15th December, 2010
Sometime in 1993, senior editors of TheNEWS magazine met Chief Anthony Enahoro in a  suite at the Sheraton Hotel in Ikeja, Lagos.
The editors had come to keep an interview appointment on the political situation in Nigeria and expectedly, the editors had a good session with him. As interviews go, Chief Enahoro was every editor’s delight. With his superb command of the English Language, Chief Enahoro was never in short of words to describe whatever he wanted to describe. Not to him the  ambiguity of speech or thought: He shot straight,  lucidly and sharply. But apart from the interview copy extracted from this former editor, there was something else the editors took away: Enahoro’s painful reflections over how things had deteriorated in Nigeria compared with the Nigeria, where he grew up.
“How old are you?’’ he asked one of the editors. When the editor said he was in his 30s, Enahoro paused for some moments  and said:  â€you are certainly not old enough to understand what I am  going to say about the Lagos of the 50s, where water flowed in the taps, where the streets were clean and lit  and the gutters flowed and the bus services ran as they do in London’’. “I am not cursing your generation, but it is clear that you will not enjoy life the way we enjoyed it in this country. Your generation will never see the good times again,’’ he added.
Interestingly, Chief Enahoro’s life was devoted to ensuring that the younger generation inherited a better country. His life was devoted to one political struggle or the other and until his death, he was  the leading advocate of the need for the political restructuring of Nigeria, after the meeting of all the ethnic nationalities. For his political beliefs, Chief Enahoro suffered a lot of tribulations. He was jailed by the colonialists. He became a  fugitive, following allegations that he and his political associates in the Action Group, planned to commit treason and topple the civilian government of Tafawa Balewa.  Under the Abacha dictatorship, Enahoro was also jailed and later left the country for exile in the United States of America. He returned to the country following the restoration of democracy in 1999.
Born 22 July,  1923, Enahoro was eminently one of Nigeria’s foremost anti-colonial and pro-democracy activists. He was born the eldest of twelve children in Uromi in the present Edo State of Nigeria, to  Esan parents, Anastasius Okotako Enahoro  and Fidelia Inibokun née Okoji . Chief Enahoro  had a long and distinguished career in the press, politics, the public service and the pro-democracy movement. Educated at the Government School Uromi, Government School Owo and King’s College, Lagos.
Chief Enahoro became the editor of Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe’s newspaper, the Southern Nigerian Defender, Ibadan, in 1944 at the age of 21, thus becoming Nigeria’s youngest editor ever. He later became the editor of Zik’s Comet, Kano, 1945-49, also associate editor West African Pilot, Lagos, editor-in-chief Morning Star, 1950-53.
Chief Enahoro became a foundation member of Chief Awolowo’s Action Group party; secretary and chairman, Ishan Division Council; member Western House of Assembly; and later member, Federal House of Representatives in 1951. He later became Minister of Home Affairs in the old western region. He was the Opposition spokesman on Foreign Policy and Legislative Affairs in the Federal House of Representatives, 1959-63; and attempted to move the motion for the independence of Nigeria. Although the motion was defeated, Chief Enahoro was unrelenting in his campaign for Nigeria’s emancipation from the vice-grip of the colonial overlords. He was a  a delegate to most of the constitutional conferences leading to the independence of Nigeria in 1960.
During the 1962 crisis in the old Western region, he was detained along with other Action Group members. Accused of treason during the alleged coup trial, Chief Enahoro escaped to the United Kingdom in 1963. He was extradited from the UK and imprisoned for treason. In 1966, he was released by the Military Government.
During the Nigerian crisis that followed the 1966 coups, Chief Enahoro was the leader of the then Mid-West delegation to the Ad Hoc Constitutional Conference in Lagos. He later became Federal commissioner (Minister) for Information and Labour under the General Yakubu Gowon Military Government, 1967-74; Federal Commissioner for Special Duties, 1975.  He was the president, World Festival of Black  Arts and Culture, 1972-75.
When the soldiers returned Nigeria into presidential democracy in 1979, Chief Enahoro stunned observers when he joined the conservative National Party of Nigeria, which later won the national election and became the ruling party between 1979 and December 1983. Political observers thought then that Enahoro should have joined his political soul mates in the Unity Party of Nigeria, led by Obafemi Awolowo or even the more radical, Peoples Redemption Party, led by Mallam Aminu Kano. Enahoro tried to respond to his critics, but his explanation did not really jell with a lot of his admirers. When military rule came back again in 1984, Enahoro gradually rolled back to his familiar turf: leading a groundswell of vocal opposition against the debasement of the values of our country by the military rulers. That role reached its peak in the Babangida years.
Under the Babangida transition programme, Chief Enahoro supported the candidacy of Moshood Abiola for the 1993 presidential election. Although Abiola won the election, the military rulers annulled the election, to the chagrin of many Nigerians. Chief Enahoro and his bosom friend, Pa Alfred Rewane stood ramrod behind the agitations for the validation of the election. It was a campaign that led to the establishment of the  National Democratic Coalition (NADECO), a pro-democracy group, which Enahoro chaired as the agitators took on the Sani Abacha dictatorship, that had ousted the shaky contraption left by the Babangida regime.  It was a bloody war: for a while, Enahoro was arrested and locked up for months in jail. And Alfred Rewane was assassinated. Chief Enahoro went on exile again, upon his release.
Chief Enahoro was honoured the Adollo by his hometown of Uromi. He was also  conferred with the national honour of Commander, Order of the Federal Republic, CFR, in 1982, and is the chairman of the Movement for National Reformation, MNR; as well as the Pro-National Conference Organisation, PRONACO. He was awarded honorary DSC by the University of Benin in 1972. Among his publications were the treatise Fugitive Offender. Chief Enahoro played golf and followed  cricket ardently.
Chief Enahoro was  married to Helen née Ediae, and had five children- Kenneth, Eugene, Bella, Victor and Gabriel.
Copyright protected by Digiprove © 2010 P.M.News