Nigeria Missed Opportunity Of Having Awolowo As President -Balarabe Musa

The former governor of Kaduna State, Alhaji Abdulkadir Babarabe Musa has said that Nigeria lost the opportunity of having the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo as its president.

He said this during the year 2012 edition of the Obafemi Awolowo Memorial Lecture, organised by the Obafemi Awolowo Foundation.

The event took place Friday at NECA House in Alausa Central Business District, Ikeja, Lagos, southwest Nigeria.

Musa, who was the chairman of the occassion said,”the late Awolowo was the most qualitative, outstanding and memorable legend of Nigerian politics and governance since the 1940s. He was the one whose role in politics and governance can still be a reliable guide for any first time President of Nigeria even though Nigeria lost the opportunity of having him as its national president.

“He knew how to be relevant both in government and in opposition. When he ceased to be the Premier of the old Western region, he became a credible and dependable opposition leader.

“If his policy of free, qualitative and functional education, for instance, had been implemented and sustained throughout Nigeria, the 40 year gap in educational development between the northern and southern parts, which inevitably makes the north stand more in the way of peace and national unity would have been avoided,” he averred.

He said that for the 1983 presidential election, even his arch opponents, the semi-feudal and conservative northern oligarchy or Kaduna mafia, as represented by the political group of the late Shehu Musa Yar’adua, preferred him and went into principled electoral alliance with the political party he led, Unity Party of Nigeria, UPN.

He added that, however, Nigerians still hope for an Awolowo’s equivalent to emerge.

“My comments here are not based on his patriotism and examplary discipline alone, but also on his uncompromising commitment to a cause and the strategy for achieving it,” he said.

The dignitaries at the event include His Imperial Majesty, Oba Okunade Sijuwade, Olubuse 2, Ooni of Ife; His Eminence, Alhaji Muhammed Sa’ad Abubakar, CFR, mni, Sultan of Sokoto; His Royal Highness, Alhaji Ado Bayero, CFR, Emir of Kano; His Royal Highness, Igwe Nnaemeka Achebe, Obi of Onitsha; His Royal Majesty, King Edmund Daukoru, Mingi XII, Amayanabo of Nembe; His Royal Majesty, King Dandeson Douglas Jaja, King Jaja V (Jeki V) Amayanabo of Opobo; His Royal Majesty, King Mudjakpero Orodje of Okpe; His Royal Majesty, Oba Adebiyi Adegboye Adesida, Deji of Akure; and His Royal Majesty. Oba Michael Gbadebo Adedeji, CON, Owa Ooye of Oke-Imesi.

Others are National leader of the Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu; ACN National chairman, Chief Bisi Akande; ex-governor of Ogun State, Otunba Gbenga Daniel, Senator Olorunibe Mamora, Justice Muhammed Uwais, former Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Alfa Belgore, Gen. Alani Akinrinade, Chief Ebenezer Babatope, Chief Akande Mabogunje, among others.

By Jamiu Yisa