigeria, why should we be peddled with effusions coming always from the un-informed Yaruba groups about the Chief! I am thinking if they want to know more about the history of politicking in the Western House before the civil war, why not they consult with Chief Adegoke Adalebu and Chief Adeniron Akinsonya’s ‘dynasties’ not from Dr. Odia Ofeimun, and they will learn a lot of what really transpired in Western Region politically!

    To mention that after the end of the civil war Chief Awolowo went to join the Easterners in a service of commiseration, if you like, at Enugu! A sermon about Saul later named as Paul was raised – “Acts 9:4;…Matthew 5:10 – “Blessed are those who are persecuted because of …!” It was reported that Chief Awolowo was very uncomfortable listening to the sermon so he sought to leave the venue and asked to be taken to the Airport to return to Lagos – he did not stay to the end of the service! So, folks, whoever is advising you people, whatever you think you can do against humanity, nature has a way of recompense – i.e. paying you back sooner or later!

    Like I said they should let this man have peace in his resting place now and you the off-springs should struggle to continue where he stopped by appointing one his children to lead you in Yoruba-land or nation that way you’ll be telling your stories about him more clearly that is, if you can allow then to perform creditably though, in the gaze of corruption and the intrigue, which is rife in Nigeria presently!

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    Perhaps, in the eyes of a Nigerian Historian, Awolowo was imbued with dynamic resourcefulness but in the eyes of an Econometrician, Awolowo’s leadership in the Nigeria’s Economic Scene is largely responsible for the present massive unemployment which has degenerated into a recession. It is not amazing that Nigerians and their Higher Education Institutions have failed to discern that the present economic downturn is a reciprocal of Nigeria’s Indigenization Decree of the 1970. Awolowo designed the Nigerian Indigenization Program as an Antidote to Ibo Entrepreneurship and Dynamic Exhuberism but the outcome is the globalization of Ibo Exhuberism. The First Black Cardiologists in Spain are Ibos, most of the Black Medical Doctors in the Southern Segment of the United States are of Ibo Origin so are the Professors and there is preponderance of Ibos in other Professions in the Civilized World, thanks to Awolowo’s Twenty Pounds Hypothesis and Awolowo’s Indigenization Decree.