Awo: The Great Sage Lives For Ever

March 6, 1987 will undoubtedly remain a memorable day in the annals of human existence. It was the historic birthday of Obafemi Awolowo, the legendarily unique figure, titan, icon, and colossus of all-time acclaim.

The world was transfixed in stupefying wonderment, as the acclaimed sage expressed that the object of his celebrating the day in question, was actually not his birthday, but the imminence of his transition to eternal life.

Two months and a day,(precisely May 9, 1987), elapsing from this momentously prophetic outpouring, the immortal Awo exited the earthly space, leaving the general mass of humanity in the maelstrom of hysteric puzzle.

To be sure, the trajectory of Awo’s life was such which by every twist of imagination, exude the hallmark of superordinariness. He was a prodigy of an awesomely colossal hue, adventing not only ahead of his time, but on a remarkably awesome space on the differential spectrum of being that early.

This salutary superhuman imagery bear eloquent expression in the visionary emanation of his exploits; which treasured evergreen brilliance, has never ceased to excite the imagination.

What is more is that the trail-blazing momentum that dotted his spell in the portals of governance – of which we may not bother to belabour ourselves with a recount, in their awesomely gargantuan dimension – was sizzling and grippingly so too.

For those who care to appreciate – the exemplary odyssey of this sage of celebrated memory, brings to poignantly bold relief, the demented sentiment that mischievously seek to pigeonhole him to the reductionism of an irredentist, animated by the exclusive vision of Yoruba micro-nationalism, contrary to the larger visionary pan Nigerianism – of immensely passionate fervor that animated his world-view.

Indeed portrayed in veritably apt description, by Ibrahim Babangida, as the main issue in Nigerian politics, there is no doubt that Awo shines forth as the most pivotal figure in the annals of post-independent Nigeria.

While it could be said of Zik, that he waxed more visibly in the defining era of the nationalist ferment – subsequent years, starting from the immediate post – independent epoch, witnessed a progressive plummeting of his hitherto colossal stature on the scale of reckoning, influence and importance – as Awo’s stature and image loomed increasingly larger on the firmament – on account of his stature as a prime – mover and agent provocateur of the most pivotal influence and visibility – apart from his equally pillar – presence as the arrowhead, if not the primogeniture of the radical progressive tendency in mainstream governance.

Even to date, twenty-four years elapsing since his glorious demise, the great Awo continues to live to this grand billing in terms of his immensely inspirational symbolism and the pragmatic spell of eternal value, endemic in his doctrinaire postulation for a revolutionary transformation of Nigeria.

Let it here be stressed, not only for the records, but also as a corroborative attestation to Awo’s immense stature as the truly main issue in Nigerian politics even in death, that the revolutionary ferment of the June 12 victory, was indeed a dynamic culmination of the dialectical forces ignited in the long stretch annals of Awo’s chequered but egalitarian agitation for socio –political equity, dating back from the nostalgia of those great era of the 50s.

Immensely adept in the exacting sphere of political engineering; Awo remains forever enshrined in the treasured dew of evergreen memory, for the catalytic impetus he inspired in accelerating the momentum of socio-political conscientization; which in turn was to ignite a wave of popular contagion that swept through the caliphatic bastion of the feudal north – as the great Awo saw death; courted death, wined, dined and romanced death, walked through the valley of its shadows, escaping its venomous fang by sheer hairs breath; as he combed through the entire nook and crannies of the north, in an unusual show of valour, courage, and soldiery; mounted with such unrelenting zest and gusto – as had rarely been witnessed elsewhere. It was veritably dizzying, dazzling and sizzling not only in its sheer rousing effectiveness; but the suicidal dare-devilry and marathonic Spartan ardour of Awo’s heroic defiance.

It was a development which for the first time provoked the Sardauna from the cosy ambience of his gilded royal cocoon, to the condescending obeisance to populist democratic persuasion kissing the hostile rays of the northern sun as he mounted an actively vigorous appeal for the peoples vote.

This capitulative somersault to frenetic currying for popular vote by the great Sardauna; happening as it were for the first time, in the face of the imminent apocalyptic turning of the table against him in the north, courtesy of the hurricanic sweep of Awo’s messianic proselytization to the Talakawas, could well be appreciated on the vivid scale of importance, against the Sarduana’s mindset, obsessed as it were, with the anachronism of the north as a manorial ancestoral bequeathal, whose ownership within the exclusive circuit of the Sardauna’s clan, was a settled question, warranting no vote-catching mantra, as typical of the western liberal democracy then already visibly extant in the more civilized clime of the south.

On a similar note, his heroic life-long struggle for the emancipation and conscientisation of the hitherto marginalised mass of the myriad minorities; then consigned to the fringes on the scale of reckoning – manifest in all probabilities, such stuff of legend that would forever linger in memory.

It is indeed unfortunate that Awo’s failings, if a failure, were aptly more of an extraneous origination – rather far-flung from his person – than any endemic foible or limitation as might tend to be ascribed to him. This is to say that if any, it is the failure endemic in the system, a failure of the Nigerian character; and painfully too, as it goes without saying – a treacherously perfidious dissonance rearing head at multiple dimension – but primarily from within the ideological sub-group of the Awoist school.

Easily coming to mind in this context are the Tony Enahoros and their likes, with all their heroic exploits in the annals of Nigerian politics, receding to a lamentable anti-climax with a dramatic abdication from their supposed natural habitat, in romantic concert with the reactionary symbol of feudal anachronism, epitomised in the NPN. Ditto a Sam Ikoku, rebelliously dubbing the sage in the grossly irreverent tar-brush of Yoruba irredentist, only to fair in the end, with all their reputedly radical affectation, on the ignoble finishing line of strategist and intellectual theoretician for Abacha’s tyrannical creed of power perpetuation.

On the larger national canvass were supposed consanguinal relations on the progressive ideological spectrum, of which Aminu Kano’s Peoples Redemption Party comes into vividly bold relief.

While it was beyond doubt that the Kano-born patriarch stood throughout his life, stoutly for what he believed in – unfortunately, for all his struggles, the dividend-yield had at best appertained to no more than motion without movement – as he rebuffed with every deliberate intent every inch of entreaties from Awo for a mutual concert, latent with the potential to transform the radical progressive front to a balanced and virile configuration strong enough to wrestle the reactionary band of oligarchs for possession of the nation’s soul.

Even the Kano-born politician, with all his radical populist pretension, refused to have anything to do with the famous meeting of the twelve governors, for which he disowned his two PRP governors, who in the face of the mounting tide of despotism of the ruling NPN, had deemed it apt and proper to solidarise with fellow likemind governors for progressive countervailance of the unbridled tyranny of the NPN – in a development that puts to question the pan-Nigerian pretension of the supposed champion of the Talakawas, whose gesture smack something of parochial ethnic suggestibility.

Ironically, it was Awo’s spirited persuasion to all existing party groupings then active on the political turf, to mount a unified vote for the Kaduna state wing of the PRP, which among other factors, was to eventually lift the later from the stuporous jaw of imminent defeat, to the consummation of Balarabe Musa’s guber bid, coming on the heels of an initial upper hand majority earlier garnered by the opposition NPN in the Kano House of Assembly.

It was also a tribute to the larger national vision of this great sage of immortal memory that he stood squarely up to the tyrannical powers that be; at that critical period that democracy stood on trial, with the infamous deportation of the then. Bornu state Majority leader, Alhaji Abdurrahman Shugaba by the ruling NPN, under the laughable alibi that he was an alien.

Equally significant in this mounting spate of patriotic but illusory quest for an architectural configuration for virile and viable nationhood, were Awo’s alliance overtures to Zik, at critical epoch of Nigeria’s existence – firstly on the eve of independence in 1959 – contrived as a hegemonic bulwark against the rampaging NPC and all its obscene anachronisms and the consequent tactical stratagem deployed from the deep well of his consummate Fabian mind, to parry off the bargain – as the whole world woke up to the discomfiting unfolding of an NCNC – NPC concert, which soon spawned a monster in the Wild Wild West, and the ensuing internecine pogrom of 1967 – 70, that conjured such a river of blood, unprecedented in the annals of national existence.

Similar scenario was later to recur 20 years after, between the Zik-led NPP, and the NPC incarnate, now hooded in the condemnably luciferous NPN – only for the mutual boat of alliance to unfold a fatal rack for the abyss – but not before the canon fodder value of the NPP, had been optimally exploited by the NPN, for a firm hold on the turtle of power – exploited to such tyrannical over-drive that was to culminate in the Buhari/Idiagbon spell of martial interregnum.

It is doubtful if the great Zik with the probable chance of a developed vista in the elevated spirituality of his abode in the higher celestial, would not be weighed down in pathos of laments and regrets as to whether a differently optional rethink; excluding the reactionary agent of anti-progress – as it had misguidedly chosen – for a better symbol of progressive confession – would not have charted an auspicious world of difference from the contemporary conundrum and abysmally uncheering miasma, unfolding in the national space – and of which ironically, his own Igbo native stock come out the worst, in terms of the excruciating yoke of marginalisation, battering and traumatizing their collective psyche and self esteem, even to date.

His special forte which undoubtedly set him apart in infinite mileage, from his peers and defined his special place in the pantheons of the immortal, was his legacy building propensity, pursued with maniacal zeal and doggedness that remains yet unsurpassed by any politician in Nigeria.

There is no doubt that a casual study of his exemplarily eventful sojourn on the earthly terra-firma, reveals so clearly that while others were busy with one “cut corner” expedience or the other, in the maniacal quest for fame and leverage, Awo got himself so busy with the higher scheme of legacy building, predicated more than anything else, on the ideal of grand achievements of phenomenally profound and eternal import on the lives of the people and the nation as a whole.

Not for him those boisterous spell of vain grandstanding; those brash assertiveness and incendiary outpourings that are typical of the general runs of politicians that suffuse our clime today.

It is against this background that one asserts without fear of contradiction, that while it is true that Awo may not have had the opportunity of becoming Nigeria’s president – today, he represents by unanimous consensus, the best president Nigeria never had.

An evidence of this, could not have been more aptly underscored than in the fact that only recently, during the year, one of the inner caucus coupists of the 15 January, 1966 military putsch did indeed confess – in what seemed an eloquent corroboration of an increasingly mounting theory in an edition of The Sun Newspaper, three years ago – that it was an avowed resolve on their part, to hand over the reins of governance to Awo, after an expectedly successful coup, which unfortunately turned out botched.

Particularly significant in this respect, was that Zik, the charismatic and eminent statesman, was there, alive and kicking, but not for anything did he tickle their fancy on any ground of suitability for power bequeathal, despite their common link of Igbo nativity – just in similar terms, in which the Ikemba (Emeka Odumegwu Ojukwu) of the same Igbo stock could not have been unaware of him (Zik) before describing Awo as “the best president Nigeria never had”.

Coincidentally, it is already a historical subject of common knowledge, that immediately on assumption of power, after the July 29 coup – the first step taken by Gowon, was to release the great sage (Awo), as he was quoted to have said by himself, that his brain was worth tapping in the drive to steer the nation to the great height envisaged of it.

It need here be noted that all chances were just on offer, for the January 15th coupists, to exert any object of their caprices on the incapacitated and incarcerated Awo – in the sadistic sense of that expression – but contrarily, and utterly surprisingly too – they were rather even willing to hand over to him, the mantle of governance, had the coup succeeded.

On a similar note too, were the coupists of the July 29 version, which in spite of its Hausa-Fulani preponderance, also had all the chances to literally peel off the man’s skin.

This was because for one thing, the Hausa / Fulani elements in the army – in their near totality – if not the entirety of that class, were enlisted and elevated through the singular beneficence of the Sardauna, who on a pragmatic deliberate intent, not only enunciated, but actively gave an enervating verve to a policy of mass enlistment of the Hausa-Fulani elements into the Nigerian army, on the strategic premise of power calculation.

Indeed, every indication had converged to prove to the hilt, the Sardauna’s pathological animosity towards Awo, whom he and indeed the preponderant segment of the northern elite, regarded as enemy. Yet, the resultant government installed by the coupists – of which Gowon was the Head of state, still deemed it of utmost necessity, to invite the great sage (Awo), to pilot the ship of state’s affairs.

Every opportunity was available unto them to apply unto Awo, the same treat of dosage meted out unto the late M.K.O. Abiola. They could well have reasoned that since their beneficent patron, the Sardauna had gone – then Awo himself, had no business to stay a minute longer in the land of the living.

As was commonly known – the extermination of Awo, and the liquidation, of his political empire, was the consuming ambition of the northern elites – of which the Sardauna was the arrow-head; yet these were not enough to impel the succeeding military cabal of predominantly northern elements, to subject the man to evil.

The climax of these we all knew, as the great sage, who expectedly, was to come out of the prison, either dead or maimed, or both; in the literal physical sense, and the metaphorical variant of political annihilation – witnessed a circumstantial transmogrification to the potentate-ship of such elevated platform as the strategically pivotal vice-chairmanship of the Federal Executive Council – a position which was equivalent to the exalted pedestal of premiership in a civilian administration.

The exemplary merit he brought to bear on that assignment, remains unmatched and unbeaten to date – in the annals of exemplary dedication and devotion to duty; and the resultant offshoot of excellence salutarily issuing there from. Undoubtedly, it remains equally to date, among the dominating features which had converged towards the sacerdotal myth today conjured in the Awo persona. A tribute to a most authentic national hero.

It is unfortunate that one grievous sin of the great Awo, was to have come not only ahead – but indeed far ahead of his time – and to boot into a society reputedly deficit in the reciprocal norms of moral appreciation and gratitude.

It is indeed beyond doubt that whenever the chroniclers of the Nigerian annals eventually settle for an objective re-appraisal – as the bewildering quantum of Awo’s seminal contributions continuously behoves in the quest for justice – the great sage would have appropriately been located in the proper context of his rightful place.

We celebrate Awo today, with a fond evergreen memory and nostalgic longing for his fecund intellect; his polyvalent erudition, forensic brilliance; the scientific power of his doctrinal postulations and philosophy as epitomized in his multifarious epic books – among several other works of remarkably seminal imports that continue to nourish his ever looming presence in the affectionate closet of the general mind.

We celebrate today, an exemplary beacon of light, a sparkling star in the political firmament; illustrious son of Africa, quintessential jewel of excellence, symbol of lionic courage and sagacity; inspirational genius, unbeatable pace-setter, foremost national hero; main issue and most pivotal political figure of post-independence Nigeria; foremost party organiser and renowned democrat, and unarguably the best president Nigeria never had.

The immortal Awo lives. He lives for ever!

•Kola is a Lagos-based journalist.